Graeme Cumming

Institutional network relationships and environmental governance in the Colombian and Peruvian Amazon - Ambio The Amazon—the most biodiverse biome in the world—faces huge conservation challenges. Multiple institutional and technological actors, organized in environmental networks, collaborate to support improved environmental governance. However, these efforts are understudied and underrecognized, particularly in the case of the Colombian and Peruvian Amazon. Employing a social network analysis, this study evaluates the actors, the institutional–technological relationships, and the network addressing socio-environmental challenges. We identified 392 development actors (nodes) with different levels of international, national, and regional participation. They use transnational technologies, but have limited integration of local actors where environmental challenges are most pressing. To combat the biome's rapid degradation, these countries could strengthen their environmental agendas, governance, and policy design—for greater environmental impact—by effectively integrating cooperation between international and local partners. Both countries should develop their local networks, create participatory collaborative spaces to enhance national capacities, and promote diverse and coordinated coalitions.

new publication:
Institutional network relationships and environmental governance in the Colombian and Peruvian Amazon

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

In this article, McClanahan et al discuss how diversifying the identification of #climatechange refugia for #coralreefs requires more environmental and coral life-history metrics. Read their article at: doi.org/10.1111/cobi...
#refugia #wordoftheweek #conservation #science #stem

1/🧵 Over the past decade, misinformation in the popular media & the opinion pages of some journals has promoted the claim that concern over species invasions is overblown, because "most invasions do not cause extinctions".

Here is a brief reminder of what scientific evidence shows...
#bioinvasions

West Australian lantern shark! Hanging around unseen by people all this time at ~600m depth.

River or sankey diagram showing the allocation of profits from global oil and gas companies to quantiles of the US wealth size distribution via financial system intermediaries, such as asset managers, and categories of ultimate beneficiaries, such as business owners, pension funds and shareholders in listed companies. The scale is hundreds of billions of US dollars, and ultimately 50.4% of profits reaching the US personal wealth distribution go to the richest 1% of households.

🚨NEW PAPER🚨
We all know the 2022 energy price shock fueled the cost of living crisis. It also caused a profit bonanza for the very rich. We show the US reaped the largest profits ($377bn) of any country. 50% went to the richest 1%, only 1% to the bottom 50%. A🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A new Special Issue on aquatic invasions has just been released in NeoBiota. Read the editorial to gain an overview of all the papers: Invasions in aquatic systems.

Use this link:
neobiota.pensoft.net/article/1678...

#bioinvasions @neobiota.pensoft.net

Now watch humanity embed the minimum levels in policy… rather than maximising this important habitat. 🤡

Are we heading for cascading tipping points? A new review study examines four of the most dangerous climate tipping elements, confirming that they are destabilising. Risks are increasing that they will flip and not just in isolation.

A new review study examines four of the most dangerous climate tipping elements, confirming that they are destabilising. Risks are increasing that they will flip and not just in isolation.

drtomharris.substack.com/p/are-we-hea...

#tippingpoint #climatechange #feedback #greenland #AMOC #Amazon

"Overfishing the largest species in nearshore and pelagic habitats risks loss of ecomorphotypes and a 5 to 22% erosion of functional diversity."

Ecological erosion and expanding extinction risk of sharks and rays
Dulvy @nickdulvy.bsky.social et al 2024

This is very cool. Ornithological archaeology 🕺🏻🧪

Climate-linked escalation of societally disastrous wildfires Climate change and land mismanagement are creating increasingly fire-prone built and natural environments. However, despite worsening fire seasons, evidence is lacking globally for trends in socially ...

Published today: our new paper showing a 44-year trend of increasing global wildfire disasters (fatalities and economic losses) due to climate change-induced extreme weather. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New study reveals major trade-offs in global nature conservation strategies | University of Helsinki Recent research shows that conservation strategies aiming to protect as much habitat as possible can nearly double species protection compared to fixed-target approaches.

Our study comparing target-based and flexible ranking approaches used in conservation planning tools has been published

www.helsinki.fi/en/news/rese...

