Super excited to share this new paper in Ecology, where we explore the bioenergetic trade-offs of mammalian trophic interactions and resulting selective pressures on size evolution across the Cenozoic 🦣🐅 esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Bioenergetic trophic trade‐offs determine mass‐dependent extinction thresholds across the Cenozoic

Body size constrains trophic interactions, shaping the feasibility of species' populations. Over macroevolutionary timescales, these constraints feed back to shape selection on body size and diet. We...

esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

New paper just dropped! In a collaboration led by @jdyeakel.bsky.social, we explored how body size and the bioenergetics of trophic interactions constrain coexistence and shapes the evolution of body size and diets in mammalian carnivores. 🐺🦊🐅🐆🐻🦁

Bioenergetic trophic trade‐offs determine mass‐dependent extinction thresholds across the Cenozoic

Body size constrains trophic interactions, shaping the feasibility of species' populations. Over macroevolutionary timescales, these constraints feed back to shape selection on body size and diet. We...

esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Good to hear the news of LTER's death has been exaggerated!

Long Term Ecological Research Network (United States)@uslter.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Hey y'all. Love all the love for the program (we're pretty proud of it too). But the fact that the solicitation is archived does NOT mean that the program is shutting down. We're hanging in there, struggling through the uncertainty with everyone else.

I'm lucky enough to be part of the Sevilleta LTER in New Mexico... I don't know what happens now... there is so much to rebuild once we are able to rebuild. If.

Mike Kaspari@mikekaspari.bsky.social · 4mo ago

NSF LTER program “archived”. LTER=“Long Term Ecological Research”. This program has been incredibly successful, incredibly frugal for what they accomplish, and…of course…targeted by evil know-nothings. My heart is breaking.

Without knowing anything else about this book, I love the cover art... it's got that '60s Lost in Space vibe

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌@chanda.blacksky.app · 4mo ago

Ok, I just listened to the audio sample of my book for the first time and WOWOWOWOWOWOW Joniece Abbott-Pratt gives life to the words in ways that I could not even imagine Even if you're not gonna read the book, just go here and listen to the sample because her narration is INCREDIBLE

I've always loved reading about the moon landings (and early NASA missions generally), and I'm thankful/excited to have something in the news that's exciting and that captivates the imagination...

Check out this very cool new paper by Stephen Hoover, @akfbio.bsky.social , and I’m serving drinks in the back - it’s wild!

Ashkaan K. Fahimipour@akfbio.bsky.social · 4mo ago

New paper led by my (now former!) PhD student, Dr. Stephen Hoover, showing some amazing applications of AI and reinforcement learning to food web ecology. A 🧵...

Check out our new paper on cooperating bacteria led by @janamassing.bsky.social w/ @thilogross.bsky.social and @akfbio.bsky.social, where we explore the costs and benefits of metabolitic trade on stability in non-spatial and spatial contexts... exciting! royalsocietypublishing.org/rsif/article...

Generalized dynamics of cross-feeding bacteria

Abstract. Bacterial cooperation involves the exchange of metabolites, which can range from costless byproducts of metabolism to intentionally produced and

royalsocietypublishing.org

If you like matrices + microbes, have I got the paper for you. Work with @janamassing.bsky.social, @jdyeakel.bsky.social, and @thilogross.bsky.social out today in @royalsocietypublishing.org! We study dynamics of cooperative bacteria without specifying a conventional model: doi.org/10.1098/rsif...

Wait - is this real??? I can’t find anything anywhere else about it… www.technology.org/2026/01/30/c...

Very excited to share this new exploration of motifs and their impacts on the dynamics of the entire network in PNAS! I learned a lot working with this crew (as usual)... with @mhab.bsky.social @akfbio.bsky.social and @thilogross.bsky.social !

Ashkaan K. Fahimipour@akfbio.bsky.social · 6mo ago

New paper with @mhab.bsky.social @jdyeakel.bsky.social and @thilogross.bsky.social out now in @pnas.org! We show when and why you can know something about an entire network, just by knowing the behavior of it's building blocks: doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

New paper where we explore how the dynamics of food webs can be explored when populations are ‘distilled’ to high and low states, or Boolean switches… Somehow this leads to a discussion involving Otodus megalodon :D nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Distilling food web dynamics: top–down and bottom–up drivers of extinction and trophic cascades

Quantifying population dynamics is a fundamental challenge in ecology and evolutionary biology, particularly for species that are cryptic, microscopic, or extinct. Traditional approaches rely on cont...

nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

💙New paper!💙 How is knowledge transmitted across generations in a foraging society? With @danielredhead.bsky.social we found: In BaYaka foragers, long-term skills pass in smaller, sparser networks, while short-term food info circulates broadly & reciprocally academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

Transmission networks of long-term and short-term knowledge in a foraging society

Abstract. Cultural transmission across generations is key to cumulative cultural evolution. While several mechanisms—such as vertical, horizontal, and obli

academic.oup.com

Mark Novak, @kecoblentz.bsky.social, John DeLong FTW - a very cool paper I need to dig carefully through!

