Dr. Holly P Jones
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dochpjones.bsky.social
Dr. Holly P Jones
@dochpjones.bsky.social
3K followers 2.8K following 250 posts
Prof | #Restoration #Conservation | #WomenInSTEM | Lead Editor @aer-ese-bes.bsky.social | NatGeo Explorer | Work/life | Politics | she/her | https://hjones82.wixsite.com/website
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dochpjones.bsky.social
The backstory for how this came about is also kind of fun. It all started when @nickajgraham.bsky.social invited me to give the keynote talk last year in the thematic session on ecological flows and fluxes across the land-sea interface at #BES2024. @britishecologicalsociety.org

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Me giving the keynote at the thematic session
October 27, 2025 at 2:51 PM
dochpjones.bsky.social
In this way, the circular seabird economy fuels both terrestrial and marine food webs!

Evidence shows that the influence seabirds have in both ecosystems makes them significant connectors of land and sea.
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Gannets breeding with lots of guano and the tide rolling in.
October 27, 2025 at 2:46 PM
dochpjones.bsky.social
This thread would be too long to list the numerous impacts, but a few of them have implications for increasing climate resilience: Macroalgae diversity is higher, fish biomass is higher, fish grow bigger, and coral reefs recover quicker after bleacing events around seabird breeding islands.
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Fish swim around a rocky reef
October 27, 2025 at 2:45 PM
dochpjones.bsky.social
But the transfer of nutrients doesn’t end there. The nutrients wash back into the surrounding ocean, or may get into the air as ammonia, and eventually land back in the ocean, where some of the same organisms seabirds eat take the nutrients back up, and the circle continues.
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Figure showing the ecosystem-level responses and individual-level responses of seabird nutrients in ocean ecosystems. Phytoplankton communities are dominated by larger-celled species, algae productivity increases, macroalgae diversity increases, feeding pathways are altered, corals recover faster after bleaching, mangrove leaf quality increases, fish biomass increases, fish grow larger, etc.
October 27, 2025 at 2:40 PM
dochpjones.bsky.social
f you’ve never heard of the Circular Seabird Economy, it’s the idea that seabirds feed on marine prey, and at their colonial nesting sites, primarily on islands, they deposit significant amounts of those nutrients (mostly in the form of guano) onto land.

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Conceptual figure showing how seabirds feed in the ocean, transfer nutrients to islands, and the nutrients wash back into the ocean and are eventually taken up again by seabird prey.
October 27, 2025 at 2:36 PM
dochpjones.bsky.social
Fun talk by @andyjboyce.bsky.social on the importance of monitoring in restored sites, especially those that have huge spatial scales. The importance of, and difficulty of monitoring has been a common theme of many talks here.

🧪 #SER2025
October 2, 2025 at 8:34 PM
dochpjones.bsky.social
Here is @wailscn.bsky.social giving a stellar talk on using LandSat data to track island plant and function responses to invasive mammal removal and other restoration like removing any invasive plants.

🧪 #SER2025
Dr. Christy Wails starting her talk on use of Landsat imagery to track recovery on islands.
October 1, 2025 at 5:13 PM
dochpjones.bsky.social
Sometimes, just being outside/working in the field can be a bit of a risk. /end
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a flying squirrel came and bit your arm while you were on a hike You caught a fish with your arm on accident. A really big frog took a chomp out of your arm. It was hungry. unfortunate accident with a family of beavers when removing a dam some flesh-eating beetles found you while you were in the field Wild horse bite Bison goring x 2
August 29, 2025 at 1:28 PM
dochpjones.bsky.social
Bees and California sea lions may be evil, but snow leopards are decidedly not.

