New paper out led by @scanavan.bsky.social were we use twitter usage to help understand how the general public perceives invasive species ecologyandsociety.org/vol30/iss4/a... 🌐

New bird tree who dis. www.cell.com/current-biol...

Proponents of the Galway City Ring Road (GCRR) have argued that moving some of the city traffic away from the centre and onto a by-pass will reduce congestion and free up space for alternatives to the car such as bus and cycle lanes. But will it? www.advertiser.ie/galway/artic...

It's @besmacro.bsky.social meeting time! Follow #BESMacro2025 for updates on big ecology today and tomorrow 🌏🌐

New paper: in which we get grumpy with GenAI / LLMs polluting the human corpora of text rendering many cultural analyses void. Open access with @healyke.bsky.social @adamdkane.bsky.social @rcorreia.bsky.social doi.org/10.1007/s442... ping @edzitron.com might be of interest?

In our latest commentary piece we highlight that AI has likely already poisoned the well of online data used in culturomic studies that aim to understand shifts in the cultural zeitgeist link.springer.com/article/10.1... 🌐 @yodacomplex.bsky.social

Just out our latest commentary piece highlighting that AI has likely already poisoned the well of online data used in culturomic studies that aim to understand shifts in the cultural zeitgeist link.springer.com/article/10.1... #AcademicSky #🌐

It's the last day to apply for #BESMacro2025 ! Come join us in beautiful York for two days of awesome macro-scale science (plus an optional pre-conference workshop on scientific storytelling) www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bes-macro-...

🐶 Animal #666 🐈 I figured it out in 3 guesses! 🟧🟨🟩 🔥 1 | Avg. Guesses: 5.7 metazooa.com #metazooa

City Council officials emphatically declared several years ago that implementation of the "€200-million 10-year" #GalwayTransportStrategy was proceeding in parallel with the ring road project, and was not waiting for it. All lies. Is anybody surprised? www.advertiser.ie/galway/artic...

Unsolicited listicle: My list of the most criminally underused/underappreciated phylogenetic comparative methods. Note, I am not involved in ANY of these methods; but I see them as things people are often asking of comparative data but have been surprised at how infrequently they have been cited.

Doi for our manuscript can be found in CASSYNI alongside our seminar, using the doi link above.

Along with our research on spider venom potency published in Biology Letters, we were kindly asked to prepare a seminar discussing the manuscript for @royalsocietypublishing.org/@cassyni.bsky.social's "Ecology and Evolution Seminar Series" doi.org/10.52843/cassyni.slp5xv. It's free to watch! Enjoy!

Our latest research on the factors influencing spider venom potency has been published in Biology Letters! doi.org/10.1098/rsbl... Big thank you to my supervisors Dr @healyke.bsky.social and Dr Michel Dugon along with the media team @uniofgalway.bsky.social for spreading the word!

Delighted to see our latest paper on the macroecology of spider venoms led by @keithlnotions.bsky.social published today in Biology letters. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10....

A new study from the University of Galway’s School of Natural Sciences has revealed why some spiders possess venom that is far more potent than others. http://jrnl.ie/6709955

The Green Party don’t get as much media coverage as Reform because the continuation of civilised human life on the planet isn’t as interesting as cunts.

Galway deserves a chance to breathe, but emotive arguments cannot brush away the fact a second ring road will suffocate the city in traffic irishcycle.com/2025/04/24/g...

Why have we not made progress on this in Galway yet? Combining a bicycle with the light rail stops allows a greater catchment area for that last mile of travel. Light rail would also free up roadspace in our city so that any cars bypassing the city could use the orbital route effectively.

You: hey, is #BESMacro open for registration? Us: yes, it is! Main deadline May 31, apply for the student plenary by May 2. Come join us in York for great talks, posters, workshops, and macro-scale fun! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bes-macro-...

I completely re-worked my course "Introduction to Bayesian statistics with brms" and taught it for the 1st time this week. It is meant as a tutorial for ecologists, but should be general enough for other sciences as well github.com/benjamin-ros... #stats #Rstats #brms #Stan #Bayesian

Check out our new blog summarising recent meta-analysis assessing treatments for the Varroa mite #pathogen of honey bees! This #invasive #parasite has huge impacts on crops from lost #pollination 🧪 @ucddublin.bsky.social @healyke.bsky.social @cristinabotias.bsky.social www.ucd.ie/earth/news-o...

Check out our new-ish paper. This paper pushed me to become a @wikipedia.org editor so I could create and update pages for endangered or invasive species. Updating wiki not only helps share conservation information with a wider audience, but also helps our work break out of the academic bubble 🐢

A commentary piece from me to you (...if you're an #ethologist / #BehaviouralEcologist) link.springer.com/article/10.1... #Macrobehaviour needs you! @asab.org @biorxiv-behav.bsky.social @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social @abcmicrogrants.bsky.social @besmacro.bsky.social

We hoped that the reorganization to Research Ireland would make this better but so far it hasn’t. We need to invest in basic research, do away with student-led grants, and ensure timely review processes. There is opportunity to make Ireland a leader in research but so far the gov has failed at this.

