Ruben Cousins-Westerberg

Good article, but the framing is wrong. There is not a dearth of interest in taxonomy. There is a scarcity of funding and positions, which is a deliberate choice by funding agencies and institutions. The youth love taxonomy! It's the olds that are failing to meet their passion!

A new study from Anthropic finds that gains in coding efficiency when relying on AI assistance did did not meet statistical significance; AI use noticeably degraded programmers’ understanding of what they were doing. Incredible.

The Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences at @stockholm-uni.bsky.social has two open PhD positions, help us spread the word! 📣

We are looking for a PhD student in Lichen Biology, and one in Ecology & Evolution. Find more information and apply by 1 February below!

Wikipedia celebrates 25 years this year! Sending some love today to (arguably) the best source of knowledge in the world.

From dial-up days to now, travel through Wikipedia's history. wikipedia25.org/en/twenty-fi...

"Quick and easy" roadmap to finished paper. If I do two things per week I'll be done in no time... It's fine if I don't do anything else the coming three months, right?

Artificial intelligence tools expand scientists’ impact but contract science’s focus - Nature Artificial intelligence boosts individual scientists’ output, citations and career progression, but collectively narrows research diversity and reduces collaboration, concentrating work in data-rich a...

One of my concerns with AI-assisted research in biology is that we're already looking only in the lamplight and AI incentivizes us to narrow the beam. Seems like it's happening...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Plant sex life is more complicated than you probably imagine The amazing variety of plant reproductive systems.

My co-conspirator and fellow PhD student Lila writes for The Conversation about how plants have separate sexes, sometimes. Ever wondered something about plant sexual systems? How to start learning about it? I'd say start with this.

Folks, this can compromise the confidentiality of the review process, as well as authors’ intellectual property rights. Doing it is a breach of peer review ethics.

"Phylophytobiogeography" I type. I hesitate... is there no way I can be a bit more... specific?
#academicenglish

DEEP seeks Associate Professor in Plant Ecology – apply now! - Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences DEEP seeks Associate Professor in Plant Ecology – apply now! - Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences

We’re hiring! 📣

DEEP at @stockholm-uni.bsky.social is looking for a tenured Associate Professor in Plant Ecology. Join a vibrant research & teaching community in the heart of Sweden’s capital.

Learn more and apply below by 16 Nov.👇

Close up of letter from H.M. Ward to his mother, reading: ‘July 20: I have just got the second batch of your poems. I strongly advise you to be careful, the ideas are…& poetical to a degree; but you…too apt to lose the on the metre on you…in technical construction.

Handwritten poem by J Fraser, titled ‘The Corn Poppy’ with a sentence crossed out then four stanzas reading: “The scarlet poppy reddens daily, Amongst the cornfields blossoms gaily, Makes comely neighbours wanton palely, and dazzles all beneath the skies, But beckons me with swanting [sic] eyes. Uh! Could I like the gliding swallow, Explore the vale and upland follows, No more in smoky dens I’d swallow, No longer breathe the air that falls Midst crowded streets and staring walls. Then would I bid adieu to collow, And scour the…height and hollow, Un…the downs and blithely follow, along the fields where bright corn rose – The glorious flaming poppy – glows. To-day would have no room for sorrow, No boding thoughts to gloom to-morrow, And each day after fair would borrow Another glide along the plain, to search amongst the bended grain’”

Loose papers, with handwritten poem on top of five stanzas, the second of which is crossed out then rewritten underneath. It reads: “The transport bent by wholesome breezes, Where charming guise of landscape pleases, Brings life amend, as man can…., and genders thanks for flow’r so fair, That smile and make my errand there. I love to see the wild bee settle, Upon the smooth and silky petal, And laugh to view its ardent mettle, When tumbling round the…flow’r, Collecting bee bread hour by hour. The longest day draws with gloaming, And puts an end to handsome roaming; I grieve to mark its shadows coming, But more to think when day is blind, that I must leave my flow’r behind. The corn, the poppy, bee and ether, And birds that wing on airy feather, all choose the wilds and hang together, Beneath the great and blue sky-dome, And I must visit them at home” Signed at end: J.F., March 15th 1919

Botanist or poet? For National Poetry Day, we discovered poetry hidden amongst the personal papers of botanists - from J. Fraser’s 1919 poem on poppies to H.M Ward’s critique’s on his mother’s poetry!
#KewLA

If that sounds appealing, or if you simply hope to see more pictures from Hawai'i: stick around. There will be more of all this later ~ 🌿

I am also constructing a phylogeny of the wider Wikstroemia genus, hoping to 1. Determine the within genus relationships of the clades, 2. Assess the validity of the many widespread and overlapping, seemingly cryptic species, and 3. Biogeographically analyse how the Wikstroemia dispersed to Hawai'i.

My job is to suss out how the Hawai'ian Wikstroemia species are related, how they spread across the islands, what their population structure is like across various habitats, and how the gene trees of the sex-determining regions line up with the evolutionary history of the taxa we recognise today.

