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Dave Watson

@ecosystemunraveller.com

2.8K followers 320 following 1.6K posts

Professor of Ecology, educator, maker | birds, mistletoe, acoustics, conservation | updates on research, family & other beasts. Living on unceded Wiradjuri country More at https://ecosystemunraveller.com

ecosystemunraveller.com

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Dave Watson @ecosystemunraveller.com · Jan 24

Oh, and welcome new followers, welcome aboard. Ecologist here, parasitic plants and birds, biogeography and acoustics, connectivity conservation and evolutionary ecology. Also Amazonia and aquaria, wood working and smoked meats. Welcome
Aboard.

View through an aquarium of unusual size (3.6 metres long) to a room full of handmade wood furniture looking through a very large window to a sun drenched lawn with big tree and sprawling pond. Aquarium has a substrate of brown leaves with a prominent stump with buttressed roots

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Research on Research Institute (RoRI) @rorinstitute.bsky.social · 7d

“Using metrics to assess researchers can be ‘very dodgy terrain,’” says @jameswilsdon.bsky.social.

Great overview of how research assessment is changing worldwide in @nature.com , featuring recent work by RoRI with the Global Research Council: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

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Rosemary Mosco @rosemarymosco.com · 16h

Spooky bird stories. Last year's Halloween comic.

A comic titled Spooky Bird Stories. In panel 1, a turkey vulture is telling stories to other vultures, and it says, "She walked toward the source of the terrible smell. She got closer and closer, and then, to her horror, she saw... No dead body." A black vulture says "No!" and a turkey vulture says "Did someone already eat it??"
In panel 2, a northern cardinal is telling a story to some songbirds. It says "They peered through the windows of the house at the gory scene. Zombies had smashed through the door in the night. The homeowner was dead. But worst of all... He hadn't refilled the feeders." An eastern bluebird says "Aaah!" and an American goldfinch says "It can't be!".
In panel 3, a screech owl is telling a story to other owls. It says "And then the ghost fluffed itself up really big to appear scarier." A saw-whet owl gasps, and a long-eared owl says "Horrifying!".
In panel 4, a downy woodpecker is telling a story to other woodpeckers, and says "The eerie sound rang through the dark woods. Tap-tap. Tap-tap. It was the distinctive two-part knock of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The species had returned from the dead... FOR REVENGE." A red-cockaded woodpecker says "Yesss".

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Dave Watson @ecosystemunraveller.com · 10h

Good morning good people.

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Lee Harris @leeharris.ft.com · 22h

The insurance industry has stepped up efforts to limit future payouts over for petrochemical disasters, following a record judgment by Sri Lanka’s supreme court over the world’s biggest recorded plastic spill. on.ft.com/4n49rvU

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Dave Watson @ecosystemunraveller.com · 22h

Must be dusty.

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Paula Wasiak @paulawasiak.bsky.social · 22h

Our April cohort of birds have officially graduated the close monitoring phase!

Having completed 6-months of living their best wild lives means that I’ll now be mostly hands off (except for following their movements via their GPS backpacks like the creep that I am)

Thrive, birdies, thrive!

A medium sized brown mottled bird with a solar powered GPS device on its back.

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Dave Watson @ecosystemunraveller.com · 22h

Three times! Must be an arms race with the largest freshwater crayfish in the known universe. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmani...

Tasmanian giant freshwater crayfish - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Reposted by Dave Watson

Jack Ashby @jackdashby.bsky.social · 22h

A terrible video glimpsing a mountain #platypus in heavy snow. Tasmanian #platypuses are hardy little fellows (or perhaps big fellows - they can be three times heavier than their counterparts in tropical #Queensland).
#Tasmania #MammalWatching #WildOz

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Dr Alex Bond @thelabandfield.bsky.social · 1d

"Did someone say.... euphausiid shrimp?" 👀

Crested Auklet to continue the #Auktober celebrations

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Pam Ronald @pcronald.bsky.social · 1d

Remarkable recovery of the Klamath River salmon. Many thanks to the agencies, Tribes, and NGOs who came together to remove dams and monitor the recovery of the Klamath River salmon. And kudos, too, to the indigenous youth who paddled source to sea on the newly freed river