Our new meta-analysis assessing treatments for the Varroa mite #pathogen of honey bees! This #invasive #parasite has huge impacts on crops from lost #pollination We synthesise the best options and future prospects 🧪 @ucddublin.bsky.social @healyke.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Must read out in @science.org "Climate change extinctions" by @MarkCUrban (on X) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Big take home: "extinctions will accelerate rapidly if global temperatures exceed 1.5°C. The highest-emission scenario would threaten approximately one-third of species, globally."

A survey of 1928 managers across Europe, revealed #InvasiveAlienSpecies (IAS) management trends. While monitoring efforts rise, #IAS impacts continue to grow. 📢: Europe’s strategies need a revamp to meet biodiversity targets by 2030! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #BioInvasions 🧪🌍🌐

Ireland's incoming government has published/leaked their plan for the next five years. What's in it for #IrishResearch? 🧪 I had a look - there's few numbers, but a *lot* of fluff 🧵

Hello world! We are BES Macro, the British Ecological Society Macroecology and Macroevolution Special Interest Group. We're probably going to be pretty quiet on here, but if you tag us in things of interest to our members, we'll gladly re-post!

It's #ge24 #seanad #seanad25 #seanad24 time (I don't know what we're using yet!) so it's time for the return of the spreadsheet that earned me a coveted special mocking section on Gript last time. docs.google.com/spreadsheets... I'll be gathering datapoints on key issues for each candidate.

Arctic bowhead whales, enabled by cold waters and plentiful food, can reach >200 years of age. A new study indicates that the same lifespans may apply to right and fin whales, if humans leave them alone. 🧪🐳 Link to published study posted below. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

New Guest Gist from @seamas.bsky.social “my main problem with AI is that its current pitch to the public is suffused with so much unsubstantiated bullshit, that I cannot banish from my thoughts the sight of a well-dressed man peddling a miraculous talking dog.” www.thegist.ie/the-gist-3/

What a cool paper! 🤩 Using @inaturalist.bsky.social observations, Mayer et al. found that there are more melanistic snakes in colder regions than in warmer ones AND that melanistic snakes are more abundant with ⬆️ avian predator density 🐍🐦 Have look at it here: doi.org/10.1111/jbi....

Had a great time hunting for bats on our #UoG campus and talking to #bbcworldservice about aging in animals. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

A quick MC Hammescher before bed. Night all.

I've got 5-6 months money for a Postdoc ecological modeller, linking mathematical (translated via statistical) models to insect lab popn. time-series data; starts Jan 2025. Must be UK-based (not cost/time effective for applicants to get such a short-term visa 😔). Please contact me if interested! 🌍🧪

If you’re interested in fish, fishing and the role of body size, please check out this collection of papers from our group.

The growth of @bsky.app is no joke! You can track it in real too thanks to the platforms transparency. Check out these websites for an absolute data fest diving into Twitter's demise.

My followers have doubled in the past few days (uh, hi everyone! glad you're here!), so I figured I'd repromote this. Fully-funded and very flexible PhD available at the University of Aberdeen on the cultural evoluation of tea! 🫖

Randomly came across this delightful 2006 paper by @andypurvisnhm.bsky.social on my computer discussing the (then) recently developed h-index :P 🧪

A nice starter pack for society journals in ecology and evolution go.bsky.app/VGQ2eYJ

Article on our latest research testing how we respond to species extinction in our online behaviour theconversation.com/people-do-ca...

Physical heterogeneity or complexity is well-known to affect biodiversity, but what about ecosystem functioning? Our study (now published) shows heterogeneity drives cascades that boost foundation species, biodiversity, and multifunctionality esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Not sure if this helps brighten your feed today but we have just released our paper showing that, based on online behavior, we do care when species go extinct. zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Fully-funded PhD position available on the cultural evolution of tea! With me, Sabine Parrish, and David Burslem at the University of Aberdeen (🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿), come combine anthropology and biology to think about why people drink tea and how that may change in the future. www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Cool to see a rather convincing case of macroevolutionary morphological-biomechanic trend caused by the arms race of giant cicadas and the earliest birds during the Jurassic-Cretaceous transition: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧪 ⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio #EvoBio

please repost: We have funded places for ECRs interested in cell size for a meeting we are having in the UK next year. Apply here. www.biologists.com/workshops/ju...

📝 Comparative life-history dynamics in insects 🪰 If you want to know how animals other than fluffy 🦉 and 🐘 respond to 🌡️ across the life cycle, check out our review/meta-analysis on such responses in an important group of insects, lacewings (involved in pest control): doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

Do you know which bird I tried to draw here? If you do, apply for one of the postdoc positions we are offering... and if you don't, perhaps apply for the other one! We are looking for life history/theory-ecoevo expertise in birds and "in general". evol.mcmaster.ca/brian/evoldi...