Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Joseph Tobias @josephtobias.bsky.social · 22d

Good memories. My second attempt, and such a relief!

gavin jones @ecologyofgavin.bsky.social · Sep 5

We have a new paper developing methods for looking at bird-fire macroecology. What’s most fascinating to me is that the magnitude *and* direction of fire effects can vary enormously across a species range. Stationarity is dead!! Long live non-stationarity!!

doi.org/10.1002/fee....

Evaluating macroecological fire impacts on bird populations

Fire regimes are context-dependent, as are the ways that animals respond. However, most information on animal responses to fire comes from short-term local field studies, which are hard to extrapolat....

doi.org

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Wayne Maddison @waynemaddison.bsky.social · Sep 5

Confused writing is usually a symptom of confused thinking. As we struggle to clarify writing, we clarify our thoughts. AI writing aids rob us of that struggle, leaving clean-looking text and thoughts still confused for lack of inspection. Writing is not just a product; it is a diagnostic tool.

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Joseph Tobias @josephtobias.bsky.social · Sep 3

Colonial superorganisms breaking basic biological rules again. 🐜🧪

Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · Sep 3

Amazing! Full article here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

‘Almost unimaginable’: these ants are different species but share a mother

Ant queens of one species clone ants of another to create hybrid workers that do their bidding.

www.nature.com

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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · Sep 3

Amazing! Full article here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

‘Almost unimaginable’: these ants are different species but share a mother

Ant queens of one species clone ants of another to create hybrid workers that do their bidding.

www.nature.com

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Joseph Tobias @josephtobias.bsky.social · Aug 29

Perfect. If you can just tick the box in the Behaviors section called "Foraging or eating" that works fine!

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Joseph Tobias @josephtobias.bsky.social · Aug 29

Great shot. Will you be uploading to eBird? Would be useful for our dietary analysis

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Joseph Tobias @josephtobias.bsky.social · Aug 28

🚨New paper led by @adrianaalzate.bsky.social showing that in most plant and animal groups the age of a species predicts its geographical range size, although the relationship is strongly mediated by dispersal ability and occurrence on islands 🧪🌐🪶

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

iDiv Biodiversity Research @idiv-research.bsky.social · Aug 27

A new @natcomms.nature.com study led by iDiv alumna @adrianaalzate.bsky.social @naturalis.bsky.social uncovered that across >26,000 species evolutionary age is positively linked to range size, except in marine mammals.

#Biodiversity #Evolution #iDivResearch
www.idiv.de/older-specie...

Older species tend to have large ranges – unless they live on islands

New Nature Communication publications sheds light on how ecological, evolutionary, and geographical processes can simultaneously shape species’ vulnerability to extinction.

www.idiv.de

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iDiv Biodiversity Research @idiv-research.bsky.social · Aug 27

A new @natcomms.nature.com study led by iDiv alumna @adrianaalzate.bsky.social @naturalis.bsky.social uncovered that across >26,000 species evolutionary age is positively linked to range size, except in marine mammals.

#Biodiversity #Evolution #iDivResearch
www.idiv.de/older-specie...

Older species tend to have large ranges – unless they live on islands

New Nature Communication publications sheds light on how ecological, evolutionary, and geographical processes can simultaneously shape species’ vulnerability to extinction.

www.idiv.de

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Jarome Ali 🇹🇹 🏳️‍🌈 @jarome.bsky.social · Aug 13

Pick an idiom: "more than meets the eye", "beauty more than skin [feather] deep" etc.

In work led by Rosalyn Price-Waldman, we describe a hidden (and ignored!) black or white layer found below the visible surface of bird feathers which helps make bird colours so striking!

🧪 🪶 #colsci

Songbirds play optical tricks to make their feather colors ‘pop’

Concealed black or white bands on feathers boost the vibrancy of bird plumage

www.science.org

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Jente Ottenburghs | Avian Hybrids @jenteo.bsky.social · Aug 13

🥳 New paper out in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society!

Manakin’s moving melody: the interplay between courtship dance display and vocalization as a predictor of hybridization in manakins (Aves: Pipridae)
academic.oup.com/biolinnean/a...

#ornithology

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Joseph Tobias @josephtobias.bsky.social · Aug 12

Hmm yeah, I saw that. If it's the post I'm thinking about. Not exactly insightful comments either.

I mean, I agree that some room for debate on socials is good, and comments shouldn't always be fluffy. But the tendency you report is real and annoying

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Joseph Tobias @josephtobias.bsky.social · Aug 9

Well done, @kerrys189.bsky.social, and a much deserved ‘no corrections’. A really excellent thesis and it was a pleasure being involved. Best of luck with next steps!

Manuela Gonzalez Suarez @mgs-cielo-azul.bsky.social · Aug 9

Super happy that @kerrys189.bsky.social passed her viva with no corrections!! 🥳🥳🥳

Congratulations, Dr. Stewart!!

The EcCo lab will miss you, but we know you are off to do amazing things

Thanks to the excellent examiners @alexpigot.bsky.social & @vlboult.bsky.social

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Manuela Gonzalez Suarez @mgs-cielo-azul.bsky.social · Aug 9

Super happy that @kerrys189.bsky.social passed her viva with no corrections!! 🥳🥳🥳

Congratulations, Dr. Stewart!!

