🦞 New (our) paper! 🌊🛰️ A simple trophic transfer index predicts spiny lobster fishery dynamics is now online in Comms Earth & Environment. It started with a practical management question: Why has Bermuda's spiny lobster fishery declined so dramatically over the last decade? doi.org/10.1038/s432...

Hey #ICRS2026 folks! If you want to learn more about how the 4th Global Bleaching Event impacted coral reefs throughout the Red Sea, then you should come and see my talk this Thursday at 14:00 in Room 505 🪸 🐠 🌊 🌞 "Unprecedented thermal stress and bleaching of Red Sea coral reefs"

#ICRS2026 🪸🐠Fantastic reminder of the power of inter generational knowledge and the value of connection to ancestry and nature to focus conservation efforts. Ancestral codified knowledge in many forms has value & insight of great power for how we consider conservation. - Dan Hikuroa

Who’s in Auckland for #ICRS2026? Send me a message if you want to meet up or explore!

🧵1/11 New paper alert! One of 2 out today from #NearLab. Tunas are basically the superheroes of the ocean — warm-blooded, massive, and blazing fast. But HOW did they get that way? A new study just cracked open 50+ million years of evolutionary history. Let's dive in. 🐟⬇️

CryptoVision "Integrating deep learning, biological hierarchies, and high-resolution imagery to create a new identification tool for cryptic coral reef fishes" Reginato & Brandl 2026 @plos.org #ichthyology #OA journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Integrating deep learning, biological hierarchies, and high-resolution imagery to create a new identification tool for cryptic coral reef fishes

Life on Earth has evolved into a staggering diversity of species, most of which still remain undiscovered, unrecognized, or unmonitored. As our ocean’s richest biodiversity hotspot, coral reefs harbor...

journals.plos.org

🚨 Paper Alert! New iMARES_group study, co-authored by Marta Coll, reveals how global climate signals can help predict marine productivity and fisheries in West Africa 🌍🐟 👉 Published in Progress in Oceanography: www.sciencedirect.co... 🧵👇 Thread ICM-CSIC

🦤🌐🧪 Where do macroalgae recruit on coral reefs? Our study on the #GBR finds that macroalgal beds are recruitment hubs for Sargassum but also suppress other taxa. Read more in our new #MEPS paper! bit.ly/meps15119

This might be the best idea for a special issue ever. Did you attempt an ecological intervention that failed or went catastrophically wrong? Let's hear about it and learn from it. 🌏🧪🌲🌳🌐

Ecol. Solutions & Evidence | Applied Ecol. Resources@aer-ese-bes.bsky.social · 4mo ago

We're accepting proposals for our Special Feature! We invite scientists and practitioners to share experiences from management projects that didn't go to plan, but still provided important insights into how best to manage ecosystems and species🌱 ⏰Submit by 30th April More here👇 buff.ly/EXXBFsJ

Trait-based approaches to restoration ecology: Synthesizing insights from diverse systems 🌎🌐🧪 esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Trait‐based approaches to restoration ecology: Synthesizing insights from diverse systems

Under accelerating global change, trait-based approaches are emerging as essential tools in the ecological restoration toolbox. Where restoration has traditionally focused on the recovery of focal sp...

esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

🐠 Which reef fishes yield reliable #SDMs? Analysing 1900+ species, this study shows #modelperformance mostly depends on latitude, coastal proximity and environmental match, offering a framework to predict reliability and improve #marinebiodiversity assessments. 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/ddi....

In honor of Women’s History Month, here’s a thread about women who discover Caribbean reef history. (All examples are in my book, Reefs of Time, published by @princetonupress.bsky.social) #WomensHistoryMonth #marinelife #coralreef #ocean #ecology #geoscience #scicomm #paleo #booksky

Another successful round of coral reef surveys in the northern Red Sea. 🌊 I had a blast further contributing to Saudi Arabia’s coral reef monitoring program and building our knowledge of the country’s reefs 🪸

”Comprehensive understanding of benthic ecology, essential for robust marine management, reliable numerical analysis, and taxonomic consistency, cannot be achieved without the continuity provided by long-term data”. 🌐 Read more: Birchenough et al., 2026, doi.org/10.1093/ices...

