Dr Simon Goodman

Optical illusion of a woman bent over some papers. Her sunglasses are pushed up and she is wearing a hair band so the top of her head looks exactly like a Muppet face

Sorry I know the world is in a terrible fix but I've been laughing at this for ten minutes now

MitoNGS: an online platform to analyze fish metabarcoding data in high resolution Abstract. Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding has become a powerful tool for assessing fish biodiversity in aquatic ecosystems. However, accurate specie

Zhu, @susumu31.bsky.social et al. present MitoNGS, a platform designed for high-resolution analysis of fish metabarcoding data that allows for fish detection, biodiversity monitoring, conservation research, and bioresource management.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msag046

#evobio #molbio

Shark Conservation Fund's 2026 Small #OceanGrants 💶🌊
🦈 up to $25,000
🦈 management reforms, protection of habitats, endemic shark & ray species.
🦈 Deadline 31 March
More info ➡️ bit.ly/4spMMNG #OceanOptimism
@whysharksmatter.bsky.social @elasmoproject.bsky.social @sharkcolin.bsky.social @cms.int

Evaluating machine learning models for multi-species wildlife detection and identification on remote sensed nadir imagery in South African savanna vist.ly/4txub #Ungulates #MachineLearning #RemoteSensing

🌊💧 Spotlight on marine and freshwater monitoring at #BioMonWeek26!
Are you working on eDNA, invasive alien species, habitats, or any of the many topics covered in our contributed sessions? Submit an abstract and bring your work to the European stage!
Explore the full programme: www.biomonweek.eu

MPAs only partly offset decades of human impacts on tropical reefs

Protecting more while continuing business as usual will just slow the decline 🐟📉 !

Check our latest paper in @natecoevo.nature.com with @uflandrin.bsky.social on 2800+ reefs & ~1700 🐠 species

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🌐🧪🌍🦤🦑

Rethinking the 30 by 30 target to ensure the well-being of small-scale fishing communities Diedrich et al. examine the implications of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s area-based marine conservation target for small-scale fishing communities, drawing on their collective knowledge of...

"...principles and a roadmap to guide decision-makers tasked with implementing marine area-based conservation in determining whether, where, and how these measures can be effective and equitable in the context of areas used and governed by small-scale fishers."

www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Published 📖

A general method for detection and segmentation of terrestrial arthropods in images🪲

flatbug offers ecologists and practitioners a ready-to-use, efficient and accurate tool for arthropod monitoring that addresses common limitations of existing methods 👇️

Parallel evolution of industrial melanism in the peppered moth: one locus, many alleles https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.26.707722v1

Welcome ExE 2026 is a 3-day conference aimed at evolutionary ecologists from around the world, hosted by the University of Exeter in beautiful Cornwall. It provides a friendly and inclusive platform for all c...

For UK folks in #Ecology and #Evolution, we are hosting a conference here in Cornwall! Great chance for a summer staycation June 29-July 3.

Plus, we've managed to make it affordable: £250 + £49/night for accommodation.

#EvolBiol #EcoEvo

sites.exeter.ac.uk/exe/

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.

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/... 🌐🐠🐡🦈🐟

Genomic adaptations for tail-length evolution in arboreal snakes Abstract. Adaptation to arboreal environments requires overcoming gravitational constraints, driving repeated morphological innovations across snake lineag

Wang et al. reveal that arboreality evolved independently in multiple snake clades, with tail elongation as a recurrent morphological adaptation, and identify accelerated evolution in genes associated with somite specification.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msag029

#evobio #molbio

New 2026 paper led by @patricepottier.bsky.social, @kruthsatz.bsky.social & I in @conphysjournal.bsky.social show studies on embryos make up <10% of conservation physiology studies, highlighting a major blind spot in predicting vulnerable life stages to climate change.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/conp...

