Desirée L. Narango
@dlnarango.bsky.social
Conservation Scientist @VTecostudies studying ecology of plants, insects, and birds. Crazy Cat(erpillar) Lady #urbanecology #forestecology #speciesinteractions #conservation #globalchange what I'm up to --> http://www.desireelnarango.com
Still space in our Caterpillars Count! webinar tomorrow, April 21 @ 11 am ET Learn how to survey foliage arthropods 🐛🐜🦋🐞🕷️🪲 and contribute to a continental (and beyond!) scale monitoring project! #insects #phenology #CitizenScience caterpillarscount.unc.edu/getStarted
Many thanks to the bee folks who deal with the fact I butcher their taxon’s scientific names but they still make me feel welcome :D
I wish I could repost this 1000 times. Come on people
Steph likes native plants@dendromecon27.bsky.social · 4mo agoI am probably going to be turning down review requests for the foreseeable future. Maybe once I figure out if our office gets closed or not in the USFS reorg... hot tip: cut your USFS R&D colleagues some slack these days.
I am probably going to be turning down review requests for the foreseeable future. Maybe once I figure out if our office gets closed or not in the USFS reorg... hot tip: cut your USFS R&D colleagues some slack these days.
Proposal in with 45 min to spare! 💪 here’s hoping they want to fund me to get some new urban bird (and bee!) research going…
Making a talk this weekend to share some of our first preliminary findings from the Native Plant Ecotype Experiment! Also presenting on our modeling efforts to use big community collected datasets (iNaturalist!) and provide recommendations for plants for pollinators specific to your ecoregion.
This paper is making the rounds again! Exciting update is we just got some funding to study caterpillar performance on local and nonlocal ecotypes! (Plant genotypes adapted to other ecoregions). Stay tuned for more caterpillar pictures this summer! 🐛
Desirée L. Narango@dlnarango.bsky.social · last yr.New paper! If trees are closely related, does it matter where they are from to plant-eating insects? We raised >950 Promethea moth caterpillars on 14 Prunus species to answer that question. Turns out, it matters a lot! Non-native trees = Lower performance OA paper here: doi.org/10.1002/ecs2...
Check out this amazing fall migration track from our female Gray Catbirds we studied this summer! This lady picked up on that big night of Sept 29th and made a nice 40 miles per hour flight from western massachusetts down to Philadelphia! We're excited to see where she is picked up next!
We’re up on the Mt this week for Bicknell’s Thrush but the spruce-fir is buzzing with migratory birds! Surprisingly the top is very dense with migrants (mostly young) despite the low food and cold conditions. Here’s a few of our bycatch friends. (All birds captured under USGS BBL and state permits)
I love how the default description for white male ecologists is ‘quantitative’ while for everyone else it’s ’so good with people!’
Amazing what a week of full bellies and warm snuggles will do #catlove
Desirée L. Narango@dlnarango.bsky.social · 12mo agoWorked from home this week to play catch up on papers but the cat distribution system had other ideas. Needless to say I haven’t gotten anything done because snuggles took priority.
Not ever day that longhorn cuckoo bees (Triepeolus sp.) out number the bumblebees during surveys! Three species yesterday on one plot. All on blue vervain (verbena hastata) which appears to be heavily favored by this genus
Worked from home this week to play catch up on papers but the cat distribution system had other ideas. Needless to say I haven’t gotten anything done because snuggles took priority.
Now that you’re super stoked about #moths from #mothweek, check out a paper I published this year that I’m very proud of. Spoiler alert: the tree composition in a forest fragment predicts the abundance of specialist and generalist moths. More #keystoneplants = more moth diversity #plantanoak
Fascinating!
Sam England@samjakeengland.bsky.social · last yr.Why do treehoppers look so weird?! Our latest paper, out this week in @pnas.org, suggests a perhaps unexpected reason - static electricity ⚡ We show that treehoppers can detect the electrostatic cues of predators and that their crazy shapes may boost their electrosensitivity! doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
Grumbling that lots of concept & opinion papers on urban sustainability/biodiversity get published all the time without real data. We submitted a data-driven paper on plants, inverts, birds, and soil and get rejected because none of the invited reviewers agreed to review it. Frustrating.
Fall migration has started! Techs caught a bay-breasted warbler this morning. The start of the molt migrants that don’t breed on Mt. Mansfield, but spend 2-3 weeks molting fresh plumage for the rest of their journey. #mansfieldsongbirds
Here’s 1 year of blue vervain (verbena hastata) growth from plugs planted in our experimental #nativeplant gardens last year. Lots of activity! #vceecotypeproject #pollinators #buglove #gardensforwildlife
If you’re having the kind of day I am, you might need this.
Blue Heron Farm@blueheronfarm.bsky.social · last yr.The baby playground has been disassembled since our last big storm, but it's up again and the new goats are trying to figure it out.
Tis the season for fun field work, awesome data collection, learning and mentorship, beautiful days on the mountain, and baaaaaabies #vcemansfieldsongbirds #ornithology #pollinators #vermont
Hi, I'm a climate journalist for the Boston Globe. If you're a federal employee working in New England for EPA or the Forest Service (or you were, until last week..) I'd love to hear from you. My colleagues and I at @bostonglobe.com are dedicated to protecting our sources. Signal: erinmdouglas.23
Freedom from kings. Freedom from fascism. Power to the people forever. ♥️ Happy Independence Day 🇺🇸
You can’t understand bird declines without also understanding insect declines. Grateful our work on insect-bird interactions was highlighted by Smithsonian Mag. If you love birds, think about whether your actions are helping the insects they need to survive. www.smithsonianmag.com/science-natu...
Scientists Are Tracking Worrying Declines in Insects—and the Birds That Feast on Them. Here's What's Being Done to Save Them Both
In Vermont, researchers have investigated the types of creepy, crawly bugs that their avian predators consume and may have found the answers to keeping them both alive
smithsonianmag.com
The pollinators we’re seeing in the garden plots are good and all, but dang was I excited to see this gorgeous creature 💚💚💚 Black swallowtail caterpillar on Zizia aurea
Fun day of Saturday field work! Helped my mentee Kevin band and find gray catbird nests. Getting around the habitat is no joke, but the weather was gorgeous! #femalebirds #ornithology #vceinthefield
Heck ya white river junction @dunkindonutscoffee.bsky.social . Love the native plant landscaping! Way to go supporting biodiversity! Take my money! 🌱🐛🐦