The importance of long-time series of benthic data for science and management

Abstract. Benthic organisms are important ecological receptors, playing fundamental roles across seafloor ecosystems, delivering some of the most important

doi.org

Space-for-time studies of land-use change rely on a baseline. But what if that baseline has already changed? In our new Ecography paper we show this can underestimate biodiversity loss. 🐦📉🧵(1/9) nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Shifting baselines increase the risk of misinterpreting biodiversity trends

Ecological studies quantifying the impact of land-use change on biodiversity may be sensitive to the choice of reference points – or baselines – particularly when sampling across human land-use gradi...

nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Our new paper is now out showing how time perception in animals is linked to their ecology. Using data from 237 species we show temporal perception is faster in species that fly and pursuit predators www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🌐

Pace of ecology drives the tempo of visual perception across the animal kingdom

Nature Ecology & Evolution - Using phylogenetic comparative methods across 237 species from disparate phyla, the authors show that species with fast-paced ecologies have higher temporal...

nature.com

New paper out examining fish food web degradation in the Anthropocene. We show the structure of aquatic food webs are changing-- even when species richness doesn’t. These signals are strongly associated with decreases in body size within fish communities. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🌐🐠🐡🦈🐟

Degradation of fish food webs in the Anthropocene

The decrease in body size driven by the selective species turnover is widely altering fish food web topology and function.

science.org

The food chains on modern Caribbean coral reefs may have shortened by up to 70% compared with those on their prehistoric counterparts, according to research in Nature. The findings suggest that modern reefs could be increasingly vulnerable to external stressors and ecosystem collapse. 🌍 🧪

Fossil isotope evidence for trophic simplification on modern Caribbean reefs - Nature

Using nitrogen isotopes from ancient and modern fish otoliths and corals, the study shows Caribbean reef food webs are now 60–70% shorter and functionally less diverse, indicating human-driven trophic simplification and increased risk of collapse.

go.nature.com

This is a type of paper I really like: Let's take something "everyone knows" (that coral reefs are in oligotrophic waters) and just check if it holds (it doesn't). 🧪🌊 Link: www.cell.com/current-biol...

Our paper describing a new species of Pascua goby from the Coral Sea has been selected as en Editors Choice Article in Fishes. Apart from being fabulous, these fish are cool because they show that the genus has two groups of species separated by >5000km of the Pacific! www.mdpi.com/3483974 #fishes

Weak trophic position–body mass relationships undermine simple size-spectrum models for coral reefs 🦑🧪 royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

JOIN OUR Career Development, Professional Networking and Collaboration Initiative! Join us here: www.thecoralreefresearchhub.com #coralreefs #coralresearch #coral #networking #careers #job #science #jobopportunities #marinescience #coralreefecology #marinebiology

** PAPER ALERT ** The future of #coralreefs does not have to be doom & gloom. Just out in npj Ocean Sustainability, we imagine coral reef futures offering alternatives aspiring to sustainability and equity for coral reefs. Read the open access paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s44...

LSATs: Same name, different stressors. While “the LSATs” are a stressful exam for law school applicants, these LSATs—long sediment-laden algal turfs—are a major stressor for Florida’s coral reefs. More on the turf trap and next steps for a coral recovery rut: www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-stor...

royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article...

Fossil otolith assemblages reveal millennial-scale changes in reef fish biomass and trophic structure across the Isthmus of Panama

Abstract. Human activities have disrupted food webs across ecosystems, but opportunities to quantify pre-impact baselines are rare. Here, we present a nove

royalsocietypublishing.org

The Regenerative #BlueEconomy - treating ocean health and economic development as compatible. One of our grand challenges is working to keep the Blue Acceleration aligned with healthy and functioning oceans. Great intro by @carlosduartephd.bsky.social

Over the past 250 million years, periods when coral reef growth has peaked have coincided with big rises in sea temperatures

Coral reefs have fuelled severe global warming in Earth's past

Over the past 250 million years, periods when coral reef growth has peaked have coincided with big rises in sea temperatures

newscientist.com

1. Some good news at last. This week’s column is about the amazing thing a couple of us stumbled into three years ago, which we’ve now developed into a global research programme. It doesn’t change everything, of course, but it could help change quite a lot. + 🧵 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Over a pint in Oxford, we may have stumbled upon the holy grail of agriculture | George Monbiot

I knew that a revolution in our understanding of soil could change the world. Then came a eureka moment – and the birth of the Earth Rover Program, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

theguardian.com

When we think about fish large enough to attack people, sharks are usually what comes to mind. However, there is one fish in the ocean that even most sharks would choose to leave alone. And that is the goliath grouper, a fitting choice for #FishOfTheWeek 1/6

Check out our latest publication from the #FREE group at #CESAB taking a functional and trait perspective on classic metapopulation ecology led by @nmouquet.bsky.social 🧪🌐

Nicolas Mouquet@nmouquet.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Spatial Insurance of Distinct Ecological Functions Communities can act as functional sources and sustain rare ecological roles across space. We reveal patterns of functional vulnerability for plants and birds Check out our Perspective in Ecol Lett 👉 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... 🌐🌍🦤🪴🍁🧪