Bending back the curve of shark and ray biodiversity loss Sharks and rays are sentinels of the state of the ocean. Since the mid-twentieth century, overall abundance has declined by nearly 65% and over one-third (37.5%) of species are threatened, causing widespread changes in community structure. This crisis stems from unregulated fisheries expansion coupled with inadequate catch-and-trade monitoring that fail to account for the complexity of shark and ray products, their use and global trade flows. In this Review, we assess the state of shark and ray populations worldwide, remedies to reverse their decline, and challenges and barriers to conservation. Stark geographic and taxonomic biases persist in essential data, requiring integrated species distribution modelling, data mobilization, trait prediction and new threat maps of fishing mortality. Addressing management gaps requires regulatory and market-based approaches that must ultimately reduce fishing mortality, link international frameworks to national fisheries management tools, and implement a mitigation hierarchy of management actions through sound compliance management across supply, trade and demand chains. Case studies reveal strengths and weaknesses in management effectiveness and demonstrate successful recoveries for wide-ranging and restricted-range species. Finally, we identify 6 key challenges and propose 25 research questions and actionable recommendations to bend back the curve of shark and ray biodiversity loss. Global shark and ray populations have declined sharply, driven by expanding fisheries and inequitable gaps in catch, trade and distribution data. This Review assesses global status, highlights drivers of decline, and outlines the regulatory, market-based and conservation actions needed to reduce mortality and reverse shark and ray biodiversity loss.

February issue: A Review from Nick Dulvy and colleagues assesses the status and decline of shark and ray biodiversity loss and outlines essential conservation actions.
Readcube: http://dlvr.it/TR1tl2
Weblink: http://dlvr.it/TR1tl3

Aligning climate-smart marine spatial planning and ecoscape restoration for global biodiversity recovery Meeting the ambitious targets set by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) will require expanding ecosystem restoration across governance domains for marine and coastal ecosystems. Marine spatial planning (MSP), which balances the development of multiple human uses in the ocean with the preservation of ecosystem health, might be the most effective vehicle for achieving this aim. However, to date, MSP and restoration efforts have proceeded on separate tracks, and biodiversity loss continues. In this Perspective we detail how embedding restoration into planning at the site scale, alongside subnational or national MSP, can help to&nbsp;achieve multiple simultaneous global biodiversity targets. We outline four avenues to action that support biodiversity-positive outcomes over the long term: ensure flexible and multi-scaled approaches; make planning community-centred; maintain social–ecological connectivity; and assess climate-related risks and opportunities. We then propose metrics that CBD Parties could use to implement and track progress on integrating ecoscape restoration into climate-smart MSP. With the world’s focus on the GBF and the approaching 2030 deadline, implementing the proposed avenues to action could lead to more rapid achievement of global targets. Marine spatial planning (MSP) and ecosystem restoration are effective approaches to address marine and coastal biodiversity loss and meet Global Biodiversity Framework targets, but have been applied separately to date. This Perspective outlines how ecoscape restoration and climate-smart MSP can be aligned to deliver reciprocal benefits and accelerate biodiversity recovery.

February issue: A Perspective from Lisa Wedding, Catarina Frazão Santos and colleagues outlines how ecoscape restoration and climate-smart marine spatial planning can align for biodiversity recovery.
Readcube: http://dlvr.it/TR1trx
Weblink: http://dlvr.it/TR1ts0

GBE | ERGA-BGE Genomes of Culex laticinctus, Culex modestus, Culex perexiguus, and Culex theileri: Unveiling the Genomes of the Key Vectors of West Nile Virus in the Mediterranean Basin

Ruiz-López et al. assemble reference sequences for four Culex species, offering crucial resources for exploring the genetic basis of vector competence for different pathogens, and help implement mosquito control efforts and disease prevention.

🔗 academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...

#genome #evolution

Environmental data justice is key for developing more effective area-based conservation approaches Scientists are divided about how to respond to high levels of biodiversity loss. These differences have become clear in recent debates over the role of area-based conservation, which includes protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures. Debates between supporters and critics of these measures reflect the views of different epistemic communities who engage with area-based conservation using various methods, framings and normative positions. Conservation scientists emphasize biodiversity protection and habitat integrity; land systems scientists foreground land-use dynamics in interconnected socio-ecological systems; and political ecologists examine power relations and the social implications of protected areas. Despite these emphases differing in focus, they are internally compatible in that they share concerns about both biodiversity loss and social equity, although they assign different weights to these priorities. This Perspective brings together authors representing these three epistemic communities along with a fourth — environmental data justice scholars. We argue that disagreements among conservation scientists, land systems scientists and political ecologists can become constructive by applying vocabularies and frameworks from environmental data justice. Introducing environmental data justice to the debate will help conservation researchers and practitioners to&nbsp;develop more effective interventions to achieve the underlying goals of area-based conservation. Scientists disagree about area-based conservation’s role in addressing biodiversity loss. This Perspective examines how conservation scientists, land systems scientists and political ecologists approach these debates differently and argues that environmental data justice frameworks can bridge epistemic divides, helping researchers&nbsp;to develop more effective and equitable conservation interventions.

