It’s time! 💜💛💚

I'm very excited to share this new paper on conservation genomics of American Flamingos, led by Jessica Folsom at UCF.

Unfortunate to hear that NSF is changing the way grants are reviewed - less emphasis on external reviewers and less detailed summaries from reviews. I’ve been enormously impressed by the way panels are run, and detailed reviews have helped me improve grant applications considerably.

Good story covering the basics of how folks can help monarchs, and the concerns with planting non-native Tropical Milkweed.

Just wrapped up a phenomenal ZooMu workshop at the Oklahoma City Zoo with folks from zoos and natural history collections across the US. I’m very excited about where this project is going!

Hell yeah, Halloween Season! 🎃👻🧛🏻🕷️

🚨Important herpetology information ⬇️🐸🐸

Karen Deville usually looks forward to rainy days — but not just because it waters her plants.

The United States was founded to overthrow a king. What a good point to reflect on today.

A whole bunch of young birds in my neighborhood fledged this week. What did you accomplish, and is it better than learning to literally f***ing fly?!?!?!

The Blue Jay is a pretty awesome reptile.

Any pollinators here on BlueSky? I’ve got some sweet Lemon Bee Balm in the Irish Channel, New Orleans for you. Bring your friends.

Super proud of Audubon Zoo’s Herpetology, Hospital, and Communications teams for this work with Gopher Tortoise Conservation. These tortoises are really special to me, and great to see this work moving forward!

Headed home from a productive field conservation research trip in Costa Rica. One of the things that I love about this place is country is that it is wildlife- (and heavily frog-) themed. Here’s a giant frog sculpture in the airport, and even the airport carpet is printed with dart poison frogs.

something that stands out about this is just how cheap it is for us to have world-leading scientific capacity we spent ~6.75 trillion last year, and the combined budgets for NIH, NSF and NASA are barely more than 1% of that what an incredible waste to lose it all for a drop in the bucket

There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd. It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.

"The ‘silent’ half: diversity, function and the critical knowledge gap on female frog vocalizations" –Such cool work! Super proud of these three #HERpers latinas🇨🇴🇧🇷! 🎵🐸🎶 doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

If only people could replace their brains…

Saw this Tropical Milkweed in a pasture in Costa Rica. It’s so strange for me to see this species (a common ornamental in the US) in its native range. In the US, this species causes major problems for Monarch Butterflies.

No Mow Millenium!!

Bored with manicured lawns, some homeowners adopt No Mow May all year long

New pub: now open access! More and more we are recognizing the importance of social science in conservation. As we work to incorporate social science at our fish & wildlife agencies, we wanted to ask: how's it going? Check out our survey findings! conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Seems like I’ve spent a lot my adult life looking for frog eggs and most humans just don’t know what they’re missing out on.

📣🧪 #NSF is deferring implementation of the 15% indirect cap on all new awards and subawards to institutes of higher education through June 13, when a hearing is scheduled to occur in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Association of American Universities v. NSF

I had the pleasure of speaking with NPR this week about how weird flamingos are. Filter feeding isn’t that complicated but flamingos have to *completely overdo everything,* including their morphology and behavior.

🧵5 Top Free Alternatives to BioRender for Scientific Illustrations! These five websites offer free scientific illustrations for biologists. Great for presentations, research papers and other research communication needs. Save and share the post!

Ocelots, one of the world’s coolest cat species, have just a toehold in the US in south Texas. It is estimates only 120 live in the US. It is so great to see some conservation attention for this species.

A year ago I planted my avocado tree, Joey, who has thrived in this world of chaos.

Went to watch birds in Audubon Park this morning. Found this blond-tailed squirrel.

Some good conservation news. Sihek (Guam Kingfishers) lay their first wild eggs in 40 years. Huge win for so many people and institutions that have worked on this project. Still more to go, but this is a great step!

I hereby declare Cedar Waxwings to be honorary amphibians on account of how cool they are.

Nature abhors an empty spot on the Outlook Calendar. 🍃📅

Day 1 of ZooMu CyberInfrastructure at Duke Lemur Center

I think I recall seeing a database like this, but don’t remember details. @gbif.org and their community may know more.

Krewe de Vieux last night was a blast.

Snow in New Orleans

Took a walk around my neighborhood in SneauxLA. Just insane.

Also started ramping up urban wildlife monitoring around New Orleans with students from the University of New Orleans. Really excited to see what we find! 🦝🐀🐺🦫🦨🐿️🦡🐈‍⬛🦦

Had a long (but great) week in the field. Most of the week was working with endangered Dusky Gopher Frogs. As a kid, I loved catching tadpoles. I’m so lucky I get to do this as a grown-up, for science.

ZooMu is on BlueSky. If you’re interested in how zoos and natural history museums can (and should) work together on our collections-based biodiversity, conservation, and science missions, follow this page and join our NSF-funded research network!

Interested in research with living collections in zoos and aquariums? We have an NSF Research Coordination Network grant to link science with living collections and science with preserved natural history collections. Our kick-off webinar is December 9th! Hope To see you there!!

Hey lab nerds, quick question. I’m inheriting a commercial fridge/freezer for sample storage. Auto defrost (I presume) kicks freezer temps above 0C once a day or so. Should I be worried for long-term sample storage (DNA extracts, pathogen samples, whole blood in ethanol)? 🧪🐸🧬🥼

Very happy to share that we’ve won an NSF Research Coodination Network grant to connect zoos and natural history museums on their collection-based biodiversity and conservation missions.