Multiple species of #shearwater have begun arriving in Australian waters after completing their southward migration. We need your help recording if/when #seabirds start washing up on your local beaches #citizenscience

First detection of Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever antibodies in cattle and wildlife of southern continental France: Investigation of explanatory factors Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) is a tick-borne zoonosis of major public health concern, not only because of its potential for severe outcomes in humans, but also due to its endemic presence…

A new study in @plosone.org reports Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever antibodies in cattle and wildlife across southern France, highlighting the need for enhanced surveillance and prevention of this emerging zoonotic disease.

Robert Hilderbrand Bob Hilderbrand is an associate professor at the Appalachian Laboratory. While he has very broad interests in both basic and applied science, most of his research comes back to actionable science invo...

www.umces.edu/robert-hilde...

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

In conservation science people are terrible at ‘define’. So we either have many different objects of study (systems) being treated as equivalent, or many case studies of the same thing being treated as different.

Conceptualizing and measuring ecological spillover effects from protected areas Protected areas influence their surroundings in a variety of ways. These “spillover effects” can change an area's conservation value and affect its social license. Advanced statistical tools for quan...

My latest paper, just published in #ESA's Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, focuses on the need to think about spatial patterns and sampling design when attempting to measure ecological #spillovers from protected areas. 🌍🦑🧪
doi.org/10.1002/fee....

Coincidentally someone else thinks they’re smart

a person is riding a bike down a street with the words viralhog on the bottom right ALT: a person is riding a bike down a street with the words viralhog on the bottom right

Got swooped by a murderous death bird on my ride home today (aka Australian Magpie). Spring has arrived!

[illustrative gif only, that’s not me]

Density dependent habitat selection in response to habitat loss in a coral reef fish Habitat loss triggers a social chain reaction: adult reef fish crowd onto remaining coral, then spill over onto dead coral—and juveniles follow. This study reveals a novel, socially driven ‘bandwagon...

PAPER hints at ecological traps for damselfish settlement - dead corals chosen for settlement if an adult is present, could cascade to bad ends! besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Led by @lisabe.bsky.social @lec-reefs.bsky.social @animalecology.bsky.social

Do you work with seagrass? 🌱

We're often asked by the public: “What can I do to reduce seagrass loss?”

We’re running a survey to identify the everyday actions people can take to support seagrass conservation and we’d love your insights!

Take the survey: ow.ly/ZQgp50WXlzN

Leafal Weapon

This is figure 2, which shows reef accretion potential across western Atlantic reefs.

Over 70% of coral reefs in the tropical western Atlantic Ocean are projected to be in a state of erosion by 2040, increasing to nearly all reefs in 2100 if warming exceeds 2 °C above preindustrial levels, a study in Nature suggests. go.nature.com/48m9Y8F 🌊 🧪

Friday evening wind-down: tankers in the sunset off the Fremantle coast

Good to see the big important questions are still being debated on BlueSky 😂

Transmission networks of long-term and short-term knowledge in a foraging society Abstract. Cultural transmission across generations is key to cumulative cultural evolution. While several mechanisms—such as vertical, horizontal, and obli

💙New paper!💙

How is knowledge transmitted across generations in a foraging society?

With @danielredhead.bsky.social
we found: In BaYaka foragers, long-term skills pass in smaller, sparser networks, while short-term food info circulates broadly & reciprocally

academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

Victoria set to have first new national parks in more than a decade Conservation groups are celebrating proposed legislation for three new national parks in Victoria but not all bush users are happy.

"Mr Dimopoulos said Parks Victoria had the funding required to maintain the new national parks.

"Parks Victoria are well funded and have all the resources they need," he said."

The same old story: more National Parks, and no new funding to actually manage them.

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

Deforestation Threatens Public Health. Securing Indigenous Land Rights Can Help, Researchers Find - Inside Climate News A new peer-reviewed study examined the impact Indigenous territories have on human health in two categories of diseases, finding that municipalities located close to Indigenous lands with intact fores...

Amazonian Indigenous territories help reduce fire-related diseases and disease spread through animals and insects, a new study says.

DAGs showing confounding, mediator and collider variables

Super awesome new paper in #MEE describing #causal #detection of shifts in #biodiversity! So many great insights here—a must read for those interested in #causalinference

And love Fig 3! Congrats team! @lsantinieco.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1111/2041...