Very proud of this perspective that came out of some really interesting and difficult conversations with friends and colleagues!
TLDR: how do scientists define sex? why does it matter??
#EcoEvo #Ecology #Evolution 🧪
Well damn, this is cool.
Birds That Don't Exist: Niche Pre-Emption as a Constraint on Morphological Evolution in the Passeroidea | Chia et al., 2026 | Ecology Letters
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Very interesting talk by @jhortal.bsky.social from @mncn-csic.bsky.social at the University of Lisbon @cienciasulisboa.bsky.social about Biodiversity knowledge shortfalls and how to address biases and ignorance in research data #bias #research #biodiversity #shortfalls.
"Who is who? Water makes frog image recognition 100% clear" Have a look at this article about the findings reported in our Edina Nemesházi's latest publication! @klivvvienna.bsky.social doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0341460
www.vetmeduni.ac.at/en/universit...
Known from southeastern South Africa, this species is among the several threatened african pelican/assassin spiders. Like all species of this genus, females carry the egg sac attached to their fourth pair of legs. Size: around 5mm in length Time period: Holocene (present day) Conservation status: Endangered The animal drawn is a spider on lateral view, with its first body part highly raised in the eyes area & with long chelicerae, making it almost look a bit like a pelican. It also has a mushy sac on its last leg, which is the egg sac
What time is it? It’s #Cheliceratime!
I'll do a few post of the Febugary on Instagram, and for the first I choosed Afrarchaea woodae, an endangered spider!
All the basic infos are here but if you want to learn more there’s more below!⬇️
#spider #Arachnid #southafrica #sciart #bugsky #invert
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Ranas venenosas y singularidad evolutiva Las estrategias de conservación favorecen a especies carismáticas o comerciales, no a las más amenazadas, y no garantizan la protección de la singularidad evolutiva y biogeográfica Figura: “Representantes de algunas especies de ranas venenosas de la familia Dendrobatidae: (a) Andinobates victimatus, (b) Silverstoneia flotator, (c) Dendrobates truncatus, (d) Colostethus nubicola, (e) Oophaga histrionica, (f) Epipedobates boulengeri, (g) Phyllobates bicolor, (h) Leucostethus brachistriatus. Fotografías de Brandon Brand Buitrago-Marulanda (b, h), Fernando Vargas-Salinas (a, c, e, g) y Cristian González-Acosta (d, f).
Dónde se esconde la biodiversidad más única Los valores BED (Biogeographically weighted Evolutionary Distinctiveness) muestran regiones donde la historia evolutiva es más singular, lo que ayuda a orientar estrategias de conservación más precisas y basadas en la biodiversidad real. Figura: Mapa superior izquierdo: límites políticos de los países neotropicales en los que hay especies de Dendrobatidae. Mapa superior derecho: patrones de riqueza de especies en Dendrobatidae. Mapa inferior izquierdo: patrones espaciales de los valores BED (distintividad evolutiva ponderada biogeográficamente) a escala regional. Mapa inferior derecho: patrones espaciales de los valores BED a escala de país. Obsérvese que los patrones espaciales de BED difieren entre los cálculos a escala regional y a escala nacional.
La montaña como refugio evolutivo El análisis ED (Evolutionary Distinctiveness)/EDGE (Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered) revela que muchas especies únicas viven en zonas altas, especialmente vulnerables. Conservar biodiversidad implica entender su contexto ecológico. Figura: Relación entre los valores medios y medianos de la distintividad evolutiva (ED) y los valores EDGE (Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered) con la elevación en especies de Dendrobatidae. Nótese que las especies de la lista de ED que estaban en las categorías de amenaza Datos Insuficientes (DD), No Evaluado (NE) y Extinto (EX) no se incluyeron en el análisis de la relación entre elevación y valores EDGE. Por ello, los valores de ED se obtuvieron con 177 especies y los valores EDGE con 127 especies.
Un estudio con datos de @gbif.org sobre ranas venenosas propone para su #conservación un enfoque de conservación más completo que integre datos de singularidad evolutiva, biogeográficos y de nivel de amenaza:
▶️ doi.org/10.1007/s105... #CiteTheDOI #biodiversidad
We know that marine fishes 🐠 have an inverse gradient of speciation compared to that of spp richness, with higher speciation at higher latitudes. But, what about freshwater 🐟?
Find out in the new PhD paper by Juliana Herrera-Pérez and friends (not just colleagues) 🤿 👇
shorturl.at/zgKfA
What do we know about mammal biodiversity patterns in the American tropics? Find out in the new book chapter by @liomys.mx and yours truly 👇
link.springer.com/rwe/10.1007/...
The whole book is a gem for those interested in the study of mammals of one of the world's most diverse regions!
🚨 New paper out in @ecography.bsky.social ! 📝
Led by Dr. Søren Faurby, we built upon the estimated unrecorded bird extinctions by @r-cooke.bsky.social et al. 2023 and try to estimate the corresponding unrecorded loss of phylogenetic diversity. 🦤🧬
Check the full paper here:
doi.org/10.1002/ecog...
Ever wondered what comes first in evolution: changes in climatic niche or changes in morphology? Does climate pull species, or do organisms evolve first and then shift their niches? This is one of macroevolution’s most persistent open questions.
As we get into the final parts of the amazing meeting that #TIBS2026 was, a reminder to follow and share the starter pack for ECRs in Biogeography:
go.bsky.app/KvnmdnK
And a reminder to check it again, as we've had many new additions over the conference.
