Kate McGinn

Gentle parenting my reviewers. “Your feelings are valid!” “Do you have a question based on this statement?” “Critical comments without constructive feedback hurts authors’ feelings unnecessarily—is there a way you could say that differently?”

a black bird is sitting on top of a fence post in the woods . ALT: a black bird is sitting on top of a fence post in the woods .

My student said I ate today

Can you identify this cutie baby? Perhaps my favorite timberline tree.

Can you identify the two tree species in the photo? My undergraduate students can!

Me and my Ecology students to a trip out to Hoosier pass to learn about the climatic drivers of tree line and work on our field identification skills. We brought our class mascots Clarke and Tony with us to boost morale!

I am grieving the barbarism that is going to unfurl from all this. People are going to die. Livelihoods gone. All to feed a corrupt kleptocracy.

I see every day up close how different it is from the first time around. There are no guardrails. A disaster. I’m sorry we have to live through this.

I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE.

This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined.

It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.

I love that song!

Got hitched! Of course I had to have an emotional support barred owl in hand ;)

Womp womp 👉👈

The authors want to thank two anonymous reviewers who offered helpful criticism in the form of an 11,000 word spiteful monograph

Female flushed on tap
Live potr
Keyhole, sw facing, main drainage. One of the first cavity trees

Release the most unhinged sentence from your notes app I dare you

Trump is offering all federal workers a buyout with seven months’ pay to shrink the government—but that’s not the whole story. Reports reveal some employees are being pressured to resign or face termination under the guise of organizational restructuring. In short: take the buyout or be fired.

The Trump administration’s rebranded Schedule F policy aims to reclassify federal employees in policy roles as at-will, removing civil service protections. This will politicize agencies by allowing dismissals based on political alignment.

This is what acoustic data look like. These are the territorial vocalizations of a Flammulated owl. Very ferocious.

But I’m just a little guy

Peep our new paper! We leveraged our bioregional acoustic monitoring program to study the effects of fire on the distribution of forest owls in the Sierra Nevada.

doi.org/10.1002/eap....

The largest wildfire in Texas history just happened eleven months ago and destroyed thirty times more area than the one in Los Angeles

Yes, wildfires have always happened in California, but climate change is making them worse As the narrative of the Southern California wildfires has shifted to identifying the causes behind what could prove to be the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history, a common refrain has emer...

"Yes, wildfires have always happened in California, but climate change is making them worse" by David Knowles for @yahoonews.com: www.yahoo.com/news/yes-wil...

Added another void of darkness to the family. In the process of teaching him about forest succession and how to drive.

No General Trend in Functional Diversity in Bird and Mammal Communities Despite Compositional Change Aim Despite unprecedented environmental change due to anthropogenic pressure, recent work has found increasing dissimilarity due to turnover but no overall trend in species diversity through time at...

My inaugural post is for my paper recently out in GEB! A contribution to the conversation around local biodiversity change, we reconstructed thousands of functional diversity time series to assess shifts in functional structure for bird & mammal communities. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Bring back normal paper titles 2025

Posts from you are either poignant commentary on fire ecology and quantitative methods or these mildly unhinged draft graduates, and I’m here for it

Rapid climate action is needed: comparing heat vs. COVID-19-related mortality Scientific Reports - Rapid climate action is needed: comparing heat vs. COVID-19-related mortality

🌡️🔥Climate change isn't a distant threat—it's a public health crisis now. Our study shows heat-related deaths in many cities could surpass annual COVID-19 deaths in just 5–10 years at 3°C warming. Urgent action is needed!

👉 rdcu.be/d5rnL

@natureportfolio.bsky.social #scientificreports

Immaculate vibes

Leading a workshop next week on preparing scientific figures, and I will be sharing a few lessons learned. I would love for y’all to comment with some useful tips for grad students and maybe some of your own figures that successfully communicate your work!