Are Australia's endangered plant species more likely to go extinct from climate change? Here is a Plant ecophysiology PhD opportunity in sunny South Australia, open to both domestic and international applicants. Contact @ilainematos.bsky.social (ilaine.matos@adelaide.edu.au) for further details.

What a difference a year makes! Nearly 200 mm of late summer rain at Fowlers Gap and our DRAGNet plots are unrecognisable. "Just add rain" as Garry says. Tusind tak to Liv Portmann and Peyton Hampel for their help - the biomass harvesting is off the charts! @loveyouleafyou.bsky.social

Out in @science.org this week. Soils drive convergence in the regulation of vascular tension in land plants. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #plantscience #ecophysiology

Soils drive convergence in the regulation of vascular tension in land plants

Terrestrial vascular plants operate under negative water potential, which results in hydraulic tension in the vascular system. Vascular tension varies with transpiration and soil drying and is regulat...

science.org

How do alpine plants respond to warming?Intraspecific trait shifts depend on precipitation and growth form, with stronger responses in forbs than graminoids. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @joshua-erkelenz.bsky.social @sonyageange.bsky.social @joe-atkinson.bsky.social @vvandvik.bsky.social

Intraspecific Functional Trait Responses to Experimental Warming Vary With Precipitation and Growth Form

We assessed the intraspecific functional trait response of 17 alpine plant species to experimental warming across a precipitation gradient. Warming consistently increased plant height. In contrast, t...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

✨ PhD opportunity studying drought and heatwave effects on threatened plants ✨🔥 Funded by an ARC DECRA awarded to the amazing Dr Ilaíne Matos and co-supervised by Dr Sami Rifai and me! Limited by the character limit here, so please see the attached flyer for all the details - please share widely!

Excited to share that my first PhD chapter just got published in @animalecology.bsky.social! You can check it out here: doi.org/10.1111/1365.... Based on fieldwork in the beautiful Waterberg Biosphere Reserve in South Africa, we show that.. (1/3)

Finished up the annual sampling and a spray treatment for @joe-atkinson.bsky.social and I @bugnet.bsky.social sites out at Fowlers Gap. Blue skies and red earth always a great backdrop for fieldwork

A great day out yesteday planting a diverse mix of tubestock with a bunch of other keen volunteers for the BioR planting festival at Frahns Farm! We were lucky to get a beautiful day, as the cold and rain arrives this week. Good luck little seedlings!

Congratulations to @jradford-smith.bsky.social for making the cover of @ecography.bsky.social with his stunning photo of subtropical #rainforest at Mt Glorious, less than an hour from Brisbane in beautiful Queensland (1 of 2).

The rapid assessments accurately identified species as threatened in 84% of cases despite much less time and data per species. Importantly they were accurate in identifying Critically Endangered species (67%) and Endangered species (54%). 2/4

New paper out! After the 2019-2020 #fires in Australia our team undertook #IUCN Red List assessments of fire affected #plant species, to handle the volume we undertook paired rapid and full assessments and compared their accuracy 1/4 doi.org/10.1016/j.bi...

Please share. We are hiring domestic/international #PhD students to work on citizen science, insect migration/conservation at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. If interested, please email me. You can find more about our research interests here. shawanchowdhury.com.

📢 New publication 'Do trait–growth relationships vary with plant age in fire-prone heathland #shrubs?' by Lily Dun, Elizabeth Wenk, Daniel Falster, Mark Westoby and Ian Wright in Journal of Ecology 🧪 doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Do trait–growth relationships vary with plant age in fire‐prone heathland shrubs?

We demonstrate that key functional traits undergo shifts in their relationship with growth as plants mature. Therefore, it will be valuable to shift our understanding of plant strategies away from th...

doi.org

🌱 New paper in @funecology.bsky.social examines how roots drive the growth of juvenile grasses in response to manipulated soil moisture doi.org/10.1111/1365... Led by SAM AHLER (INSTAAR+EBIO), the team's results improve understanding of grass population dynamics & help guide grassland restoration

Rooting for the little guy: Below‐ground traits predict juvenile grass demography in microsites

Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

doi.org

Over the moon to say today is my first day as a Lecturer in Botany at the University of Adelaide. I am character limited so will just be brief other than to say how grateful I am for the amazing support and encouragement I have received from mentors and collaborators. Can't wait to get started!

The third part of my PhD work is now out on Early View in @ecography.bsky.social, available #OpenAccess. 🌐🐚 We were interested in how macroecological patterns recreated from OBIS data might differ from those seen in the field and across methods - nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Regional databases demonstrate macroecological patterns less clearly than systematically collected field data

The analysis of macroecological patterns has necessitated the use of large, composite datasets recording local-scale species occurrences distributed across the globe. These datasets, however, have va....

nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Very happy to also say that New Scientist covered our paper last week too - www.newscientist.com/article/2472... With some nice comments from overseas colleagues too 🌐🌿🦬🌍

More than half of life on Earth experiencing unprecedented conditions

An analysis of changes to global ecosystems has revealed that almost nowhere is untouched by the influence of humanity, with more than 50 per cent of the planet's land mass experiencing "novel" condit...

newscientist.com

Matt Kerr@mattkerr.bsky.social · last yr.

Read our new study on mapping ecologically novel conditions - out now in Nature Ecology and Evolution 🌍🦬🌿 Headline finding is that 58% of the biosphere is experiencing highly novel conditions, but nowhere was low - we really are living in a novel world.