American Naturalist / ASN 🐌@asn-amnat.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Novak et al. derive a functional response model that unifies Holling’s classical forms. The model clarifies when linearity can be a mechanistically-reasoned description of predator feeding rates and the impact it has on predator-prey dynamics. Read now! www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Okay Open Nature… are you *trying* to make me eat cat food?

"Behavior drives morphological change during human evolution" Our new article is out in @science.org today www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New paper in Science! Luke Fannin and Nate Dominy on the bridge; I'm some kind of assistant science officer or asking the chief engineer where the bathroom is, but hey I'm part of the fleet -- Also, it's just a really awesome project, so check it out... www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Behavior drives morphological change during human evolution

Dietary shifts and corresponding morphological changes can sometimes evolve in succession, not concurrently—an evolutionary process called behavioral drive. Detecting behavioral drive in the fossil re...

science.org

Make it stop…

My book drops in 2 months! “This is an essential, long-overdue guide, and a wonderful read.” -Stephen Graham Jones, author of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter @sgj.bsky.social Bookshop: bookshop.org/a/7576/97988... Barnes: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/feral-and-...

My cousin-in-law @jasonragosta.bsky.social (is that a thing?) knocks it out of the park with this amazing The Buffalo Hunter Hunter fan poster from the legendary @sgj.bsky.social www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/1715...

Buffalo Hunter Hunter Poster by Jason Ragosta | Redbubble

A fan poster for Stephen Graham Jones' novel Buffalo Hunter Hunter illustrated by Jason Ragosta.

redbubble.com

Exciting opportunity for prospective grad students wanting to study the science of science w/ @culturologies.co … check it out! career2.successfactors.eu/sfcareer/job...

Looks like Elon flew too close to a bloated orange giant ☀️

How is your day going? for k in 1:length(ksdvec) ksd = ksdvec[k]; ksdname = ksdstrs[k]; ksd = 1.5; ....(long simulation).... end

Jim Estes was one of my PhD advisors at UCSC… a generator of great ideas and discussions, always angling positive when others tried to tear down, a rockstar who didn’t act like a rockstar. This was my slide for Jim in my dissertation seminar… thanks for the good conversations and caribou sausage

New paper on food-cleaning monkeys showing some true grit. Led by Jessica Rosien, Nate Dominy, Luke Fannin, Suchinda Malaivijitnond and Amanda Tan - this was a fun collaboration :D 🐒 elifesciences.org/articles/98520

Food-washing monkeys recognize the law of diminishing returns

Monkeys are sensitive to foods coated with tooth-damaging sand and will invest time and energy to eliminate sand, but dominance rank affects the effort allocated to cleaning behaviors.

elifesciences.org

If this happened as described — and there is no reason to think it didn’t — what does this mean for academic freedom? The vise is closing. www.chronicle.com/article/i-di...

‘I Didn’t Want to Make a Scene’: A Professor Recounts the Conversation That Got Him Ejected From Commencement

Colin Holbrook says he approached the University of California system president about pro-Palestinian protests.

chronicle.com

🦦

I resigned because of a profound breakdown in governance, transparency, and accountability at the NSF—issues I felt obligated to bring to public attention.

The dynamics of microbial cooperation... Cheap metabolites make for shaky friendships; but pricier ones can keep the peace... 🦠 Thanks @janamassing.bsky.social for leading the charge! And great working again w/ @akfbio.bsky.social & @thilogross.bsky.social

Ashkaan K. Fahimipour@akfbio.bsky.social · last yr.

New paper led by @janamassing.bsky.social, with @jdyeakel.bsky.social and @thilogross.bsky.social, on dynamics of cooperative bacteria: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A new preprint from the lab. Might be of interest to people who use barcode lineage tracking to catch de novo adaptive mutations. #popgen #evolbiol

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology@biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · last yr.

A Bayesian filtering method for estimating the fitness effects of nascent adaptive mutations https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.29.646120v1