Life-history traits do not always evolve in response to changing thermal environments doi.org/10.32942/X20...
Michael Walsh
@epidoctor.bsky.social
Landscape epidemiology; disease ecology; wetlands; forests; wildlife; biodiversity; One Health; ಒಂದು ಆರೋಗ್ಯ 🦘🐘🦢🦜🦠 in the Sydney School of Public Health @sydney.edu.au & @Sydney_ID & @MAHE_Manipal & @thePHFI + Canyoneer 🧗♂️ & Jiujiteiro He/him Epibiolab.org
New paper out in @currentbiology.bsky.social ! 🎉 Who drives disease transmission? The answer seems obvious: measure who releases or disperses the most parasites. But after dissecting transmission step by step, we found that’s often not the case. 👇 🧵 #EvoSky #IDSky www.cell.com/current-biol...
Transmission heterogeneity emerges from uncoupled parasite shedding and spreading
Silva et al. show that disease transmission emerges from multiple ecological bottlenecks rather than a single host trait. Separating parasite shedding from downstream infection success reveals why hos...
cell.com
There is a lot we can do to help Australia’s native wildlife survive and recover from H5N1 bird flu. It will require far greater care and investment from governments than we’ve seen so far. theconversation.com/powerless-ag...
Powerless against bird flu? Not entirely. Here are 8 ways to help protect Australia’s birds and mammals
As lethal bird flu spreads in Australian wildlife, it can be easy to think nothing can stop it. That’s an error – much can be done.
theconversation.com
Welcome to the CAMBRIAN FECAL REVOLUTION. We didn't name it the Cambrian fecal explosion for obvious reasons. I'm happy to share this paper on fecal matter and its role in Cambrian ecosystems. So if you want to read a really shitty paper (50 days free access): authors.elsevier.com/a/1nYg8cZ3X7...
🚨 Don't miss this Friday's #HPAI briefing hosted by the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council. Hear directly from international researchers & wildlife rehabilitators with first-hand outbreak experience. Critical insights for wildlife, animal health & public health sectors. 🦠🐦🌏 bit.ly/4gaFD0h
A modeling lens on landscapes-of-peril and other ecological drivers of zoonoses doi.org/10.32942/X2D...
A modeling lens on landscapes-of-peril and other ecological drivers of zoonoses
This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 1 of this Preprint.
doi.org
First Australian mass mortality event suspected as deadly bird flu virus rapidly escalates among native birds: www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...
First Australian mass mortality event suspected as deadly bird flu virus rapidly escalates among native birds
Helicopter surveillance finds dead and dying greater crested terns off South Australian coast as H5 virus spreads
theguardian.com
📄🦠Happy to share our latest paper, which highlights how non-invasive methods can advance parasite and disease ecology research.✨ www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=...
New paper out in mSystems from my collaboration with labs of @maggiesogin.bsky.social, Jay Stachowicz, and Trent Northen. Lead author is Gina Chaput. Microbiota assembly in Zostera marina during early host development across controlled growth experiments See journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/....
Microbiota assembly in Zostera marina during early host development across controlled growth experiments | mSystems
Using the Fabricated Ecosystem 2.0 (EcoFAB 2.0), we were able to successfully control the microbial environment of eelgrass, Zostera marina, resulting in the reduction of epiphytes and maintaining low...
journals.asm.org
India's Bengal tiger population has more than doubled since 1972, driving big cats to disperse beyond protected reserves. While the nation has built Asia's longest wildlife underpasses to link fragmented habitats, expanding roads & mining still threaten ecological corridors. Nirmal Ghosh reports.
India’s tiger numbers are rising. Protecting their pathways is next
RAJAJI TIGER RESERVE, India — It is early morning in late May in the hardwood sal forests of Rajaji Tiger Reserve in north India, and the heat is rising. By afternoon it will reach 39° Celsius (102°…
mongabay.cc
New piece in The Conversation where we argue that the mis- and disinformation around #vaccines is bad for our #autonomy. If we really value free and autonomous choices, then from a policy perspective it means doing what we can to fix the information environment in which we make our decisions!
Vaccine mis- and disinformation isn’t just a threat to public health, but also to our autonomy
When we are mis- or disinformed, it is difficult to act with autonomy. We may make decisions that do not align with our beliefs, even when we seem to be acting voluntarily.
theconversation.com
A further 11 suspected cases of H5 bird flu have been detected in South Australia’s south-east and Kangaroo Island.
Breaking: Local transmission of H5 bird flu 'very, very likely', SA government says
A further 11 suspected cases of H5 bird flu have been detected in South Australia’s south-east and Kangaroo Island.
abc.net.au
🎉 Excited to share our paper in EcoHealth, with @renatamuy.bsky.social and Michael Ward at the Disease Ecology Lab. What keeps ecology and epidemiology apart? What can we do to improve it? rdcu.be/fwoIm
"Samples from a deceased petrel found on Moreton Island have tested positive for H5 bird flu during initial testing at the Queensland Government’s Biosecurity Sciences Laboratory (BSL)" Some sent on to Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness for confirmation www.dpi.qld.gov.au/news-media/n...