The EcCo lab will miss you, but we know you are off to do amazing things

Thanks to the excellent examiners @alexpigot.bsky.social & @vlboult.bsky.social

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Joseph Tobias @josephtobias.bsky.social · Aug 1

Well done to you and Anne for getting all of us over the line. Long journey! Thanks for getting me involved and for the opportunity to put some well-brewed ideas into words. 🙏🌳🌎

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · Jul 31

We should come to terms with the fact that forest, shrubland, grassland, and wetland ecosystems cannot offset fossil fuel CO₂ emissions.

But we should still protect and restore them for biodiversity and other ecosystem benefits.

Limited carbon sequestration potential from global ecosystem restoration - Nature Geoscience

The maximum carbon sequestration potential from global terrestrial ecosystem restoration efforts until 2100 is 96.9 Gt, which is equivalent to 3.7–12.0% of anthropogenic emissions until then, accordin...

www.nature.com

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Joseph Tobias @josephtobias.bsky.social · Jul 31

Agreed. We make this point clearly, including the abstract. It's the reason why species-centric conservation has taken centre stage and will continue to do so. Problem is it won't work without better integration with the second column – and fortunately that process of integration is underway.

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Joseph Tobias @josephtobias.bsky.social · Jul 31

All good points. I think the key point you are missing is that we are not advocating replacing one strategy with the other. More like the left hand box (traditional conservation approaches) is doomed to fail without better integration with the right hand box

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Joseph Tobias @josephtobias.bsky.social · Jul 31

I think your critique is also oversimplistic and false!
Agreed about the co-supportive element though. We make this point very clearly in the paper (including the title)

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Joseph Tobias @josephtobias.bsky.social · Jul 31

Warning: May include parrots (all of them)

Joseph Tobias @josephtobias.bsky.social · Jul 31

Beautiful thread by my brilliant colleague, Silu Wang, outlining the special issue she has just released (with Anne Yoder). She highlights some of the wider themes inspiring our article (in same issue) about rethinking the boundaries and targets of biodiversity conservation.

Silu Wang (she/her)🇨🇦 @siluwang.bsky.social · Jul 29

Check out our new special feature: Monitoring and Restoring Gene Flow in the Increasingly Fragmented Ecosystems of the Anthropocene www.pnas.org/topic/574 #biodiversity #evolution #ecology #popgen #ClimateEmergency

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Eliot Miller @eliotmiller.bsky.social · Jul 31

🫠. A tree came out today with 9,072 bird species, all placements based on actual DNA. It looks like they used eBird 2022 taxonomy; 10,096 were recognized back then. That means these folks just dropped (molecularly well informed) knowledge on 83% of the world's birds.

www.cell.com/current-biol...

A new time tree of birds reveals the interplay between dispersal, geographic range size, and diversification

Flight may affect the dispersal and evolution of birds. Using a new evolutionary tree, Claramunt et al. find that efficient fliers have broader geographic ranges, and speciation reduces range size, bu...

www.cell.com

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Joseph Tobias @josephtobias.bsky.social · Jul 30

🕊️🙏

Jarod K. Anderson @jarodkanderson.bsky.social · Jul 30

Birds are dinosaurs who shrugged off a couple apocalypses. Some eat bone marrow. Some drink nectar. They outswim fish in the sea. They smile politely at gravity’s demands. ‬

‪I am grateful to see them. I am grateful to feed them. I am grateful to know them.‬

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Jarod K. Anderson @jarodkanderson.bsky.social · Jul 30

Birds are dinosaurs who shrugged off a couple apocalypses. Some eat bone marrow. Some drink nectar. They outswim fish in the sea. They smile politely at gravity’s demands. ‬

‪I am grateful to see them. I am grateful to feed them. I am grateful to know them.‬

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Joseph Tobias @josephtobias.bsky.social · Jul 30

Kudos to @sclaramunt.bsky.social @josephwb.bsky.social @sheardcat.bsky.social and the rest of the team. 3/3

Joseph Tobias @josephtobias.bsky.social · Jul 30

The two new trees have different strengths. This one has no interpolated tips (placed by taxonomy) and emphasises the timetree element, making it particularly suitable for global analyses requiring a robust temporal framework, eg evolutionary models.

2/3

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Joseph Tobias @josephtobias.bsky.social · Jul 30

🚨 The New Age of global bird phylogenies continues!

Hot on the heels of the fantastic updated tree created by @eliotmiller.bsky.social and others, we use a different approach to generate a near-comprehensive timetree of >9000 bird species. 1/3

www.cell.com/current-biol...

🧪🌐🪶

A new time tree of birds reveals the interplay between dispersal, geographic range size, and diversification

Flight may affect the dispersal and evolution of birds. Using a new evolutionary tree, Claramunt et al. find that efficient fliers have broader geographic ranges, and speciation reduces range size, bu...

www.cell.com

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Henry North @henrylnorth.bsky.social · Jul 30

Fantastic paper from an amazing team:

Genomics of Neotropical biodiversity indicators: Two butterfly radiations with rampant chromosomal rearrangements and hybridization
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Genomics of Neotropical biodiversity indicators: Two butterfly radiations with rampant chromosomal rearrangements and hybridization | PNAS

A central question in evolutionary biology is what drives the diversification of lineages. Rapid, recent radiations are ideal systems for this ques...

www.pnas.org

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Silu Wang (she/her)🇨🇦 @siluwang.bsky.social · Jul 29

Check out our new special feature: Monitoring and Restoring Gene Flow in the Increasingly Fragmented Ecosystems of the Anthropocene www.pnas.org/topic/574 #biodiversity #evolution #ecology #popgen #ClimateEmergency

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