Alex Slavenko
@alexsla.bsky.social
Zoologist & ecologist Obsessed with herps, birds, and PNG Doing ecological modelling for a living and still shocked by that
A succinct summary of a fantastic study by my colleagues at Cesar Australia 🧪🌏
The Conversation AUNZ@aunz.theconversation.com · 5mo agoPopulation crashes are dangerous and can be irreversible. But new research shows they are not always an evolutionary dead end. 👉 Read the full story: theconversation.com/we-thou...
New paper alert! 🚨🌏🧪 We've just published a neat little study in Journal of Biogegraphy, looking at the climatic and habitat niches of ground parrots and how they've evolved. Let's dive in a bit deeper! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Breaking New Ground: Niche Divergence and Expansion in Ground Parrots (Pezoporini: Platycercinae)
Aim The two species of ground parrots (Pezoporus wallicus and P. flaviventris) are morphologically and behaviourally similar, yet geographically disjunct and genetically distinct. We investigated th.....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
An excellent and thorough rebuttal of the extremely flawed paper by Wallach & Lundgren (2025). 🧪🌏
Professor Euan Ritchie FAMS@euanritchie.bsky.social · 7mo agoUsing multiple lines of evidence, we show that feral cats and red foxes are strongly implicated in most Australian mammal extinctions and in the ongoing imperilment of numerous extant species. academic.oup.com/bioscience/a... A large collaborative effort to rebut Wallach and Lundgren (2025).
Excited to announce that the 1st paper from my postdoc is now out in @currentbiology.bsky.social ! Using a large dataset of 3D preserved fossils, we explore the diversification of jaws in early bony fishes. 1/15 www.cell.com/current-biol...
Macroevolutionary role reversals in the earliest radiation of bony fishes
Troyer et al. examine lower jaw evolution in Silurian-Devonian bony fishes and find substantial differences in patterns of morphological disparity, rates of shape evolution, and functional diversity b...
cell.com
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Alex Slavenko@alexsla.bsky.social · last yr.A recent paper claims, opposed to what conservation science has known for decades, that there is no evidence that foxes and cats were a major driver of Australia's mammal extinctions. Turns out there are quite a few issues here. Strap in for a looong thread 🧪 academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...
A recent paper claims, opposed to what conservation science has known for decades, that there is no evidence that foxes and cats were a major driver of Australia's mammal extinctions. Turns out there are quite a few issues here. Strap in for a looong thread 🧪 academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...
Review of evidence that foxes and cats cause extinctions of Australia's endemic mammals
Abstract. Over half of Australia's threatened and extinct endemic mammal species have been attributed to introduced red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and cats (Fel
academic.oup.com
New species alert! 🦎🧪 We (myself, Glenn Shea, Stephen Richards and Paul Oliver) just published a description of a fantastic new species of Prasinohaema from New Guinea. A short thread:
I want to summarize the results of this preprint for the public because I think they're significant. Please keep in mind that the paper has not yet been through peer review. This is a genetic analysis H5N1 2.3.4.4b, the new bird flu strain everyone's talking about. 🧪🧵 1/6
Lambodhar Damodaran@lambod50.bsky.social · 2y agoReally excited to share that my postdoctoral work on HPAI in North America is now preprinted! Please feel free to reach out with any feedback and thoughts! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
I'm very happy to announce I just published a paper from my post doc with Gavin Thomas in @natureecoevo.bsky.social! So if you're interested in #macroevolution, #phylogenetics and sexual size dimorphism (SSD), strap in doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Evolution of sexual size dimorphism in tetrapods is driven by varying patterns of sex-specific selection on size - Nature Ecology & Evolution
A phylogenetic comparative analysis of male and female body size across tetrapods globally shows that directional change in size is usually greater in males but reveals different underlying mechanisms...
doi.org
@callanalexander.bsky.social on birds in vineyards - heaps of native birds present, and using a cool combination of supervised and unsupervised machine learning models to overcome false positive issues in AI detection of bird calls #ESAus2024
Now at #ESAus2024 Paul Sunnocks is reflecting on how ecology and genetics are closely entwined in #conservation🌏 science. Genetic traits drive demography of populations. Things that increase extinction risk: - inbreeding depression - loss of useful function - reduced adaptability
Mike Kearney showing how to determine which koala traits are functional based on theory around heat exchange #ESAus2024
Awesome research showing that employing "teacher toads" right before a cane toad invasion can teach taste aversion to goannas, allowing them to persist in the landscape once the actual invasion front arrives #ESAus2024
There are many ways to make your code reproducible! Here are some by @daxkellie.bsky.social that I wasn't aware of to keep track of package versions in your R project (yikes) #ESAus2024
@julesfarquhar.bsky.social getting an extraordinary amount of data from snake call outs, snake catchers sitting on heaps of high quality data #ESAus2024
Important reminder by @chapplelab.bsky.social - data deficient / not evaluated species should be treated the same as threatened, and they are more likely to be threatened than not #ESAus2024
It's been a while since I've been active here, but what better way to return than with an awesome conference? Come find me next week at #ESAus2024 or stay tuned for my general impressions of the state of Australian ecology (probably very impressed)
These two pics were the most viral thing I ever posted to Twitter, so in the interest of reposting our bangers, here is my turtle Stu, whom I “rescued” from the local grocery store.
Proud member of squid cluster
Dani cRabaiotti 🦀@danirabaiotti.bsky.social · 3y agoSQUID CLUSTER RISE UP
Five years ago I was in Hawaii with a good camera. Neither of these is true anymore, but I miss those days. So here's a photo of an 'I'iwi from back then, because these are amazing birds 🪶
Adding some #herps to my feed, with this Manapany day gecko (Phelsuma inexpectata) from Réunion
My first post on this app, so naturally reposting a lizard
Daryll Marie@daryllmarie.bsky.social · 3y agoA striped anole closeup, photographed in Aruba! 🦎🌿🧪