We investigate these emergent sexual systems through field sampling, greenhouse crosses, hybridisation trials, GWAS, and various other genomic methods for identifying sex chromosomes. However, we also use phylogenetics, biogeographic analyses, and population genetics. This is where I come in.

Since the Wikstroemia colonised Hawai'i less than 10 mya, several lineages have (seemingly independently) made the transition from ancestral hermaphroditism to dioecy. This makes these plants a perfect system for study of recent evolution of sex – a subject we still know surprisingly little about.

In Hawai'i we find a dozen endemic species of the Wikstroemia genus of flowering plants. Traditionally, native Hawaiians used the tough bark to make cordage, the red berries to decorate lei, and the pulped flesh to make a fish-stunning toxin to be dropped into tide pools.

Hello all new followers! Writing "Hi, I'm Ruben" feels redundant and uninteresting given that it says so on my profile already.

To introduce myself, I will instead introduce my study system and project. And to do this, I will post 16 images from 16 days of Hawai'i island fieldwork.

🚨 We're hiring!
PhD position in Evolutionary Systems Biology at Stockholm University & SciLifeLab

🎓 Focus: evolution, development, computational & mathematical modeling, prediction
📍 Stockholm, Sweden
🕒 4 years, fully-funded
🔍 Details: su.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

Please share!

Come work in our division!

Aurelien Tellier presenting the details of #eseb2027 which will be a hub meeting, with connected and local sessions in 4 hubs (Gothenburg, Munich, London, Istanbul) eseb2027.org #eseb2025

Thanks to Sofia and May Sheday for the courageous and inspiring talks! The scientific world cannot remain silent @eseb2025.bsky.social #ESEB2025 #inclusivity 🏳️‍🌈 #transrights 🏳️‍⚧️ #freepalestine 🇵🇸

Including a full house of evolutionary biologists!

Festa de Gràcia!

The follow-up in ESEB Barcelona! :)

Great first three days of ESEB @eseb2025.bsky.social

Many great talks, many great posters, lots and lots of great evolutionary biology.

Also many new followers! I will post a proper introduction once the conference is over, but for now: hello!

Generative Al is being marketed as a tool designed to reduce or eliminate the need for developed, cognitive skillsets. It uses the work of others to simulate human output, except that it lacks grasp of nuance, contains grievous errors, and ultimately serves the goal of human beings being neurologically weaker due to the promise of the machine being better equipped than the humans using it would ever exert the effort to be. The people that use generative Al for art have no interest in being an artist; they simply want product to consume and forget about when the next piece of product goes by their eyes. The people that use generative Al to make music have no interest in being a musician; they simply want a machine to make them something to listen to until they get bored and want the machine to make some other disposable slop for them to pass the time with. The people that use generative Al to write things for them have no interest in writing. The people that use generative Al to find factoids have no interest in actual facts. The people that use generative Al to socialize have no interest in actual socialization. In every case, they've handed over the cognitive load of developing a necessary, creative human skillset to a machine that promises to ease the sweat equity cost of struggle. Using generative Al is like asking a machine to lift weights on your behalf and then calling yourself a bodybuilder when it's done with the reps. You build nothing in terms of muscle, you are not stronger, you are not faster, you are not in better shape. You're just deluding yourself while experiencing a slow decline due to self-inflicted atrophy.

re: generative AI

I have finally fully and accurately explained my problem with how it’s marketed and used.

And now, you can use it, too.

Kīlauea volcano erupting out of Halemaʻumaʻu crater, as witnessed by 'ōhi'a

And of course... sometimes you get to have a volcano in the background.

The ʻōhiʻa lehua (Metrosideros polymorpha) os the state tree of Hawai'i, and the official tree of the island of Hawai'i too.

The volcano goddess Pele is often depicted with ʻōhiʻa blossoms in her hair. Not strange, given how they are the earliest pioneers on the lava field, and yet remain dominant there for hundreds of years after. Also not strange given how pretty they are.

An ʻōhiʻa blossom in all their glory. As I understand it, they are generally adapted to be pollinated by birds, although there apparently are some trees with more yellowish and compact flowers that specialise on insects.

ʻŌhiʻa popping out of the lava at the bottom of Kīlauea Iki crater like nobody's business.

If I wasn't already tied up with a different plant, I'm not sure I could resist falling headfirst in love with the ʻōhiʻa lehua. Not only do they pop up out of the lava rock like it's nothing, they also have such amazing blossoms!

Wikstroemia oahuensis, on a backdrop of 'Ewa Forest Reserve on Oahu, Hawai'i

Wikstroemia oahuensis or, perhaps, Wikstroemia recurva? Depends on who you ask.

The Poamoho Ridge Trail gives a fantastic view of 'Ewa Forest Reserve. Here we find one of the few untouched spots on Oahu.

Don't look down... unless there is a rare endangered plant just below the ledge. Spoilers: there were several

Don't look at the view, look at these plants! 🌿

You looked at them? You sure? Fine. Now you can look at the view. ⛰️

#fieldwork #botany #hawaii