Gopal Murali

Effects of Future Climate Extreme Heat Events and Land Use Changes on Land Vertebrates Our study demonstrates how the combined effects of extreme heat events resulting from climate change and land-use change may impact land vertebrates worldwide by 2100. Using global projections across...

Effects of future climate extreme heat events and land use changes on land vertebrates

"By [2100], ... 7895 species are expected to face extreme heat events and/or unsuitable land use changes across their entire range, & thus potentially go globally extinct"

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Rethinking desert definitions: Bridging the gap between science, policy, and conservation - Ambio Deserts are often misperceived as desolate, non-productive landscapes. This perception contributes to the misuse of terms like ‘semiarid’ and ‘desertification’, creating ambiguity in how deserts are d...

New publication:
Rethinking desert definitions: Bridging the gap between science, policy, and conservation

Open access link: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Distribution of variables used in the calculation of Proactive Conservation Index (PCI) for six species of land vertebrates. Values in spider plots were scaled between 0 and 1. Values on the upper part of each photograph indicate our assigned PCI scores (inner, values closer to 1 indicate a higher conservation priority, relative to other species in the same class), and their IUCN Red List categories (outer, LC, Least Concern; CR, Critically Endangered; DD, Data Deficient; NE, Non-Evaluated). To keep the area of spider plots proportional to PCI scores, the authors have inverted variables that reduce PCI score, and changed their names here accordingly: inverted brood size is named “Reproductive Restriction,” inverted range size is named “Range Restriction,” and inverted protected range is named “Unprotected Range.” Cyrtodactylus metropolis photograph provided by L. Lee Grismer, Latonia nigriventer image by UR, all other photographs obtained from Wikimedia Commons (authors: Momofelit, Ólafur Larsen, Charles Lam, Omid Mozaffari).

Human-induced pressures are expected to intensify this century. @uriroll.bsky.social &co present #ProactiveConservationIndex, a new tool for #conservation prioritization regarding future threats for any group of species, & apply it to all terrestrial #vertebrates @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/3WVRpRH

Evolutionary consequences of extreme climate events Simon Baeckens and Colin Donihue review case studies of rapid evolutionary change in response to extreme climate events and sketch a framework for future studies in the rapidly changing climate of the...

Extreme climate events can catalyze rapid evolutionary change! in our new Current Biology (@currentbiology.bsky.social) piece, Colin and I argue it’s time to study their evolutionary consequences systematically — beyond opportunistic observations. www.cell.com/current-biol...

Congratulations!!🥳

Stronger El Niños reduce tropical forest arthropod diversity and function - Nature Time-series data from tropical forests tracking weather and declines in arthropod diversity and function show that fluctuations in species were largely dependent on their El Niño sensitivity and ecological specialization.

Nature research paper: Stronger El Niños reduce tropical forest arthropod diversity and function

go.nature.com/40WEeCG

A new time tree of birds reveals the interplay between dispersal, geographic range size, and diversification Flight may affect the dispersal and evolution of birds. Using a new evolutionary tree, Claramunt et al. find that efficient fliers have broader geographic ranges, and speciation reduces range size, bu...

🫠. A tree came out today with 9,072 bird species, all placements based on actual DNA. It looks like they used eBird 2022 taxonomy; 10,096 were recognized back then. That means these folks just dropped (molecularly well informed) knowledge on 83% of the world's birds.

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Electroreception in treehoppers: How extreme morphologies can increase electrical sensitivity | PNAS The link between form and function of an organism’s morphology is usually apparent or intuitive. However, some clades of organisms show remarkable ...

