Truffles and carnivores made the news. Our Ecology Letters paper was picked up by the @economist.com last week: www.economist.com/science-and-...

Research shows that carnivores play an important role in ecosystem function by providing a largely overlooked mechanism for long-distance dispersal of beneficial mycorrhizal fungi. twin-cities.umn.edu/news-events/...

Out in Ecology Letters! We assessed the effectiveness of #carnivores as secondary dispersers of mycorrhizal #fungi. Larger carnivores deposited fewer spores but moved them farther, creating a continuum between the quantity & quality of dispersal effectiveness. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

An interesting study from Japan observes how animal-dispersed truffle-like fungi are more prone to genetic isolation due to forest fragmentation. Not a surprising finding, but interesting to consider from a conservation standpoint! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

🦅🌱Secondary seed dispersal by migrant harriers in India 📷 © Sankar Subramanian vist.ly/4cfkr #Diploendozoochory #Grasslands #OpenNaturalEcosystems #Raptor

Excited to share our most recent work in collaboration with @liedcarneiro.bsky.social . We link network properties with estimates of pollination success. Check it out!

Saturday site visit today at Abram's Falls with @ryanbstephens.bsky.social, beautiful fall weather, and the onset of fall colors in southern Appalachia 🍁🍂

🚨 Please repost widely!🚨 I am recruiting a PhD student to join my lab next fall to work on forest and climate change ecology projects in southern Appalachia! Come join me in one of the most beautiful, biodiverse, and understudied parts of North America. Details below and happy to answer questions

You know your Google Scholar alerts are keyed in when it suggests your own papers and your student's theses!

I'm hiring! Please share! Join me this winter as a #wildlife #ecology technician. 6 months at $18/hr and subsidized housing available. Maintain a #cameratrap array, #bobcat and #fisher live trapping transects, and telemetry. More: blackrockforest.org/work_with_us

I'm #teaching an introduction to research class in #biology for undergraduates this term. Anyone have a good suggestion for a short paper or text on questions, objectives, and hypothesis with a biology focus?

I'm giving a talk on Tuesday about carnivores as dispersers of mycorrhizal fungal spores as part of a special session on fungal spore dispersal. Come check it out if you are here in Baltimore and like fungi, carnivores, or trophic interactions. #ESA2025

“…when organisms interact can largely determine how they interact.” #Viewpoint: Is it all about timing? Identifying the symbiosis critical points that govern interactions among #bacteria, ectomycorrhizal #fungi, and land #trees By Louis Berrios 👇 📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Our new global study led by @smriti-pehim-limbu.bsky.social is now out in @pnas.org. TLDR: Certain spore traits were linked to climate AND species range sizes! YES we can use traits to gain insight into env adaptations for microbes. #mycorrhizas #spores #NSFfunded www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

Our review led by S. Savazza "Measuring Personality in Wild Small Mammals: A Review of Methods and Proposal for a Standardised Approach" is out, free open access, in mammal review onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

New from Rebekah Persad and the Kawartha Flying Squirrel Project: Home range size, habitat selection, and mycophagy of sympatric North American flying squirrels esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Big day in the lab. Noah, successfully defended his thesis (my first student) and knocked it out of the park! I also submitted a manuscript from a project that we have been working on for about 6 years.

New paper out! 🏙️ We found that urbanisation simplifies and homogenises seed dispersal networks. 🪴🐦‍⬛ Non-native plants dominate in cities, accounting for 61% 😔 of interactions in the urban network vs just 15% in forests! 🪻🌿🌴 Check it out: doi.org/10.1111/cobi... 🌐🧪🌍🍁

#Truffles are out! We found some nice Tuber and Destuntzia collections, among others.

Forestry trials set up decades ago are key to understanding long term outcomes of management. This study looks at recovery of EcM fungi nearly 30 years (!) post harvest. Nice work👍from a great team. nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Our paper shows that most ectomycorrhizal fungal species (83% of OTUs) are "dark taxa": species we detect in DNA, but can't match to known species names. We map global "darkspots" - the parts of the world most in need of more research. @spun.earth @ethz.ch www.cell.com/current-biol...

Histograms are incredibly useful, interpretable, and common in BI. But building histograms that work well out of the box — no matter the data — is trickier than it sounds. We share some of the challenges faced, and decisions made, when designing histograms for Observable Canvases:

Last day of Animal Ecology today and my students surprised me with bear hats. I’ve been complaining about all the damage they do to our field sites and it’s been a running joke all semester. Of course every student presentation today also had bears.

Ahhhhhh Spring. A time to replenish, revive, and…. REGROW YOUR BONES?!? a🧵on a new paper

"Over the limit: Consequences of gray squirrel personality on the shifting range limits of oak and hickory species" led by Maisie Merz is now out (open access) in Global Ecology and Conservation. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Happy to share that the first paper of my PhD is out! We developed a trait-based framework 🌱🦜 to quantify how plant-frugivore interactions and animal movement shape plant functional connectivity—the dispersal of seeds between habitat patches. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Today in Ecology Letters, we show how wildlife is affected by cities, with urban adaptations boosting resilience to global change This has implications for potential ‘rescue populations’ in conservation, as well as invasion success between urban centres onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Does anyone on bluesky have experience bear-proofing environmental data loggers (specifically PAR and soil moisture) without compromising functionality? Bears at our sites have extensively damaged seed and camera traps already, so hoping to get ahead of them this year.

🚨 New paper! We looked at Wolf-coyote-fox trophic niches in 1920s, 1960s, and 2000s to see how resource use by mesocarnivores changed as a function of wolf extirpation and recolonization in Michigan over the last 100 years. Check it out! nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🌳Why are #oak #acorns so large? This study shows that large #seeds are a defensive strategy to tolerate partial damage from animal foraging, aiding dispersal & regeneration besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

I was today years old when I found this gem of a web app to explore 2500+ color palettes for R: r-graph-gallery.com/color-palett...

Finally found his task in the lab. Will work for candy and phone time. #labwork

Know any promising students interested in plant-insect chemical ecology? The Whitaker lab at ETSU has two open master's positions for the 2025-2026 academic year! Apply here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Looking for wild owl scat and pellets. We are investigating secondary spore dispersal in owls and have some cool feeding trial results but would like to demonstrate that this is occurring in the wild. Looking for forest-dwelling species. Please reach out if want to collaborate.

We compiled seed dispersal networks for the five altitudinal vegetation belts of the Tenerife Island (0 - 3718 m asl) 🌋 🐦‍⬛🌿 We found that seed dispersers offer pathways for plants to colonise upper belts! Check it out: doi.org/10.1111/nph.... 🌏🌐🍁🧪

Our new contribution is now online! Here we evaluate the indirect effects of #pollen #nutrition on plant reproductive success. Great collaboration with Laura Russo doi.org/10.1111/1365...

I'm recruiting a PhD student and at least one masters student starting fall 2025. Please get in touch if you are interested! #Ecology