Our new paper is now published! 🧪 "Cats, dogs, and sticky worms: invasion by land flatworms (Geoplanidae) is facilitated by household pets" doi.org/10.7717/peer...

🧵 Today is World Wetlands Day, celebrating the importance of wetlands and their impact on people and the planet! 🌍 Two weeks ago, RTV Drenthe interviewed one of our PhD candidates, Quint van Giersbergen, in a drained peatland in Gasteren, Drenthe.

Our new research project MicroSafe focuses on the impact of climate change on microbial growth (such as Legionella) in wet cooling towers. Due to climate change and higher temperatures, the risk of pathogen spread may increase. Read more: www.ru.nl/en/research/... #microbiology #legionella 🧪🦠

De ReeHorst is klaar voor de NEV Entomologendag! Laat de onderzoekers en enthousiastelingen maar komen! 🦋

A dataset of 45,486 records of 90,070 specimens from 134 species of ground beetles caught between 1959 and 1966 in the Province of Drenthe, the Netherlands: doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.... #arthropods #biodiversity #insects

The 2025 edition of the SDM course marked the 10th anniversary of this event. It was a real pleasure to engage once again with high-level students, postdocs and senior professionals during this immersive seven-day exploration of the geography of species distributions and interactions.

One of my first open sources projects, Citation.js (citation.js.org), turns 10 years old today! larsgw.blogspot.com/2025/09/10-y...

A FAIR overview of identification resources, complete with an interface and a search engine: doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.... #FAIRdata #taxonomy #biodiversity @larswillighagen.bsky.social

There have been some busy bees 🍯in the department! Judith van der Knaap and colleagues published a paper in Ecosystems about the contribution of drainage ditches to greenhouse gas emissions in drained peatlands here in the Netherlands. Read here: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Our paper on the Library of Identification Resources is out! In it, we describe how and why to record publications for the taxonomic identification of organisms in a FAIR database, and how to query that data to find applicable resources for an insect or a plant in NW Europe. doi.org/10.3897/BDJ....

A large census conducted on 157 dikes along rivers in the Netherlands revealed that more and rarer bee species live on dikes than previously thought. According to ecologist Constant Swinkels, many more dikes can be made bee-friendly. #bees #science #ecology #dikes www.ru.nl/en/research/...

Paper alert! PhD student Yvet Telgenkamp and colleagues measured Sphagnum carpet subsidence in a long-term vascular plant removal experiment at Store Mosse National Park in Sweden. They found that vascular plants provide scaffolding for Sphagnum moss. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A useful deep dive on the forecasts here. theeyewall.substack.com/p/making-sen...

In an unconscionable decision, the Smithsonian Institute has decided to no longer support the Biodiversity Heritage Library from 1 Jan 2026. Please someone step up and take it over.

Absolutely superb! I have a roost of Lasioglossum cf calceatum males in my garden. Maximum count so far 18. It's warm so thet are skittish and photographing them is hard. They have been building in numbers since about 16:30 hrs. This is just the best! Will give regular updates as it happens.

Found a species of shield bug I hadn't seen before, Neottiglossa pusilla! Related to Aelia and also found on grasses.

In Amsterdam for #dhbenelux2025 and got the privilege.to catch up in person with #cdli lead dev @larswillighagen.bsky.social 😁

Wow: after 15 years, YouTube has taken down the original 'Rick Roll' video due to a "licensing issue," likely due to the acquisition of Astley's record lable. The metadata remains, but if you click through it goes to 'video not found': www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4...

A press release is out about the Biodiversity Heritage Library. From 1 January 2026 the Smithsonian will no longer host the administrative functions of BHL. BHL is looking for a new home. For further information see blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2025/04/new-... #ILoveBHL #BiodiversityHeritageLibrary

really brutal chotinering right here www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

6,486 signatures to go. Let's get it done.

Our colleague Bjorn Robroek co-authored a recently published study in Nature Climate Change discussing the role of photosynthetic microbes in peatland carbon dynamics. 🦠 Check it out: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

holy shit www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

me looking for that one snakefly on my bedroom window as if that's its natural habitat

New paper! Comparative morphology of the larval stages of Cholevinae (Coleoptera: Leiodidae), with special reference to those in the Netherlands (doi.org/10.1163/2211...) larsgw.blogspot.com/2025/03/new-...

As a teenager-entomologist in the 80s, I corresponded with nestor of my favorite family, Cholevidae, Peter Zwick. Tirelessly he answered my questions in typewritten letters. Such a pleasure to now coauthor a paper with him, first-authored by @larswillighagen.bsky.social: brill.com/.../article-...

Paper Alert! PhD candidate Rosa Boone and colleagues recently published work in Soil Biology and Biogeochemistry. They explored the potential of microbial Volatile Organic Compounds (mVOCs) as biomarkers along a land use extensification gradient. Read more: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Books designed to be read only by human eyes are different from books designed to be read by machines, which is why Google will tell you that the phrase “shake my booty” can be found in an 1863 English translation of Don Quixote.

New paper out in Applied Soil Ecology! Joren Bruggink, Marie-Charlott Petersdorf, Wilco Verberk, and Henk Siepel investigated the effects of soil age and phosphate content on the microarthopod community composition in 32 Dutch forests. Read the paper here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This is quite a thing to find 18 paragraphs down in a story. wapo.st/4hW2xGI

the single most un-american and anti-constitutional statement ever uttered by an american president

Hey man sorry to hear about all your political turmoil. Would it help if I scrolled around on the computer all day and drove myself insane?

The workers were emailed by a little boy with no legal authority who interns for the richest Nazi in the world. It is an absolutely insane development and the social copy doesn’t come close to conveying it.

And there we go 😡 : NASA removing all mention of 'inclusive' from their TOPS / Open Science 101 course, rewriting what open science is in the process. github.com/nasa/Transfo... (H/T @larswillighagen.bsky.social , @egonw.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy @jeroenbosman.bsky.social on Mastodon)

New year, new opportunities! The Radboud University Department of Ecology is excited to join the conversation at Blue Sky. Follow for department news, research updates, and nice pictures from the field! Shown here: Store Mosse National Park, Sweden.