Blake Matthews

“What being a leader means is to inspire and empower others around you”: Reflections of a social scientist — epistimi Prof. Charmain Levy, an eminent scholar of international development studies, feminist studies and social sciences from the Université du Québec en Outaouais, shares her thoughts on successful strateg...

Read leadership insights from social scientist Charmain Levy on the latest post on the @epistimi-stemm.bsky.social blog. See: www.epistimi.org/blog/what-be...

AI audio summary of our recent paper on nutritional-based plasticity of isopod pigmentation is not bad… sciencecast.org/casts/o6xg85...

A text from my wife (who is a lawyer). Turns out she understands my profession (an aquatic ecologist) better than the NYT.

What I wish I knew: 33 thoughts for early career researchers Thirty three reflections I wish someone had shared with me early in my research career.

What I wish I knew: 33 thoughts for early career researchers
Reflections I wish someone had shared with me early in my research career.

predirections.substack.com/p/what-i-wis...

Adaptation and gene flow are insufficient to rescue a montane plant under climate change Climate change increasingly drives local population dynamics, shifts geographic distributions, and threatens persistence. Gene flow and rapid adaptation could rescue declining populations yet are seld...

From this super interesting paper: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Adaptation and gene flow are insufficient to rescue a montane plant under climate change Climate change increasingly drives local population dynamics, shifts geographic distributions, and threatens persistence. Gene flow and rapid adaptation could rescue declining populations yet are seld...

"Finally, the regressions of habitat suitability from SDMs versus site elevation have substantially higher R-squared values compared with models of stochastic lambdas versus site elevation for the same populations, which could lead researchers to overestimate the predictive power of these models."

Photo of Brooke in the mangroves

Long exposure photo of rocks and macroalgae in the intertidal

Watercolor illustration of mangrove rivulus fish

I am looking for a postdoc position! I have experience in host-parasite interactions, animal behavior, sexual selection, science outreach, and science education. Plus, I'm a photographer and illustrator which could come in handy! Please reach out if you have any positions open or know someone.

Amazing study from Jill Anderson, Megan Demarche and colleagues, integrating species distribution models, reciprocal transplants, snow manipulation and more to test whether a montane plant can adapt to climate change. The sad answer: not without human intervention.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

We still have a few spots left for the GRC Ecological & Evolutionary Genomics meeting in Tuscany this summer (July 13-18). Lots of great speakers already lined up, and we'd love to hear from you! www.grc.org/ecological-a...

Junior faculty job alert in Germany - Marine Evolutionary Genomics @geomarkiel.bsky.social / University of Kiel www.geomar.de/en/karriere/... Marine study system of your choice (no microbes, sorry…), excellent infrastructure and ship access, moderate teaching requirements, closing date 6 June

Happy to have served as the opponent for the PhD defense of Jingyao Niu today. Was a fun process to be part of… check out her published papers and those coming out soon. www.researchgate.net/profile/Jing...

Join Us! | King Lab Are you interested in joining the King Lab? More information here!

Come join us at beautiful UBC! The King Lab is recruiting a Post-doc Fellow to develop mathematical theory on infectious disease evolution and emergence, together with Ben Ashby (SFU) #zoonoses #biodiversity www.zoology.ubc.ca/kinglab/join...

I started this paper more than 10 years ago, and am incredibly grateful to Romana Limberger for finalizing it over the past 5 years.

Differential effects of Daphnia genotype composition on spatial environmental heterogeneity in experimental metacommunities Spatial environmental heterogeneity is an important driver of aquatic biodiversity. Ecological and evolutionary theory often consider spatial heterogeneity as being driven by exogenous factors, yet h...

aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Here, we show how the genetic composition of communities can affect the build-up of environmental heterogeneity over time. Environmental heterogeneity is not always external to organisms. Evolving organisms can shape it through local effects.

Postdoctoral fellowship at Eawag, Switzerland. Independent position hosted in one of the research departments, including mine at Kastanienbaum.
apply.refline.ch/673277/1246/...

And, here is a blue sky shot from my commute…

Are there big ideas or new big questions in ecology any more? Jeremy made a compelling case that the typical scientist produces modest contributions to the field but that is enough (it is still leaving the world better than we found it). But several commentor…

In case you missed this last year…I think this is probably the most insightful thread/exchange about the current state of ecology (and some ecologists). It cuts at some of the core issues in the discipline, and asks “are we ok?”. dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2024/03/26/a...

These (!) marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/actions/post... are open again for postdocs looking to come to Switzerland… happy to chat about project ideas - www.blakematthewslab.com

Post doc in Europe? 🇪🇺🔬💡
It’s open to anyone in the 🌍
Call open 9 April 25
marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/actions/post...

Postdoc (2 years) in aquatic ecosystem ecology

We are hiring a postdoc at Umeå University in aquatic ecosystem ecology. See the link for details!
www.umu.se/en/work-with...
@grocherros.bsky.social

Portraitmoded head shots of some of the attendees of our recent evolutionary-ecology workshop in 🇨🇭 (Eawag, Kastanienbaum)… a mashup of philosophically inclined evolutionary biologists and professional philosophers of science!

An image of a tree-lined lake with the text, "We are hiring. Assistant Professor: Water Quality and Impacts of Climate Change. Visit careers.msu.edu. Job No. 1023203. Michigan State University."

Job: Come work with me! Please repost!

We're seeking a faculty colleague whose research, teaching, and outreach focuses on water quality and freshwater ecosystems in the context of climate change. Review of applications will begin April 15, 2025.

careers.msu.edu/jobs/assista...

The Idiot's Guide to Effective Population Size This is a reference manual for the elegant, yet hideously complex concept of effective population size (Ne), inspired by a classic, self-published manual of automotive repair ‘for the compleat idiot’...

The Idiot's Guide to Effective Population Size. Mol Ecol e17670. doi.org/10.1111/mec....

Genome architecture and speciation in plants and animals. I learned a lot writing this with @dortizba.bsky.social, Silu Wang and Loren Rieseberg! doi.org/10.22541/au....

INTRODUCTION

Modern-Day Oracles or Bullshit Machines?

Jevin West (@jevinwest.bsky.social) and I have spent the last eight months developing the course on large language models (LLMs) that we think every college freshman needs to take.

thebullshitmachines.com

Summer School: Blue-green biodiversity. Research and practice at the interface of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems The WSL Biodiversity Center is pleased to announce the third summer school on blue-green biodiversity.

This has been a consistently fun course to be a part of… highly recommend it!
biodiversitycenter.wsl.ch/en/events/de...

Truten 2/2: …That relationship wants me to become generous, to become loving and tender, to be part of making beautiful things. If you’re lucky enough to have the right connection, the right person, you grow.”

Truten (1/2): “I had a yearning. It was a yearning for life, and I equated life with the life of an artist, a life of freedom, generosity, a life with other people who had the same interests in making beautiful things together. I thought that was everything in the world.

To paraphrase Frederic Truten about his life as an artist, I share the notion that at the core of being a scientist is a yearning for curiosity, autonomy and generosity, alongside like minded people interested in discovering and making beautiful things together. To me this is thriving in science.