And that’s a wrap on a year of watercolour #WildflowerHour: 365 flowers painted within a week of blooming. Mostly wildflowers, with a few garden escapes, and a whole lot of joy.

Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵 Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...

Your annual reminder that: - when submissions peak, editors may become more selective in what they send out for peer review, and - submissions peak right before Christmas Make of that what you will.

Heading home after a fab week in Edinburgh Scotland to receive the 2025 British Ecological Society Equality & Diversity Champion Award. It’s been an emotional & overwhelming week & I’m grateful to my European colleagues for their support & solidarity. What a wonderful way to end the year! #BES2025

I’m beyond excited to be jumping the pond for the British Ecological Society Annual Meeting in just a couple days. So honored to receive this recognition and celebrate with colleagues and friends at one of my favorite meetings! First time back since pre-COVID! If you see me there say hi! #BES2025

📣 Ecologists and evolutionary biologists! Have you ever wanted to be a journal editor? BES journals are having an open call for editors. Details: www.britishecologicalsociety.org/content/appl... Happy to answer any Qs! Open to all nationalities. Applications from postdocs welcome :)

Devastating. Parents share emotional look inside empty bedrooms of children killed in school shootings. www.cbsnews.com/news/left-be...

Applications due by Dec. 1st.

Celebrating #Caturday with a new box in the house. Both cats had to try it, at the same time, of course.

I'm happy to welcome Dr. Shelby Tisinai to the lab as a Postdoctoral Fellow! She started on Monday this week. Shelby completed her PhD in Plant Biology from Washington State University in May 2025. Welcome to the lab and #UMSLBiology!🌲

I wonder how many employers might actually refuse to hire the post-ChatGPT generation or they might end up fired because they cant do the things their degrees say they can do Id be very angry with universities for hyping gAI the way they have, if I was a student or parent, tbh.

A HUGE thank you to Forest ReLeaf of Missouri and their Project #CommuniTree for the 165 native trees (33 species!) we picked up on Wednesday to plant on the University of Missouri-Saint Louis #UMSL campus. 🌳 🌲 We're planting tomorrow! #UMSLBiology

NSF is open again! A few comments: *Please be patient. During a shutdown NSF employees cannot open computers or respond to emails. *Merit review will continue. However panels won’t resume until after Dec 8th. *POs remain excited and committed to advancing science and the scientific workforce.

Bread baking time! #baking 🥖

A big congratulations to @jesse1.bsky.social on a successful MS thesis defence today! Time to update your BlueSky profile. 🎉

Leonard Cohen recites “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae | Legion Magazine youtu.be/cKoJvHcMLfc?... #RemembranceDay #LestWeForget

I'm currently playing planes, trains, and automobiles to get where I gotta go! My flight for tonight was cancelled this afternoon.

I thought there was an online list/spreadsheet of ecology/evolution graduate programs that don't have an application fee (from back in the bird-place days). Does anyone have a link for it?

Food bank director: “for every meal that a food bank provides, the SNAP program provides nine. There’s no way we can meet that gap.”

As other people have noted, if you have local food banks, now would be an excellent time to donate cash to them, if you have the cash to spare. We will be upping our donations to food banks and hunger-related charities here in Ohio.

I grew a small watermelon! 9cm diameter. To my surprise, there's watermelon in my watermelon! 🍉 #gardening

45% of all AI answers had at least one significant issue. 31% of responses showed serious sourcing problems – missing, misleading, or incorrect attributions. 20% contained major accuracy issues, including hallucinated details and outdated information. www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...

So nice to find the same spot 6 years later, when I made a new friend with @thilinas.bsky.social! Both times, brought together by #NEON meetings.

I'm spending the week in Boulder, Colorado, participating in the first National Ecological Observatory Network #NEON Convergence Summit: Advancing Continental-Scale Biology.

NSF’s doors will be closed at 1:30 pm today. While you may be able to submit things, there will be no staff to process anything. In fact it is illegal for us to even open our work computers or email during a shutdown. A very few rotators may be able to communicate, so check out of office responses.

“It actually doesn’t take much to be considered a difficult woman. That’s why there are so many of us.” ― Jane Goodall 💙 RIP to a real one. My childhood hero

Starting back in the fall of 2020, I started what I called fall #CampingFriday. The idea: send the emails, finish things for the week, & get out of town! I always (except once) went to the same campground, usually the same site. It's not Friday, but it feels so good to be back. #WorkLifeBalance

I'm pretty excited about this! Looking forward to some thought-provoking zoology pieces

The #NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program #GRFP solicitation is coming soon! The due date for Life Sciences proposals is 27 October 2025. For more info: www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

The lab tradition of pie on fieldwork trips is a thing again. 🥧 (with @chernickykiley.bsky.social)

As an Associate Editor, this is what I'm going through. It can take *months* just to get 2 people to agree to do a review. Many don't respond to the invitation at all, prolonging the process further. People are busy, that's understandable. Please respond, and if "no", suggest alternative reviewers.