The story arcs on these ones, though 😂

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While living in California myself and my husband decided to visit California natural beaches. While enjoying the natural view and ocean suddenly my husband takes out the sandwiches and hands one to my daughter. While she was enjoying her sandwich a flock of seagulls saw my daughter sandwich as a easy meal. As the flock flapped towards her she began to run towards the ocean to hide from the gulls. While I sprinted towards my beach baby suddenly I noticed that a large object was coming towards her from the ocean, while my husband ate his sandwich all nonchalant. Out of the blue a California sea lion leaped out from beneath the waves, as it maliciously made its towards my beach baby and the gulls. I suddenly flew towards my beach baby picked her up on the last second while the sea lion took a powerful bite to take my beach baby. Luckily I was able to evade the kidnapping but tragically the bite grazed my arm. You were hiking in the Himalayas when you stumbled upon a snow leopard. The leopard charged you out of surprise, but you were able to dodge quickly enough. The surprise made you lose your footing and you slipped a bit down the mountain, tearing your arm up. The snow leopard didn't pursue, but stared you down from above before retreating into the mountains. You got a piece of honeycomb stuck on your arm while out in woodlands one day and a hundred bees came swarming at your arm and the honey seeped into your skin where the bees harvested a chunk of your arm. You're not allergic to bees though so you still eat honey.
August 29, 2025 at 1:26 PM
dochpjones.bsky.social
A fair amount of amorous shark content...
These students were listening to my bio when I said I work with seabirds and at how islands recover after ridding them of invasive rats...

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While diving by a coral reef a barracuda charged you, and using your amazing reflexes you dodged but acciently slammed your arm into the coral creating the wound. A shark smelled the blood and rushed over with a first aid kit and that is why you survived. You and the shark are still penpals, she is godmother of your children actually. You were scuba diving in Malaysia and befriended some tiger sharks, one shark got jealous and tried to kiss you but ended up biting you. A shark bite from trying to give it a hug An overzealous seagull attacked you because he wanted the orange slice from your Mai tai while you were at the beach. During her time in her research in an albatross re-introduction field work, an albatross nipped her arm and caused a huge scar. Their beaks are quite powerful, and she was too close to a nest. An invasive ROUS (rodent of unusual size) got upset that they were being kicked off their island and decided to retaliate against the research crew. Bit by an iguana who was best friends with an invasive rat you were trying to eradicate A big gigantic island rat was just really hungry that day
August 29, 2025 at 1:22 PM
dochpjones.bsky.social
I have a big scar on my arm from melanoma (I’m ok, it just left a big scar) and told my restoration class that cancer is boring and I wanted some bio-inspired stories I could tell folks if they ask. So their attendance question was to give me a story if they wanted.

They did not disappoint!! 🤩
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Tell people that you cant legally tell them.. it'll leave them wondering Baking accident (never buy the kitchen-aid knockoff) I fought the sun and won You were attacked by pirates in the Bering Sea You got in a sword fight You where hiking in california and a giant mud slide happened and pushes you down and you got cut by a bunch of rocks and sharp objects and had to be helicopter lifted out. You got punched by a leprechaun Swarm of dragonflies lifted you through the air and you landed a stick but it was magical anyways You accidentally got sent back in time and had a run in with a pterodactyl. Got speared by a narwhal Violently attacked by a moray eel (but won). You were stung by a jellyfish in Aruba. You fought off an orca protecting a seal and it bit you duel with a swordfish You got in a tussle with 900 sea urchins. The sea urchins nearly won. You survived a savage goose attack outside of Montgomery (the building I work on in campus), it was a very close call, you didn't know if you were going to make it You got into a knife fight with Darwin's finch on Galapagos island and barely made it out with your life. Well, OBVIOUSLY you got bitten by a bear while saving a bunch of defenseless endangered birds... Survived an assasination attempt from a rhesus macaque
August 29, 2025 at 1:19 PM
dochpjones.bsky.social
Juan Bueno-Pardo showing that cnidarians and seabirds benefit most from nature-based solutions. Paper here onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
#ICCB2025
Graph showing that seabirds and cnidarians benefit most from nature-based solutions.
June 18, 2025 at 2:18 AM
dochpjones.bsky.social
This is truly incredible news and shows that plastic pollution is region specific and that wedge-tailed shearwaters on Vanuatu are looking pretty healthy. Indeed, their body condition was a whole lot better than other colonies around Australia.

/end

#iccb2025
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Slide showing the conclusions from the work detailed in this skeet.
June 17, 2025 at 3:16 AM
dochpjones.bsky.social
Enter Enelyne Moli’s talk on wedge-tailed sheatwaters breeding in Vanuatu!