See you all at the dinner!
TIBS 2026 conference was a great opportunity to keep disseminating the @peeer.bsky.social initiative and to present the field's New, Diamond 💎 Open Access journal @biogeographyjfab.bsky.social
Grateful to Michael N. Dawson for the leadership and trust to co-lead this new endeavour
#TIBS2026
In a new paper published in #BiologyLetters, researchers use a giant Y-maze to investigate how accurately elephants can detect differences in food quantity by smell royalsocietypublishing.org/rsbl/article... | #AnimalBehaviour #Cognition #Ecology
As my very 1st Bluesky post, I’m happy to share the publication of our new study in Science Advances on how
the geographical shape of bird species’ ranges may play a role in creating #biodiversity hotspots 🦜 By Sonne J, @mkborregaard.bsky.social, Colwell R, Rahbek C:
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
✨APPLY NOW! ✨
🗓️ Less than a month left to submit your abstract for #GARD26 🧪🌏
🦎 Present your research as a talk or poster!
🐍 Learn the latest re: #amphibian and #reptile #disease!
🦠 Network with academics & #conservation professionals!
Huh, here's something I wasn't aware of, microendemism is common with flat lizards in the Brazilian Caatinga. Needless to say it's really a species complex rather than sharply delineated species. 🧪🌍🌿 #Ecology
The genetics, evolution, and maintenance of a biological rock-paper-scissors game | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Our new paper is out today in Journal of the Royal Society Interface (link below). All about eggshell roughness: "Scratching beyond the surface: examining macroecological patterns in avian eggshell texture". Congrats first author Marie Attard, and thank you @leverhulme.ac.uk for the funding.
Nice explainer of our recent plant #macroecology study in @pnas.org 🌐🌿🌴🍀🌐
‘specleanr': an R package for automated flagging of environmental outliers in ecological data for modeling workflows vist.ly/4iudb #GBIF #iNaturalist #Macroecology
Biological performance across the tree of life collapses onto the Universal Thermal Performance Curve (UTPC). Shown are approx. 30,000 performance measurements derived from seven kingdoms, 39 phyla, and 2,710 experiments. Performance is represented by diverse rates including metabolism, individual growth, foraging intensity, voluntary activity, and population growth (see SI Appendix for data grouped by phylum and performance metric). Data are presented on both axes relative to the parameters (Topt, Tc and Pfmax ) estimated by fitting the UTPC equation to each of the 2,710 experiments; the UTPC is overlaid as a yellow line and fits the rescaled data extremely well. Data are colored by the relative density of neighboring points showing very high density of points close to the line and relatively few datapoints further from the line.
Data collapse, and models converge, onto a Universal Thermal Performance Curve (UTPC), which only requires optimal and critical temperatures as parameters. Top panels show empirical data on thermal performance encompassing (A) specific growth rate of proteobacteria (), (B) biochemical rates of photosynthesis in plants (), (C) running speeds of lizards (), and (D) population growth in insects (). Lower panels (E–H) showcase the rescaled data from the processes exposed on top, along with their corresponding alignment to the Universal Thermal Performance Curve (UTPC) equation. Datasets are from Kontopoulos et al. (21) for proteobacteria and from Rezende and Bozinovic (6) for other groups. The upper panels of the raw data show substantial variation in the shape and location of the thermal performance curves. The lower row shows that rescaling the data using the simple model results in the data conforming to a single underlying curve with very little variation from the model.
And our paper is out! One curve to rule them all: a simple universal thermal performance curve for ectotherms that explains at least 2700 datasets across 39 phyla and myriad measures of performance. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Jared Diamond puts the case that geography and biogeography, not race, moulded the contrasting fates of Europeans, Asians, Native Americans, sub-Saharan Africans, and First Nations Peoples in 'Australia'.
Our Eawag Seminar to rewatch!
Prof. Grilli on "Deviations From Macroecological Laws Reveal Binary Switches Structuring Ecosystems" 💡
youtu.be/yb7e9Aw5pmg
A balance between environmental filtering and competitive exclusion modulates the macroecology of alternative stable states in microbial communities https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.19.695337v1
[1/2] Les + longues migrations animales révèlent une forte connexion des écosystèmes mondiaux. La sterne arctique parcourt jusqu’à 96.000 km/an entre Arctique et Antarctique. Sur une vie de 30 ans, elle peut parcourir l’équivalent de 3 allers-retours Terre-Lune. #biogeography #animal #migrations
If you're a #teacher interested in a great #openaccess write up on reading #phylogenetic trees, check out www.digitalatlasofancientlife.org/learn/system... created by @jonhendricks.bsky.social and Elizabeth Hermsen.
ECR Feature: postdoctoral researcher Axel Arango investigates how ecological specialization shapes #diversification in #Emberizoidea songbirds . Read more about his recent work and plans for further study here: biogeographynews.org/2025/10/30/e...
New paper on deep-sea fish diversity out now in @sse-evolution.bsky.social, with @cmartinez.bsky.social and @sarahtfried.bsky.social
academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...
Interested in the biogeography of lizards?🦎
We studied the historical biogeography of Sceloporus lizards and the link between their dispersal and climatic niches 🌎🌦️ @fabrovillalobos.bsky.social @ndimhypervol.bsky.social @biojlinnsoc.bsky.social
Learn more here 👇:
academic.oup.com/biolinnean/a...
