My Xennial Moment today: handing my undergrad a point and shoot camera to take pictures of leaves for image analysis and he has absolutely no idea how to use it. Absolutely none……😂😂🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Happy to report my ecology class activity on zoonotic disease and the recent events of bird flu transmission in cattle has firmly changed the mind of at least one student to not drink raw milk anymore……

Finally get a floating plant salinity stress test study going with my undergrads. Kiddie pools all set up outside with different salinity treatments. And now we are forecasted to potentially get over 4 inches of rain 🤦‍♀️ Yay for early morning runs to the store to grab plastic tarps! 😬

Ok this is just super cool!

I need this in my life. My favorite critter!

And then we got back to the dock and my students had boat driving lessons with the LUMCON captains. Learning to drive boats is an important skill.

A day in the marsh collecting periwinkle snails. My students were blessed by the marsh gods (I.e sunk in the mud) many times. I got to jump in to the bay to remove a derelict crab trap that wrapped around our boat prop. Thank the marsh gods I left wire snips in my dry bag from our last trip!

One of my students told me this week that every time she hears all this autism, vaccine, and Tylenol stuff in the news, she hears my voice in her head saying “correlation is not causation” and “ shark attacks are correlated with ice cream sales” Someone listened and learned. It is possible!

This scandalous share made me laugh out load. And it makes me happy to know the scourge of defunct thermostats is not limited to my campus.

Which is why we need the engagement of the arts, humanities, and social sciences. We cannot “science only” our way out of these problems.

Banana slug!

Cool weather. Delicious wine. Big redwood trees. Loving the vacation life away from the Louisiana heat and humidity.

How I know I’m a marine scientist always: I grab some coralline algae to take home for my teaching collection. (And I take pictures of algae while my husband patiently waits and rolls his eyes)

When you are doing behavior experiments where you test effects of movement and shadows, one must make a researcher cubby hole. Kaylie said “ if someone walked in, they will think I’m nuts” I said, “welcome to the fabulous world of ecology where we contrive scientific contraptions from Lowe’s”

I have my marine bio students read this article every class because we discuss formation of coasts and oceans. It’s a great article and none of them know about this fault line. Wonderful writing!

When you can hang upside down by your toes Mr. Squirrel off the eaves of our roof, I can’t be anything but impressed. Also that is spicy bird cake, so apparently you are also a Cajun squirrel

Hey academic friends. You know something ChatGPT does well: it can make you an excel file of all your class dates so you can update your class calendars for fall. You’re welcome.

So now we are back to periwinkle climbing studies this afternoon. This experiment is classic predator cue study to see if crushed conspecifics, predator urine, or the combination of a predator eating crushed conspecifics elicit similar climbing responses.

This week we did some cercarial shedding studies with our periwinkles to see if trematode parasites might be impacting our snail behavior experiments. But after a rate of 1 in 90 snails with a trematode infection, I think that answer is a hard no

Cute and fat little evening visitors to our fig tree.

Speak up for Sea Grant!

✨ The Bernhardt Lab at the University of Guelph is recruiting graduate students for 2026! Join us! We have several fully funded grad positions available ✨ Please spread the word! www.bernhardtlab.org/join-us #CSEE2025

My undergrads did some initial packing for our trip to the coast this weekend. 1 pair of scissors, 1 sharpie, 1 pencil. Sweet summer children ……. Now I duplicate all the things and throw in lots of just in cases

Help us record firefly flashes! 👇🙏

The fact that this is going in about an hour down the highway from me is gut punching.

"These are scientists, physicians, epidemiologists & other experts who are honored to serve their country because they care deeply about public health." @richbesser.bsky.social in defense of #ACIP and on the risks posed by political interference in its critical work. www.statnews.com/2025/06/10/a...

In a time when support for junior scientists is disappearing, how can you plan for a career in STEM? I think it starts by thinking of science as a big map with many routes and destinations, instead of a pipeline. 🧪 scienceforeveryone.science/p/career-pla...

As a conservation scientist, I am perhaps more used to the idea of “wow, a neat visualization of some fucking horrible disaster” than some of the scientists on my feed seem to be. But yeah this is a great visual

A giant of predator prey ecology who will be missed. I only met him once as a post doc, but for an ecological icon he was kind, encouraging, and said my work investigating fear based trophic cascades in seagrass systems was cool (which still ranks up there as one of my highest badges of honor).

Teacher friends: Anyone else noticing the decline of skills in or general knowledge of how to use PowerPoint or other Microsoft programs? This is the first year I can remember when I said “use animation” and the students looked at me like I had 3 heads.

This is amazing. Parrots making video calls! Now I feel like I need a parrot…..

We had a faculty member spill silicon in his lab and in his effort to clean it up managed to spread it into the hallway. Then the custodians managed to spread it around the whole hall in their cleaning. Everyone’s shoes in the hall now loudly squeak like it’s been raining outside CONSTANTLY.

Evening squirrel patrol.

One of my colleague’s grants was on the list today.😡😡😡

Useful free webinar for ecology trainees tomorrow:

Told my students to wait til after ANS day to talk about summer research plans. The day after ANS day two emails from my students….. I’m going to go hide under my desk. It’s true what they say “I will have more time after x” is a LIE.

More presentations again at our college research symposium, ANS day. My student Ayden Thomas got 1st place amongst 30ish biology posters! Congrats Ayden! (And thanks for keeping the lab ANS day winning streak going!)

About dang time!

As usual, the Hill lab brings the party swag to #BEM2025

Yesterday Ayden presented on her LA sea grant UROP project at #BEM2025. So much time counting tiny critters in the lab. Way to go Ayden!

Yesterday Kaylie and Sophia presented their projects at #bem2025. Good science and beautiful posters of their own design. Super proud of these two!

Peter Petraitis is acting as a stats consultant tomorrow before the #BenthicEvologymeeting! Peter is awesome & super helpful. If you are going & want some awesome data advice, go! I had an experiment a hurricane tore through. Peter gave me so much help with the stats I made him a co-author.

Today in class, we cover impacts of plastic pollution on marine systems. By far the most depressing day of this class, when you start putting up the huge numbers….. It does the job of convincing people it’s a problem, but also feels insurmountable.

Azaleas are putting on a show this year in our yard

My former Masters student is one of these employees fired and now on administrative leave. I am so frustrated for her.

been reassuring my panicked undergrads that they will do research this summer if they don’t get an REU. We have plenty of ideas to chase and some funds to do field work. With all the funding cuts, students may feel trapped into taking unpaid, pay your own way “internships”. Check in with them!

If you have a federal grant, I *highly* recommend going to this Friday's webinar on responding to grant terminations. Lisa Brown, former general counsel at Dept of Ed, will present along with other lawyers. Friday, March 21, 2-3 pm. More info & register here: www.linkedin.com/pulse/regist...

We are looking for a #PhD student to work on the impacts of multiple stressors on native #oysters as part of the BRICONS Project co-supervised by @annikaclements.bsky.social - contact me for details on how to apply @tcddublin.bsky.social

My students presented at our undergraduate research symposium today. Super proud of all the hard work these women have done. Next stop the Benthic ecology meeting!!!

I’m teaching “Gulf coastal changes and challenges” in this political climate, after renaming the Gulf. (Pray for me!) But watching students erupt and get super animated over the word cloud exercise “thoughts about Gulf of America” was pretty epic today. The kids are alright y’all.