Why do treehoppers look so weird?! Our latest paper, out this week in @pnas.org, suggests a perhaps unexpected reason - static electricity ⚡ We show that treehoppers can detect the electrostatic cues of predators and that their crazy shapes may boost their electrosensitivity! doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

a figure from the linked paper, showing size global maps and lots of strong geographic gradients

Ecology and Biogeography of Sexual Size Dimorphism in Squamates, Liang et al., GEB

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

maybe my favorite paper I've written, I have a synthesis out today early access in @asn-amnat.bsky.social today that attempts to answer a simple but slippery question: what is an elevational range? doi.org/10.1086/737130

bird

NEW SCIENCE! 🚨🚨🚨🧪🪶🌐
Our paper is now online at @natecoevo.nature.com! “Geographic redistributions are insufficient to mitigate exposure to climate change in North American birds”. We know birds are moving north with climate change, but what are the consequences?
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Quantitatively Testing Predictions From Mechanistic Models: A Case Study for Island Biodiversity A key test of an ecological model is whether it can quantitatively predict unseen aspects of the data not used in model fitting. Here, we test whether a model fitted only to island alpha diversity ca....

“observed patterns of island biodiversity … demonstrate that neutral models can make accurate predictions of higher-order diversity statistics. “ onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1... 🧪🌐

Photo of Dan Janzen holding a caterpillar - image from Guardian article where the photo credit reads: Daniel Janzen has been monitoring insects since the 1970s in Costa Rica’s Guanacaste conservation area. He says he has seen biodiversity crash even in pristine environments. Photograph: P Greenfield/Guardian

Photo of Winnie Hallwachs and Dan Janzen in ACG from Guardian article where the photo credit reads, Janzen and Hallwachs say that while the lack of insects in areas with heavy pesticide use is well documented, the collapse in protected areas is relatively new. Photograph: P Greenfield/Guardian

Photo of light sheet collecting insects in 1984. Photo credit in Guardian article reads, A light trap set up by Daniel Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs two weeks after the beginning of the rainy season in 1984 and at the same period in 2019

Photo of light sheet collecting insects in 2019. Photo credit in Guardian article reads, A light trap set up by Daniel Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs two weeks after the beginning of the rainy season in 1984 and at the same period in 2019

“There’s just no moths on that sheet.” @tessairini.bsky.social writes in the @theguardian.com about #InsectDecline with #DanJanzen, #WinnieHallwachs and the caterpillars of the Area de Conservacion Guanacaste #ACG in #CostaRica @gdfcf.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Amazon rainforest adjusts to long-term experimental drought - Nature Ecology & Evolution Drought is a growing issue in tropical rainforests. Here, the authors revisit a long-term rainfall manipulation experiment in the Amazon to show that tree mortality was followed by community-level adj...

Amazon rainforest adjusts to long-term experimental drought ..."After elevated tree mortality during the first 15 years, ecosystem-level structural changes resulted in the remaining trees no longer experiencing drought stress." 🧪🌐🌾
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The diffused evolutionary dynamics of morphological novelty | PNAS Rates of evolution are fundamental to understand the processes that shaped the history of life. The predominant view holds that high rates of pheno...

Happy to share my new article on how morphological diversification proceeds during evolutionary radiations: "The diffused evolutionary dynamics of morphological novelty" www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 🧵 1/12

The global human impact on biodiversity - Nature Key measures of biodiversity were quantified and found to be affected by human pressures that shifted community composition and decreased local diversity across terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecos...

Human pressures reshape biodiversity, but not always in expected ways. No global biotic homogenization found. Impacts vary by threat, taxa, and scale. #LandUse #Overexploitation #Pollution #ClimateChange #Invasives
👉Conservation must get specific
#KnowYourPressure #TailorYourStrategy #BendTheCurve

Exciting news! @wcratcliff.bsky.social and I published an essay last week in @nature.com reviewing the substantial contributions of 'long-term' studies to evolutionary biology
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

1/n

Welp this is horrifying. These researchers quantified the "stratigraphy" of plastic waste used in Common Coot nests. Using expiration dates, they found one nest that contained 635 (!!!) pieces of trash, including plastic dating back to 1991.

esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

New paper in @nature.com led by @patricepottier.bsky.social! We demonstrated global vulnerability of amphibians to warming, threatening 10% of >5,000 species examined. How did we do it? See thread🧵

Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The global distribution patterns of alien vertebrate richness in mountains Nature Communications - Among contemporary threats to mountain biodiversity, biological invasions have been understudied. This large-scale synthesis on alien vertebrates in global mountains delves...