They used the traditional harvest done for wedgies on the island to randomly sample 70 birds for plastics in their guts.

And guess how many pieces of plastic total they found?!?

ONE SINGLE PIECE

#ICCB2025
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Title slide: a common marine species as a monitoring tool for plastic pollution: A case study from Vanuatu Enelyne presenting her results
June 17, 2025 at 3:11 AM
dochpjones.bsky.social
Lauren Ohayon is reminding us that with progress like air taxis comes important considerations for conservation planning. Plans need to go from 2D to 3D - we gotta have vertical conservation planning so when these launch, they don’t negatively impact wildlife. #ICCB2025

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Photo of air taxis slide
June 17, 2025 at 1:31 AM
dochpjones.bsky.social
Have you ever wondered just how big an albatross is?

Wonder no more; meet Jessica Alba, the life-sized albatross! This beauty is for outreach and hauled around by my buddy who works for @birdlifeglobal.bsky.social in the Pacific.

Albatross mate for life, do courtship dances and are majestic!

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Me with a life-sized albatross
June 16, 2025 at 7:49 AM
dochpjones.bsky.social
I'm really excited to be in Brissy for #ICCB2025!

Come see me Tuesday during the poster session (Poster 61), where I'll detail some questions that can be asked with the recently published Seabird Restoration Database!

Could be a great PhD chapter for a PhD student.

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www.seabirddatabase.org
Poster outlining which questions can be answered with the seabird restoration database and which questions would be great to ask with a little more research bandwidth.
June 16, 2025 at 4:26 AM
dochpjones.bsky.social
And, surprise!! Incubating curlews went into cryptic posture to hide from predators when the badgerinator was on average 50m away when Andrew played prairie dog alarm calls versus 29m away when there was no prairie dog alarm call.

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Graph showing that curlews went into cryptic poster when the badger was almost 2x further away during prairie dog alarm call trials versus trials without alarm calls.
June 12, 2025 at 8:43 PM
dochpjones.bsky.social
We decided an experimental approach to this question could be cool. So Andrew strapped a taxidermied badger on top of an RC cart and drove the cart toward incubating curlews both while playing prairie dog ground-based predator calls and not (control).

We lovingly call this the badgerinator.

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Badger mounted on an RC car approaching a curlew nest.
June 12, 2025 at 8:36 PM
dochpjones.bsky.social
Specifically, we looked at long-billed curlews, a really cool waterbird that nests in the shortgrasses of Montana.

Here's an artist's rendering of what incubating LBCU looks like in relaxed posture (top) and when it detects a predator nearby - its cryptic posture.

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A long-billed curlew in relaxed incubating posture and one in cryptic posture.
June 12, 2025 at 8:32 PM
dochpjones.bsky.social
Well, sorry to all the scientists out there, but best manuscript title is now taken: Synergy, complexity, and the dirty, dirty, cheats of the world.

Congratulations to @jahkoop.bsky.social and #NeilBlackstoneDon'tSky.

I really hope Taylor sees this!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

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Acknowledgements: We also thank Taylor Swift for "This sick beat", which helped fuel several writing sessions and a catchy title idea.
June 2, 2025 at 8:26 PM
dochpjones.bsky.social
The world may be a dumpster fire but my office remains incredible.
April 25, 2025 at 10:24 PM
dochpjones.bsky.social
Ooops just realized I never did my last one!!! 🤦🏻‍♀️

20/20
#BookSky
#20daybookchallenge
James by Percival Everett
February 25, 2025 at 2:42 AM
dochpjones.bsky.social
I call this Puddle of Dog Paws plus a little snoot.
Puddle of dog paws plus a little snoot
December 18, 2024 at 2:14 PM
dochpjones.bsky.social
#BES2024. What a delight! It was great to get to talk about two of my biggest loves: collaborating with managers and the seabird circular economy. It was even better to connect with friends and colleagues. Highlighting @aer-ese-bes.bsky.social as a home for applied research was also amazing!🧪
A conceptual figure showing the seabird circular economy and what we should research more (in purple). Talk about how important it is to collaborate with managers if we really want restoration to meet the moment. Liverpool docks at night.
December 14, 2024 at 12:21 AM