Very honored to get this year's Ned K Johnson Award! 🐦‍⬛ Really excited for the AOS meeting this year, like always

American Ornithological Society@amornith.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Congratulations to the 2026 AOS Early-career Award winners! Our 2026 James G. Cooper Award winners are Drs Devon DeRaad & Fengyi Guo. This year, the AOS awarded a Ned K Johnson Award to Dr Olivia M. Smith. These awardees will deliver plenary talks at #AOS26. americanornithology.org/aos-announce...

Excited for the lab to start work on bird use of prairie strips and how they impact ecosystem (dis)services! 📷: Undergraduate student researcher Mikayla Datka looking for birds in the KBS LTER.

All 220 nestboxes are up! The photo features #219 and #220. So many people have been involved -- grateful to them all! (esp. RCY!) Excited to embark on many scientific adventures with the boxes.

Three of five weekends of nestbox installations down! 58% of 220 nestboxes in. One stop today was MSU's Detroit Partnership for Food, Learning and Innovation. Very excited to be working with MSU's first urban ag center!

We've now installed over a third of the 220 nestboxes for our new experiment! It's been cold with a ton of snow, but it's still been a fun time!

My lab is installing 220 nestboxes on 30 farms across mid-Michigan! Nestbox-using birds like bluebirds can eat a lot of insects -- thousands of caterpillars for one brood. We're interested in how much this can benefit organic farmers trying to use natural means to control pest insects

MSU EEB Program monthly birding Pretty good turnout of about 20 people, even in 10 degree weather!

Extra time on exams has become the default accommodation in higher ed—but evidence suggests it often doesn’t help anyone: not students “gaming the system,” and more concerningly, often not students with disabilities either. Read our opinion piece here: url-shortener.me/8R70

Extra Time on Tests Is Often Waste of Time (opinion)

Extra time on a well-designed college exam rarely benefits anyone.

insidehighered.com

Excited to see continued coverage of our recent article on how American kestrels can improve food safety and reduce crop damage on cherry farms: insideclimatenews.org/news/2201202...

On Michigan Cherry Farms, Small Falcons Are Improving Food Safety - Inside Climate News

Kestrels are already abundant on local cherry farms, but a new study suggests their presence might lower the risk of food-borne illnesses caused by pathogens from other birds.

insideclimatenews.org

MSU EEB birding group (eeBirding) January outing. Surprisingly high turnout for the holiday and temps! Best findings were 4 Northern Pintail.

Really cool press release featuring our recent paper, describing the benefits of predators to agricultural production: www.vox.com/climate/4711...

The fascinating link between cherry pie and this bird

Meet the unpaid animal laborers who help safeguard our food.

vox.com

🍒🪶Excited for our new article to come out in @jappliedecology.bsky.social We show that falcons attracted to orchards using nestboxes reduce food safety risks and crop damage from wild birds. besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Falcons reduce pre‐harvest food safety risks and crop damage from wild birds

In the absence of American kestrels, there are more birds in orchards. This leads to increased crop damage and more bird faecal contamination.

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

September birding with the MSU EEB Community. This is now the 5th year of me running this group!

Monthly MSU EEB Program birding We're just getting into migration, so it wasn't the most exciting birding, but we did see about 20 wood ducks.

Really excited for the Smith BIRDS Lab to be starting up our first large research project! We're surveying small-scale diversified, organic farms in urban and rural areas to examine tradeoffs of having songbirds on farms in different contexts. 📸 Rachel Fredrickson looking for birds at Growing Hope

The MSU EEB Program's monthly birding trip today was packed! This month, we opened up our birding group to the public as part of a warbler ID learning series co-hosted with the Michigan State Bird Observatory and Capital Area Audubon Society. We had somewhere around 40 birders join us!

We are excited to share our new article just out in @natureecoevo.bsky.social 🎉 “Widespread lack of article accessibility policies among ecology and evolution journals” rdcu.be/ejFQH

Widespread lack of article accessibility policies among ecology and evolution journals

Nature Ecology & Evolution - An analysis of manuscript preparation guidelines across 541 ecology and evolution journals reveals widespread paucity in guidelines intended to make journal...

rdcu.be

Super fun morning birding with the MSU EEB community! This month we joined up with the Capital Area Audubon Society to explore MSU's Corey Marsh Ecological Research Center. Fun group and great birds!

Super excited for you to come work with @lars-brudvig.bsky.social and me!

nicole lussier@biologybynicole.bsky.social · last yr.

Officially accepted the Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship position in EEB at Michigan State University with @lars-brudvig.bsky.social and @oliviamsmith.bsky.social! I’ll be continuing work on restoration and seed dispersal interactions back at FCAT in the Chocó and I couldn’t be more excited! 🥳

Just got word that I landed my first grant as a #NewPI! 🎉 It's $50k—not huge, but a big milestone in my faculty career!

Our paper is out, and it is distressing. Rapid butterfly declines across the United States during the 21st century | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Rapid butterfly declines across the United States during the 21st century

Numerous declines have been documented across insect groups, and the potential consequences of insect losses are dire. Butterflies are the most surveyed insect taxa, yet analyses have been limited in ...

science.org

March birding with the MSU EEB community. We got a surprise snow on top of cold/wind, but we still had a great time. We found a bald eagle while leaving the parking lot, a pileated woodpecker, and a rough-legged hawk. Pretty good winter birding, esp. for a park in the middle of town!

Another great birding event with the MSU EEB community! Early February is challenging to find many bird species, so we were pleased with having seen 15. Our two American Black Ducks were my favorites.

There are many ways to get involved w/ the @kbslter.bsky.social this summer & beyond! #RET for #K12 teachers - 8 weeks w/ us this summer! #REU undergraduate positions to work w/ @kelloggbiostn.bsky.social labs! & a new KBS Director & Ecosystems Ecologist! lter.kbs.msu.edu/get-involved...

JOB OPENINGS | KBS LTER

Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU): Applications are open for Summer Undergraduate Programs at the Kellogg Biological Station! If you are looking for research experience in the field or in…

lter.kbs.msu.edu

So excited to see our paper led by @austinrspence.bsky.social out in @jappliedecology.bsky.social! We show most birds present low food-safety risks, but E. coli survives longer in big poops produced by big birds (a thread) besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

First grant submitted as a new PI! ✅

I had a great time birding with my MSU birding group even if the "feels like" temp was 0 F! We found the Short-eared Owls we were looking for. You know, the temp wasn't too bad with 3 pairs of pants, a snow suit designed for snowmobiling, heated gloves, "HotHands" hand warmers, a mask, etc.