February issue: A Perspective from Jenny Goldstein and colleagues on environmental data justice frameworks and area-based conservation for addressing biodiversity loss.
Readcube: http://dlvr.it/TR1ty3
Weblink: http://dlvr.it/TR1ty4

Kazakhstan battles shrinking Caspian Sea to keep key sectors churning Water could drop over 10 meters if warming exceeds 2 C, hitting ports, oil trade

Kazakhstan battles shrinking Caspian Sea to keep key sectors churning
https://asia.nikkei.com/spotlight/environment/climate-change/kazakhstan-battles-shrinking-caspian-sea-to-keep-key-sectors-churning

Free download of the full sheet (and past archive) at the March Mammal Madness Hub! HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!
libguides.asu.edu/MarchMammalM...

A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand The emergence of a chemical system capable of self-replication and evolution is a critical event in the origin of life. RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but their large size and structural ...

How could a simple self-replicating system emerge at the origins of life? RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but existing ones are so large that their self-replication seems impossible. Could they be smaller?

Excited to share our latest work in @science.org on a new small polymerase.
1/n

A four panel comic, from left to right: 1960s LIFE IS BASED ON DNA, WHICH USES RNA TO MAKE PROTEINS THAT DO STUFF. 1980s ALSO, THE RNA DOES SOME STUFF ITSELF, WHICH IS WEIRD. 2000s THERE ARE 50 MANY KINDS OF RNA. IT'S DOING SO MUCH STUFF! 2020s LIFE IS A SEETHING MASS OF RNA THAT SOMETIMES USES DNA TO TAKE NOTES. WHAT DO THE PROTEINS DO? ERRANDS FOR RNA.

It’s an RNA world. RNA is posited to be the first genetic material, arising 4 billion years ago. It can store information and act as an enzyme. Eventually, it duplicated its information into a more stable form, DNA.

The deadline to apply for our Communicating Your Science workshop (15–17 April) is this Sunday! Don’t miss your chance to sharpen your science communication skills & apply now:
genetics.org.uk/grants/comm-...

Mark Blaxter from @sangerinstitute.bsky.social describes the ambition of the @ebpgenome.bsky.social to #Biology26 in Switzerland

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand The emergence of a chemical system capable of self-replication and evolution is a critical event in the origin of life. RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but their large size and structural ...

A simple 45-nucleotide RNA molecule that is able to perfectly copy itself... Wow! 🧪🧬
doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Guardians of the Small YouTube video by ZSL - Zoological Society of London

TONIGHT AT 7PM ⭐
Guardians of the Small celebrates ZSL’s 200th anniversary by telling the story of how we’ve been working to save the partula snail from extinction for almost four decades. Leading the way for all that time has been long-time colleagues, and friends, Paul Pearce-Kelly and Dave Clarke

Call for Proposals for #IMCC8 now open!
Have an idea for a symposium, workshop, training course, that can move marine #conservation forward? Now’s the time to shape the program with bold science, practical solutions + inclusive perspectives.
Due by March 6th. Learn more: conbio.org/mini-sites/i...

RETRACTED: Integrative phylogenomics positions sponges at the root of the animal tree Determining whether sponges or ctenophores root the animal tree has important implications for understanding early animal evolution. Here, we examined support for these competing hypotheses by constru...

This is a beautiful case of how real science happens & serious scientists work. Kudos to both set of authors: “This has been a humbling experience, but one that speaks to the self-correcting nature of the scientific endeavor.” www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

More than 80% of flying fox colony wiped out as January heatwaves kill thousands of bats Only 180 bats survived intense heat in South Australian town, including 34 babies that carers say face months of recovery

More than 80% of flying fox colony wiped out as January heatwaves kill thousands of bats

Read the accompanying News & Views commentary from Martina Dal Bello 👇

"From death comes diversity" www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Free to read: rdcu.be/e2fBU