Colorful kayaks in a circle on the water

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 1d

Large citizen science datasets are powerful tools for biodiversity science, but they may have biases. Nice new paper from @louisbackstrom.bsky.social et al. showing that for eBird and Birdtrack lists there is a tendency for rare species to be over-represented
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

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Sebastian Hoefer @taiapo.bsky.social · 1d

Is passive acoustic monitoring worth it for terrestrial mammals? 🎙️🐨

We find it's not the one for all solution, but for vocal species, yes! It's highly effective & saves lots of time and money, especially in the long-term.

Find out more: doi.org/10.1111/2041... 🔈🦊🧪🌎 @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social

Sensors versus surveyors: Comparing passive acoustic monitoring, camera trapping and observer‐based monitoring for terrestrial mammals

Mammals play vital roles in ecological communities, but many are in rapid decline worldwide. Comprehensive monitoring of mammal populations is crucial for effective conservation, but large-scale m...

doi.org

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Dave Watson @ecosystemunraveller.com · 1d

Good morning.

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Genome Biology and Evolution @genomebiolevol.bsky.social · 1d

The recent GBE article on temporal genomics in Ethiopian Highland birds by @jdmanthey.bsky.social et al. is the focus of November issue's Highlight.

Highlight: A Century of Genomic Data Preserved in Museums Illuminates Bird Conservation in Ethiopia

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf175

#genome #evolution

GBE | Highlight: A Century of Genomic Data Preserved in Museums Illuminates Bird Conservation in Ethiopia

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Dave Watson @ecosystemunraveller.com · 1d

Situation normal.

Dave Watson @ecosystemunraveller.com · 1d

That’s her default

Dave Watson @ecosystemunraveller.com · 1d

Evening all.

View through a large aquarium with two doofus dogoes in the background

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The Conversation AUNZ @aunz.theconversation.com · 2d

Have you heard of McGraths Flat in NSW? Hidden beneath farmland lies one of Australia’s most extraordinary fossil sites that dates back between 11 million and 16 million years; a time when many of today’s familiar plants and animals evolved.

Unusual red rocks in Australia are rewriting the rules on exceptional fossil sites

theconversation.com

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Jeremy Conescu @conescu.bsky.social · 3d

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David @incnaturalist.bsky.social · 1d

Lunchtime Lizard - this Brown anole showing how astonishing the little things in nature can be. Seeing them is a choice. Really seeing them.

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Dave Watson @ecosystemunraveller.com · 1d

Glorious. With some scraps of coloured paper stuck to my finger, I’ve had a few chats with these guys. Such feisty little beasts.

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Marc Anderson @wildambience.bsky.social · 3d

One of Australia's unique avian voices - the song of a male Brown Songlark. A melodic jumble of electric buzzes & scratchy metallic notes, it has been described as sounding like a wheel squeaking on a rusty axle!

#wildoz #birds #fieldrecording #birdsong

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Dave Watson @ecosystemunraveller.com · 2d

Morning all.

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Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 3d

“If you share your knowledge outside the scientific community, then you’re already exerting societal influence, according to Judi Mesman. This isn’t problematic for the prestige of science: ‘Pretending to be neutral doesn’t make sense to me.’”

www.nwo.nl/en/there-is-...

‘There is no clear boundary between science and activism’ | NWO

If you share your knowledge outside the scientific community, then you’re already exerting societal influence, according to Judi Mesman. This isn’t problematic for the prestige of science: ‘Pretending to be neutral doesn’t make sense to me.’

www.nwo.nl

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Karen Masters @karenlmasters.bsky.social · 2d

Jess Wade is amazing, and it's my absolute honour to be one of the more than 2000 women in STEM whose wikipedia page she started: mymodernmet.com/jessica-wade... 🧪🔭👩‍🔬

Meet the Physicist Who Wrote Over 2,000 Wikipedia Biographies for Women in STEM

After noticing a lack of entries on Wikipedia for incredible women throughout history, this incredible woman decided to take matters into her own hands.

mymodernmet.com

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