Operation “Cone Collection” complete! A successful bonus trip to #SPRUCE with @jalene-lamontagne.bsky.social for some cone collections.

Science in action - conifer 🌲 cone collecting with @chernickykiley.bsky.social! #NSFfunded #SPRUCE

Nine of the CDC directors over the past 48 years have a lot to say about what RFK Jr is doing vs health of Americans www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...

Jalene LaMontagne, colleagues win 2025 Robert P. McIntosh Award from the Vegetation Section of the Ecological Society of America for research on community synchrony in seed production. #ESA #LTER #MastSeeding blogs.umsl.edu/news/2025/08...

MSU Plant Bio is hiring a new herbarium director! Our herbarium is a wonderful resource on campus and I'm excited to have the opportunity to make it even better by bringing in a new director. Details here: plantbiology.natsci.msu.edu/job-postings...

My department is hiring a herbarium manager: www.schooljobs.com/careers/uvu/... It's a great place to work with a close knit botany group 🙂

The Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University is Hiring! We are searching for a Director of the Oregon State University Herbarium and applications are welcomed at the ranks of assistant, associate, or full professor.

🚀 gratia 0.11.0 is out! Now has a paper in JOSS — please cite 📄 doi.org/10.21105/jos... Experimental parallel processing ⚡ New assemble() for building plots 🎨 Better support for complex families + new diagnostics 🧪 Lots of bug fixes + polish ✨ 👉 gavinsimpson.github.io/gratia/ #Rstats

#ESA2025 #COVID alert: Just heard from a good friend with whom I reconnected and hung out a fair bit this past week that they’ve tested positive for covid after feeling a bit ill on the journey home! So my friends at the meeting, y’all might want to test yourself too. I just did and am -ve. 🤞🏽 🤞🏽

I'm very proud to receive the 2025 Robert P. McIntosh Award from the @ecologicalsociety.bsky.social Vegetation Section at #ESA2025 with an amazing group of colleagues, for our paper on Community #MastSeeding. 🥳 Paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1... Award info: esa.org/vegetation/a...

🌊 We're recruiting an MS student! 🌿 Join my lab at Bridgewater State Uni, MA. ✅Conduct your own thesis in Cape Verde’s #marine & #coastal ecosystems ✅ mentor undergrads ✅ RA + #NSF summer stipend @ #ESA2025 come find me or DM—love to chat! 📩 [email protected]

It's back in the #ESA2025 exhibit hall. Please sign to say thanks to NSF folks! It'll be available for signing until 6pm-ish today (Wednesday).

#ESA2025! We would love to fill this up with signatures. Let's show support to the folks at NSF. Find it Wednesday morning at the spot below, and it'll be at the NSF funding session at 10-11:30am.

Hey #ESA2025! Help us spread some love to the wonderful program officers and staff at NSF! Located in the exhibit hall near coffee/booth 316!

🚨There's a "Thank you NSF folks!" poster board for people to sign at #ESA2025. It's near a coffee station & the LTER booth. Please sign and show your support! And, share!

University of Missouri-Saint Louis #UMSL Biology is at the #Ecological Society of America meeting in Baltimore! Great to see PhD students Sarah Willen-Nelson, George Todd, and Michael Hayes here. #ESA2025

At #ESA2025 and interested in an #AltAc career? Holden Arboretum is hiring! DM me if you want to chat about either of these positions - Urban ecologist (PI / research scientist position) holdenfg.org/career-and-i... - Forest health postdoc holdenfg.org/career-and-i...

Yes! Come talk to me about publishing in the Bulletin of the ESA! Have an essay or an op-ed about ecology burning inside you or on your computer? Send it my way! A poem? Pictures depicting ecology? Papers on ecology education? We take them all! Find me at #ESA2025 and ask me anything!

I'm giving a talk on Monday at #ESA2025, in the OOS about #phenology "Beyond Budburst" (3:30-5:00pm), organized by Luke McCormack & Christy Rollinson. There's a great list of speakers. I'm presenting at 4:30pm. Room: Hilton Key 8 🚨 NOTE: Individual talk times within the session were updated today!