I’m on #sabbatical this fall, which gives me a bit more free time to decompress from the last 7 years since I had my first one. Most Wednesdays I’ll head out to the local field site we work in, Nachusa Grasslands, to reconnect with the people and land there. I’ll call it #WednesdayWildflowers 🧪

Nachusa is about 90 minutes from me. It is beautiful, educational, and the scientists who work there are fantastic. We’re so lucky to have this place in northern Illinois.

Dr. Holly P Jones@dochpjones.bsky.social · 2d ago

I bet you're all just sitting there wondering how bison and #rxfire shape small mammal and invertebrate seed removal, right? Well do I have great news for you! Our paper about how this plays out at Nachusa Grasslands in Illinois came out today! 🧪besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

I am about to submit a proposal related to this gap of knowledge in species interactions. We really don't know much about it and it is essential to restoration success 💙

I bet you're all just sitting there wondering how bison and #rxfire shape small mammal and invertebrate seed removal, right? Well do I have great news for you! Our paper about how this plays out at Nachusa Grasslands in Illinois came out today! 🧪besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

The SER2027 Call for Proposals is now open. Help shape the 12th World Conference on Ecological Restoration in Lisbon by organizing a symposium or leading a training course. Submissions close 4 October 2026, reviewed on a rolling basis. Submit: https://ser2027.org/call-for-proposals/

Jason Arday was subjected to a racially driven witch hunt. Far worse accusations or even confirmed cases of academic misconduct have received scant media attention. There should be an inquiry into media behaviour, bias and ethics. This can’t go unaccounted or happen again www.bbc.com/news/article...

Jason Arday: Former Cambridge university professor found dead

His family said it was "in shock to have lost this amazing father, partner, brother, uncle and son" after the academic was found dead in London on Friday.

bbc.com

May Jason Arday find the peace the racist white media never gave him. RIP.

Ibram X. Kendi@ibramxk.bsky.social · 4d ago

To be a prominent antiracist Black scholar is to know you are a target, almost totally surrounded by resentments. You know that at any point, the attacks can come like a lynch mob. My latest @TheEmancipator.org. theemancipator.org/2026/08/15/i...

The NIH just released a proposal that will apparently hide peer reviewers’ impact scores and percentiles from the research team, their institution, and NIH program officers. All the better to obscure how funding decisions will be made primarily via political review, I’m guessing.

#Vegapalooza 2026 is in the books! 2.5 days 180 0.25m2 plots 8 scientists 100+ species 1 tick Much tick trefoil 0 bison delays! This is the biennial lab extravaganza where we identify all the plant species in our long term research plots at Nachusa Grasslands. 🧪

Holy COW. Text analysis of comments on the OMB rule: overwhelming opposition, overwhelmingly not form letters. (But 9 in 10 comments supporting the rule ARE form responses, LOL) Whatever happens next, folks have stepped up.

Karen R. Lips@karenrlips.bsky.social · last mo.

techpolicy.press/the-public-r...

Completely dating myself here but all I think of when I hear this is the movie Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead...

David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈@whysharksmatter.bsky.social · last mo.

www.latimes.com/environment/... Thousands of small, silver fish will wash up on California beaches to perform a strange and wondrous mating ritual. 🧪🦑🌎🐟

PHASE ONE of our fight against the OMB rule is complete and YOU ALL SHOWED UP!!! HALF A MILLION COMMENTS is WILD. We absolutely exceeded our goal of 100,000! So, what happens next??? Welcome to PHASE TWO: Pressure and Preparation! 1/x

Hey it's @dochpjones.bsky.social again giving you a roundup of the great talks I saw today at #NACCR2026, the joint conference between @scbnorthamerica.bsky.social and Society for Ecological Restoration. 🧪

POV me faking to be asleep on a Sunday morning so my kids let me alone for a bit longer

Dr. Holly P Jones@dochpjones.bsky.social · last mo.

And the award for best dramatic actor in a field setting goes to….this absolute drama queen 🤣 🧪

A regular Snakespearian actor right here

Dr. Holly P Jones@dochpjones.bsky.social · last mo.

And the award for best dramatic actor in a field setting goes to….this absolute drama queen 🤣 🧪

Flashing back to being a kid and wondering why my parents somehow knew I was awake when I was trying *so hard* to pretend to be asleep

Dr. Holly P Jones@dochpjones.bsky.social · last mo.

And the award for best dramatic actor in a field setting goes to….this absolute drama queen 🤣 🧪

humans: snakes are scary snakes: a human looked at me I'm ded

Dr. Holly P Jones@dochpjones.bsky.social · last mo.

And the award for best dramatic actor in a field setting goes to….this absolute drama queen 🤣 🧪

Me during the heatwave

Dr. Holly P Jones@dochpjones.bsky.social · last mo.

And the award for best dramatic actor in a field setting goes to….this absolute drama queen 🤣 🧪

And the award for best dramatic actor in a field setting goes to….this absolute drama queen 🤣 🧪

First talk is by PhD Candidate Monica Lasky about how giraffes shape trees. They found a few tree species were stuck at giraffe feeding height (i.e. kept short so they could eat them) and a mix of shapes of tree species in response to giraffes. So, as always in ecology, IT DEPENDS :) #NACCR2026 🧪

Next up is Spencer Schubert from the Applied Ecological Institute on a global survey of orgs enabling companies saying they'll plant trees with any given purchase to plant those trees. Orgs say they are measuring tree survival and jobs dataa, but they don't actually report that often. #NACCR2026 🧪

They made a super cool tool to identify which orgs are doing things transparently and with accountability! Check it out. orgs.reforestation.app #NACCR2026 🧪

Next up is Meghan Midgley from @mortonarboretum.bsky.social telling us about the impacts of brush pile burning on plants and soils in Chicagoland savannah sites. Burn scars yield a nitrate pulse, then drop off and an increase in phosphate, pH, and decrease in microbial biomass. #NACCR2026 🧪

Now it's Sarah Herzog at @mobotgarden.bsky.social talking about using living collections like botanic gardens to conserve plant genetics, phenotypes, etc. Talked us through using an algorithm to choose which 50 individuals to plant out to maximize conservation of variation. Cool work! #NACCR2026 🧪

Last talk is by Sarah Hardy from Arcadis talking about adaptive management in wetland mitigation superfund (highly contaminated) sites. They're using experiments to decide what to do (hand weed, herbicide, re-seed, etc.) at 5 sites, including one where native tribes led species choice. #NACCR2026 🧪

The last #NACCR2026 session I attended today I also gave a talk in - Conservation and restoration in emerging climates and human-influenced ecosystems. PhD student Max Scheel gave a great talk on how cattle grazing and fire interact in small prairies. 🧪

Then Bernadette Ridgley talked about haying impacts on grassland birds. They found early haying (pre June 15th) had negative impacts on population growth of grassland birds and that concentrating grazing before June 15th and mowing after that were best for bird populations. #NACCR2026 🧪

Karen Beattie then gave a really fun talk about how to resotre former cranberry bogs on Nantucket. They worked slowly in phases to avoid disrupting spotted turtles and reconnected the waterways back to the bay. Tons of seeds in the seedbank meant the wetlands came back passively. #NACCR2026 🧪

My talk was about what people measure in the published literature on grassland restoration and what gaps are. We need more research on S. America, Africa, for trophic levels other than plants, and way more social/cultural ecosystem service responses. #NACCR2026 🧪

Emma Leavens from @mortonarboretum.bsky.social gave a hopeful talk - they found that butternut trees have more reproduction than folks previously thought and that even when they have canker disease, they can have healthy canopies/reproduction. #NACCR2026 🧪