The #biosphere is changing: Check our global mapping of ecological novelty in wild #ecosystems (due to #climatechange, #defaunation & floristic disruption) - just out in @natureecoevo.bsky.social ♨️🐘🌿🌐 Big thx to @mattkerr.bsky.social for the huge effort! #novelecosystems #invasivespecies #megafauna

ECONOVO - DNRF Center of Excellence@econovoau.bsky.social · last yr.

1/6 Paper Alert📢📢📢 New publication from #ECONOVO on the widespread ecological novelty across the terrestrial biosphere🌱 Read the article here: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Key take homes below👇

Read our new study on mapping ecologically novel conditions - out now in Nature Ecology and Evolution 🌍🦬🌿 Headline finding is that 58% of the biosphere is experiencing highly novel conditions, but nowhere was low - we really are living in a novel world.

ECONOVO - DNRF Center of Excellence@econovoau.bsky.social · last yr.

1/6 Paper Alert📢📢📢 New publication from #ECONOVO on the widespread ecological novelty across the terrestrial biosphere🌱 Read the article here: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Key take homes below👇

1/6 Paper Alert📢📢📢 New publication from #ECONOVO on the widespread ecological novelty across the terrestrial biosphere🌱 Read the article here: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Key take homes below👇

Widespread ecological novelty across the terrestrial biosphere - Nature Ecology & Evolution

Even outside urban and agricultural areas, ecosystems are vastly transformed as a result of human activities. Here the authors map patterns in climate change, defaunation and floristic disruption to q...

nature.com

Interesting paper on the potential complex impacts of varroa mites on Australian plants. Honey bees can promote fragmented populations of river red gums (Eucalyptus camaldulensis), one example of a +ve interaction potentially threatened. Check out Tom's thread and get involved in the iNat project!

Tom Le Breton@tomlebreton.bsky.social · last yr.

Varroa mite arriving in Australia has been a big worry for agriculture and bee keeping but it will also result in a massive decline in feral honeybee populations. This will affect many native plant species visited by honeybees, our new paper aimed to understand what those effects might be 1/5

New paper! How does age affect plant trait-growth relationship? Does how you measure growth matter? 🌱📏Big thank you to @ianjwright.bsky.social for giving me the opportunity to lead this when I was just a research assistant. doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Do trait–growth relationships vary with plant age in fire‐prone heathland shrubs?

We demonstrate that key functional traits undergo shifts in their relationship with growth as plants mature. Therefore, it will be valuable to shift our understanding of plant strategies away from th...

doi.org

#ECONOVOStories 🌍✨ @joe-atkinson.bsky.social, @mattkerr.bsky.social, @cmlmagneville.bsky.social, and @seh-pang.bsky.social attended the BES Annual Meeting 2024, sharing insights on from their research at ECONOVO! #ECONOVO #Ecology #Biodiversity #AarhusUniversity #BritishEcologicalSociety

The EcoEvo Many Analysts project is out! Was great to be a part of this project expertly led by a cracking team. Really important results, showing how variable analytical decisions drastically affect study outcomes, the flow on to perceived quality during peer-review, and more! rdcu.be/d8V4L

This Registered Report masterpiece just dropped at BMC Biology, brilliantly led by a great team with the help of 300+ analysts & reviewers Same question, same data: go figure! tl;dr: Substantial heterogeneity among results comes from differences among analytical choices 🔗 doi.org/10.1186/s129...

The first many-analysts study in ecology is finally published! 🥳🙌 300+ coauthors and 5+ years, this was a massive effort by @elliotgould.bsky.social Hannah Fraser Tim Parker and co. Open access 👉 bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

Embarrassing :( Sweden begins wolf hunt as it aims to halve endangered animal’s population 🐺 www.theguardian.com/environment/... 🐺 #wolf #unsustainablehunting #carnivore

Sweden begins wolf hunt as it aims to halve endangered animal’s population

Five entire families can be killed, totalling 30 wolves, in move campaigners say is illegal under EU law

theguardian.com

Non-White scientists appear on fewer editorial boards, spend more time under review, and receive fewer citations. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Non-White scientists appear on fewer editorial boards, spend more time under review, and receive fewer citations | PNAS

Disparities continue to pose major challenges in various aspects of science. One such aspect is editorial board composition, which has been shown t...

pnas.org

🔥 in Ecology Letters 🔥 #Traits describing hydraulic strategies and deciduousness explain the occurrence trends of almost 300 #rainforest #tree species across a steep rainfall gradient in Australia. #FunctionalTraits dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele....

A Functional Basis for the Assembly of Australian Subtropical Rainforest Tree Communities

We surveyed rainforest tree communities across the Australian subtropics (spanning 600 to 2500 mm rainfall year−1) and measured functional traits on 285 (91%) of all recorded species. Hydraulic strat....

dx.doi.org

Grassland restorations must better foster forbs to facilitate high biodiversity Check out @ashishnerlekar.bsky.social's recent call for "forb-centric" grassland restoration Message if you lack access and would like to a copy onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Grassland restorations must better foster forbs to facilitate high biodiversity

Grassland restoration efforts typically aim to recover lost biodiversity, guided by biologically diverse old-growth grasslands as a benchmark. In most old-growth grasslands, forbs greatly outnumber g...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com