📢Our new paper on alien vertebrates in the world's mountains is now out @naturecomms.bsky.social. Using data on 700+ spp across ~3,000 mountains we explore their distribution patterns,flows across realms, presence in protected areas, and the factors driving these trends.
🐟🐸🦎🦜🦝⛰️
👉 rdcu.be/ebidu

Our study on Duttaphrynus melanostictus evolution published in Nature Communication. We showed how these toads likely spread across the Indian Ocean via human transport, from ancient trade routes to modern shipping. 🌍🐸
@chrisdufresnes.bsky.social
@naturecomms.bsky.social
@comeniusuni.bsky.social

Climate change and the cost-of-living squeeze in desert lizards Climate warming can induce a cost-of-living “squeeze” in ectotherms by increasing energetic expenditures while reducing foraging gains. We used biophysical models (validated by 2685 field observations...

The late Eric Pianka made thousands of observations of desert lizard body temperature and activity. We used them to test biophysical models of their cost of living and projected the models to past and future climates in Africa and Australia #unimelb #ARC @science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Evolution of sexual size dimorphism in tetrapods is driven by varying patterns of sex-specific selection on size - Nature Ecology & Evolution A phylogenetic comparative analysis of male and female body size across tetrapods globally shows that directional change in size is usually greater in males but reveals different underlying mechanisms...

I'm very happy to announce I just published a paper from my post doc with Gavin Thomas in @natureecoevo.bsky.social! So if you're interested in #macroevolution, #phylogenetics and sexual size dimorphism (SSD), strap in

doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Extreme lead tolerance in an urban lizard Lead (Pb) is an extremely toxic heavy metal pollutant pervasive in many environments with serious health consequences for humans and wildlife. Identifying organisms that can serve as biomonitors of le...

New work from the lab! Annelise Blanchette found that brown anole lizards may be the most lead (pb) tolerant vertebrate known to date by integrating physiological studies of field and lab exposed animals and transcriptomics #urbanecology #ecotox #anolis 🦎 1/n

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🌍🌱 It’s often believed that plant communities with greater phylogenetic diversity also have higher functional diversity. In other words, the more evolutionary lineages present, the greater the range of traits. But is this always true?

Exposure and Sensitivity of Terrestrial Vertebrates to Biological Invasions Worldwide To reach the COP 15 objective of diminishing the impacts of biological invasions on native biota, one needs to identify the most vulnerable areas to this threat for prioritizing conservation actions.....

🚨Paper out! I am very proud to announce the publication of my very last #PhD article, exploring the vulnerability of terrestrial #vertebrates to #invasivespecies.
Check the paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
With C. Bellard @celinebellard.bsky.social, B. Leroy, and G. Latombe

A photo of the Sonoran Desert at night with a saguaro cactus in the foreground with the top glowing from the moonlight. A field of stars is visible in the sky behind the cactus.

Come join us in Tucson!! I am excited to announce a tenure track faculty position on the genomics of resilience
@uofa-eeb.bsky.social! Read more about the position in the updated link below! We will begin reviewing applications on December 9! arizona.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

A bit of bling helps insects dazzle their predators Beyond just looking stunning, shininess may help insects confuse predators to avoid being eaten, finds a University of Melbourne study

Why are so many bugs shiny? New experiments with jumping spiders suggest the bling is visually confusing! Story also includes disco balls and Harry Styles. For Reasons 😆🧪 pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/a-b...

The world has to smell the climate change coffee The world is apparently unaware of the importance of climate change. According to the IMF, world GDP is about $110 trillion per annum: Yesterday, COP 29 agreed to provide assistance of £300 billio...

The world has to smell the climate change coffee www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/11... Climate change is real, and progressing very fast. Despite that COP29 offered less than 0.3% of world GDP to emerging economies to help them address the problems that the developed world created.

Loss of Earth’s old, wise, and large animals Earth’s old animals are in decline. Despite this, emerging research is revealing the vital contributions of older individuals to cultural transmission, population dynamics, and ecosystem processes and...

First post here.
I’ll unpack our new paper @science.org highlighting the loss of old animals and calling for ‘longevity conservation’

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...