News
Read news stories, media releases, research updates, events and alerts from the Department of Primary Industries. Get the latest updates on agriculture, fisheries, forestry and biosecurity.
dpi.qld.gov.au
Finally feeling like winter here in Sydney! In celebration of some normal weather for a change, here's some more experimentation with whiskey cocktails: the hot toddy 🔥
Last chance to register for EEID Asia Pacific 2026! Registrations close on Monday 27th July: eeid-asiapacific.org #EEIDAP2026
From Molecules to Ecosystems: Uniting pathogen ecology, evolution and One Health across the Asia–Pacific region and beyond.
Click here to submit an abstract Click here to register Click here to register for the pre-conference workshop August 26-28 2026, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia Register now as space is limited. No...
eeid-asiapacific.org
New paper from the lab! ssarp, our R package (@ropensci.org), takes you from raw occurrence records to species- and speciation-area relationships without the weeks of data wrangling that usually stand in the way. Work with Kristen Martinet and Luke Harmon. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
<fi>ssarp</fi>: An R Package for Efficiently Inferring Species‐ and Speciation‐Area Relationships
The ssarp (Species-/Speciation-Area Relationship Projector) R package provides users with a streamlined workflow for inferring species- and speciation-area relationships for island-dwelling species. ...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Does your PhD DTP allow 3-month placements? Excited by computing, bioinformatics, software dev? Interested in translating academic research into real world health protection? Apply to this UKHSA internship in collab with us on early bird flu pandemic warnings! gla-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/person...
The ARC's new grant scheme table, in case you don't want to read through the details (which are here: www.arc.gov.au/system/files...)
ARC Tracker@arc-tracker.bsky.social · 2w agoThe ARC has released their new set of grant schemes ▶️ www.arc.gov.au/news-and-pub... Before implementing them, they’re now going to “consult with the sector”. Hopefully genuinely, not just with a few disengaged DVCRs. In the meantime, there’ll be another round of Discovery Projects (DP28).
Disease Transmission: Interactions between wild pigs and the spread of disease doi.org/10.7554/eLif...
Disease Transmission: Interactions between wild pigs and the spread of disease
Tracking wild pigs with GPS devices reveals how their social interactions could influence the spread of disease, offering new strategies for protecting agriculture, wildlife, and human health.
doi.org
TreeMig framework ver. 1.0: an R package with GUI to simulate spatio-temporal forest dynamics vist.ly/5bsm6 #Rpackage #Modelling #VegetationDynamics
Just out! Spatial epidemiology of Avian flu in seabird populations. #HPAI, #Bayesian, #Conservation, #Panzootic, #Gannets, @jwejeglinski.bsky.social @heyjoode.bsky.social , @sbohvm.gla.ac.uk @rspb.bsky.social @au.dk @heriotwattuni.bsky.social besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Between‐species contagion drives HPAI transmission and mass mortality in seabirds
Modelling the unprecedented avian panzootic caused by High-Pathogenicity Avian Influenza (HPAI) across the Northeast Atlantic gannet breeding metapopulation, we estimated 28% (95% CI: 21%–34%) HPAI-r...
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
While #H5N1 begins its journey into Australia & NZ, outbreaks in birds & mammals continue elsewhere 👇 There have been 14 detections in #migratoryseabirds in Australia since Jun 2026. Australia remains free of H5N1 #avianflu in native wild birds & poultry.
CIDRAP@cidrap.bsky.social · 3w agoCambodia confirms human H5N1 avian flu case as H5N1 hits more Utah egg farms. The USDA also reported eight new H5N1 detections in cattle. Read more: https://bit.ly/4gIr30U 📷: mswine / Flickr cc
How many 🦟 species in Tasmania? Congrats Hollie Zimmermann on your new paper! Tasmania's first 🦟 checklist. * 51 spp including Cx. annulirostris and Cx. quinquefasciatus * 7 genera, * supporting surveillance, biosecurity & public health preparedness. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/AZ9YX2...
A Baseline Checklist of Mosquito Species (Diptera: Culicidae) From Tasmania, Australia, and Implications for Public Health Arbovirus Surveillance and Biosecurity
Reader environment loaded
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Incorporating sampling bias into ENM/SDM permutation tests: new methods and a case study on neotropical ants vist.ly/5bijx #Niche #Models #SDM
A methodologically flawed and problematic study by Kate Dutton-Regester, Jacquie Rand and Antong Liang, and equally disappointing reporting by Marina Trajkovich 👉 www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07...
Researchers say pet cats wrongly blamed for injuring native wildlife
University of Queensland researchers say the threat posed by pet cats to Australian wildlife could be overstated, but other experts disagree.
abc.net.au
Our second Science Open House at a @nature.org reserve. #bird #banding #ringing #birding #naturewalk #turkeyvulture @instbirdpop.bsky.social @amornith.bsky.social @abcbirds.bsky.social @audubon.org
Baraboo Hills Ecology Research Collective@bhrc.bsky.social · last mo.Join our #Research Open House 2 on Saturday July 18, 7:30-10 AM. Baxter’s Hollow Preserve on Stone's Pocket Rd. #Bird banding, #nature walk, #nature journaling, #turkey #vulture. Free, open to the public, families welcome. More info: bhrcollective.org/upcoming-eve...
