Magnolias evolved before bees existed. 95 million years ago, their ancestors shared the planet with the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous, but no bees. So they made a messy partnership with beetles that continues today & it explains why they're such unusual flowering plants. Let's talk about it.

Indeed another unique spring! As temperature fluctuated between winter and summer, plants have been flowering earlier and faster, and got damaged by hard frost. Red maples and silver maples failed reproduction this spring here. No single well developed winged seed was seen. Never happened before.☹️

Excited to celebrate tenure and promotion, and the research mentoring award! 😁✌️"How do you have time working with so many students?" "Thanks to my husband!"😉 Of course also the great support from my colleagues, department and NKU!

Happy Easter from NKU REFS with the hope of #pawpaw fruits🤤. But watch out! It's the time that poison ivy is out almost everywhere😅.

Perfect day to learn plant #phenology in Ecology lab at NKU REFS today to see how spring ephemerals, shrubs and canopy trees show different life stages in the forest and the difference between native and invasive plants!

Snowed on Monday, then summer comes on weekend... crazy spring weather❄️🌞

So excited to work on this project with our awesome group members!🌳🌲🌿

Colors of #spring! 🌱🪻🌸🏵 NKU REFS

The @usa-npn.bsky.social team will be celebrating #Pheology Week Mar 16-20 to coincide with the Spring Equinox. Join us for some fun and educational opportunities to celebrate the start of the spring season! www.usanpn.org/news/article...

Here comes the year of horse!!!!! Let’s go, fight, thrive!!!! 🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎 #chinesenewyear #lunarnewyear #yearofhorse

I am a climate scientist and this is correct. As the planet warms, storms like the one today are getting stronger… and as the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the mid latitudes, it increases the risk of the “freezer door” swinging open. Technical explanation here: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Happy New Year! I'm surprised to see springbeauty with flower buds in early January at northern Kentucky. Many are out with young leaves. They are responding to the recent false spring and wasting their energy. Unfortunately they don't know it will be very cold soon. 🙁 #phenology #falsespring

When fall🍁 meets winter💦. After the first snow at NKU REFS on Nov. 11, 2025.

Some foliage colors at NKU REFS on Oct. 28 2025. More colors are coming.

Brilliant fall foliage color of red maple, silver maple, sweetgum, and red oak from Cincinnati and northern Kentucky, although it's about two weeks later than expected 😁

A spotted cucumber beetle on a New England aster. We are having a really warm #fall.

After steady rain, hundreds of white Amanita mushrooms come out at NKU REFS, same as last year! Larger than my hand. Have an unpleasant smell when it starts to decay. Are they North America destroying angel, Amanita bisporigera, one of most poisonous fungi? We got so many!😎

RIP Jane Goodall Full obituary in NYT, gift article www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/o...

My favorite season is here. This year would be spectacular!

Myth #3: Nature is a (trivial) subset of the human economy Reality: The economy is fully embedded in Earth systems Implication: Undervaluing nature erodes our long-term foundation

Check our new publication about shifted spring ephemeral pollination window impacted by flowering time, pollinator occurrence, and canopy closure under climate change! #phenology #springbeauty #phenologicalmismatch #climatechange @parklab.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Good morning! Palm Springs! Look forward to the field trip! #Botany2025

We should talk about global climate change within the context of human history. We aim to protect humans while protecting the environment. Mother nature will be ok eventually, but NOT us. After replying a post from a climate change denier, I realized I should post here so more people can see (1/5).

I've never seen this before! Antlered flutter fly. So cool! Is this a mating dance? Yesterday evening at NKU REFS.

Baby robin! Right in front of my parking space, but I didn't notice until yesterday seeing the mommy robin sitting there. Hope they survive in the heat wave and enjoy the summer! ☀️

This evening at East Fork State Park Beach.

Interesting #fungi! First time seeing these tiny weird fungi. My colleague and I didn't even think they are actually fungi. I said the ones in the first picture look like coral, while iNatualist suggested they are coral slime fungi. Totally make sense! 😆

Please help support immigrants in Ohio against the discriminatory bills!

NKU REFS Talk & Walk Nature Series events this summer will start next week! Everyone is welcome, including families and friends. Come to enjoy fun with nature science and arts!

#Ticks are crazy this year. My kids made a "tick playground" while waiting for me to get back from the fieldwork.😅😬

Got some fresh #fungi! Driven by students' interests, we started the mushroom survey at NKU REFS last fall. We continued this year and finally got something exciting after the cold weather and severe flooding. Keep learning about them!

Very cool study using long-term historical documents for biology! Check the beautiful poems if you know Chinese!

Will report from northern Kentucky and Cincinnati 😀

Suddenly everything is green including poison ivy 😅

Happy #EarthDay!

The mark of water on the board showed how severe the flooding was at northern Kentucky on April 6th, which put down most of my time-lapse cameras in the field. The spicebush got damaged too as it was totally underwater.

Decades from now, people will pay trillions of dollars every year to get back to the climate that we have today.

First spring beauty flower seen this year! #spring #phenology

First spring beauty flower bud this year! Maples are flowering right now. Invasive plants just start bud break. #phenology #spring

Now is the breeding season of amphibians. Unfortunately, poor mice fell in the bucket as a trap in wetland for amphibians. How can we prevent this?

A call for the United States to continue investing in science 🌐🌾 🧪https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mbio.00648-25

Two extremely important articles Why long-term field studies are rare: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... And why field studies are important: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#Amphibians know that #spring is coming! #phenology

A closer look at the extent of sea ice globally that just set a new all-time record minimum, which is due to unusually low sea ice conditions in both the #Arctic & #Antarctic right now. Data from nsidc.org/data/seaice_... 🧪⚒️🥼❄️

Do you still remember any moment in your Ecology labs, like collecting leaf litter and soil samples under snow? We had great fun and enjoyed the beautiful view in nature and a lot more today!! 🤣

I've been seen lots of feckless despair and detachedness among scientists in the US at the moment. How we might live up to this critical moment when things seem the worst. scienceforeveryone.science/p/how-ive-be... 🧪

After staying at Connecticut, Buffalo NY, and Chicago, I really thought I'm finally done with harsh winters when I moved to Cincinnati. Now I learned nowhere is safe under global climate change. 😭

Hope so! 😁

9 inches snow canceled schools but not work 😅 what a good start to the spring semester 2025.