Julian Olden
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oldenfish.bsky.social
Julian Olden
@oldenfish.bsky.social

Professor @ UW | ecologist | freshwater | consumer of flat whites & craft 🍺 | gentle 🐟 squeezer | 🇨🇦 | EiC Water Biology and Biosecurity | AE @ESA Frontiers and Eco Apps | www.oldenfish.com | Views are my own ✊

Environmental science 73%
Geography 18%

Nah ... I end up buying caps on eBay. I mostly use uncrimped caps (i.e., before they are used).

Late night, but there is no better feeling that having stable isotope samples all prepped! ⚛️🎉

Finally found some time to reconnect with my caps. Red swamp crayfish in all its glory. Adding it to my office wall! @newbelgium.bsky.social @pikebrewing.bsky.social

Sunrise from UW SAFS @uwsafs.bsky.social. Not a bad way to start the day! ☀️

Thanks Corey!

Reposted by Julie L. Lockwood

Is Facebook fueling the online trade in aquatic invasive species?

Survey of hobbyists indicates that over half engage in peer-to-peer organism exchange, transport across state lines & release them into the wild.

AI Podcast: open.substack.com/pub/oldenfis....

Paper: www.reabic.net/journals/mbi...
www.reabic.net

The current website of the US Department of Agriculture. What a nightmare.
I've been proud to serve as the faculty leader for this effort. It has been a pleasure to interact with passionate students and emerging science communicators for many years now! We publish annually. I encourage you to check out past issues and follow! @uwsafs.bsky.social @trevorabranch.bsky.social
FieldNotes (fieldnotesjournal.org) is a student-run undergraduate journal and digital storytelling platform at @uwenvironment.bsky.social. We have focused on highlighting undergraduate research and publishing through-provoking articles about gnarly environmental issues since 2018. Please follow.
FIELDNOTES
fieldnotesjournal.org

Reposted by Julian D. Olden

FieldNotes (fieldnotesjournal.org) is a student-run undergraduate journal and digital storytelling platform at @uwenvironment.bsky.social. We have focused on highlighting undergraduate research and publishing through-provoking articles about gnarly environmental issues since 2018. Please follow.
FIELDNOTES
fieldnotesjournal.org

Interesting! I'm on my reading list for the week.

Absolutely ... and very much our message! Thanks for your comment.

Funding: CESAB programme of @frbiodiv.bsky.social. Great list of co-authors and fun working group! @uwsafs.bsky.social @uwfreshwater.bsky.social @profchrisharrod.bsky.social @profchrisharrod.bsky.social

Importantly, we continue to believe that morphological traits hold VALUE in depicting habitat use, ecological diversity & offering insight into fish movement! But our results do raise concerns of whether such traits are ‘functional’ in that they are a reasonable proxy of a species' trophic ecology.

Reposted by Joaquín Hortal

The growing enthusiasm for trait-based ecology, particularly approaches grounded in morphological traits, is increasingly shaping science. However, we caution that this enthusiasm should not overlook the limitations of morphological traits as a meaningful lens or currency for functional inference.

This study leveraged a comprehensive database of stable isotope values for fish communities worldwide. doi.org/10.1051/kmae.... And yes, stable isotopes have limitations ... isotopic vs. trophic niches. We cover all of this in our paper!
IsoFresh: A global stable isotope database of freshwater food webs | Knowledge and Management of Aquatic Ecosystems
Knowledge and management of aquatic ecosystems (formerly Bulletin Français de la Pèche et de la Pisciculture), an international journal on freshwater ecosystem
doi.org

In a global test, we show that morphological traits show weak (ca. 10% var exp) associations with d13C & d15N for freshwater fish species. At the individual level, morphology explained 4% in isotopic variation within populations. Body size & jaw length explained some var, albeit not much.

Support of such claims depends on the fundamental, albeit often unspoken, assumption that morphological characteristics of fish, such as body size & shape, fin configuration, & the size & orientation of the mouth and eyes, serve as reliable indicators of their feeding strategies & prey preferences.

Reposted by Joaquín Hortal

Fish ecologists routinely posit that functional trait analyses, founded either solely or in part on morphological traits, provide opportunities to guide global biodiversity conservation. Our paper just published in GEB sought to explore this claim. doi.org/10.1111/geb.... Read thread below.
doi.org

Agree, we all definitely need this type of encouraging feedback! :)

Absolutely! I'm experiencing the same thing as AE for a few journals. Authors are getting frustrated with me (I feel awful), and often, the additional burden shifts to me to provide a second review. 😒

Congrats!

Really important science and message - thank you Miguel!

It was a real pleasure to participate in the Mazama Newt Workshop at Crater Lake hosted by the @oregonzoo.bsky.social and the National Park Service. Discussions focused on a recovery plan for the Mazama newt in light of an exploding invasive signal crayfish. Great to see @ericrlarson.bsky.social!

Reposted by Julian D. Olden

A poll of 30,000 people in 31 countries found that the public places very high value on water and prioritizes protecting water quality, lakes and rivers - and their priority actions are somewhat different than what companies generally focus on...
www.forbes.com/sites/jeffop...
The Public Values Water But Sees Challenges Differently Than Companies
A set of polls—including more than 30,000 people across 31 countries—found that the public sees water as a top priority, with an emphasis on water quality.
www.forbes.com

Reposted by Julian D. Olden

“The NSF can be understood not only as a catalyst of scientific promise for national purpose, but also as a guarded response to fears about centralized control over knowledge and thought, shaped by the dark shadows of the Third Reich and the emerging Red Scare.”
"For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging."

Today I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council.

I wrote about my decision in TIME.

time.com/7285045/resi...
Why I’m Resigning from the NSF and Library of Congress
I cannot participate in systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging.
time.com

Reposted by Julian D. Olden

I'm excited to share that I've graduated with my PhD from @uwsafs.bsky.social, with a dissertation focused on the lifetime trophic ecology of fishes and invasive species management!
🐟 📈 🔬

Thank you to @oldenfish.bsky.social for your mentorship and support!

Yep, the University of Washington also did this about 2 years ago, and it was (and still is) an utter trainwreck!

Just out: Few-shot transfer learning enables robust acoustic monitoring of wildlife communities at the landscape scale. Super great work by Gio Jacuzzi. doi.org/10.1016/j.ec.... Github release: zenodo.org/records/1569...

To play devil’s advocate (not having watched the clip), Suzuki is likely trying to trigger more emotion and action to prove his statement wrong!