Joseph Tobias

Good memories. My second attempt, and such a relief!

Confused writing is usually a symptom of confused thinking. As we struggle to clarify writing, we clarify our thoughts. AI writing aids rob us of that struggle, leaving clean-looking text and thoughts still confused for lack of inspection. Writing is not just a product; it is a diagnostic tool.

Evaluating macroecological fire impacts on bird populations Fire regimes are context-dependent, as are the ways that animals respond. However, most information on animal responses to fire comes from short-term local field studies, which are hard to extrapolat....

We have a new paper developing methods for looking at bird-fire macroecology. What’s most fascinating to me is that the magnitude *and* direction of fire effects can vary enormously across a species range. Stationarity is dead!! Long live non-stationarity!!

doi.org/10.1002/fee....

Colonial superorganisms breaking basic biological rules again. 🐜🧪

Perfect. If you can just tick the box in the Behaviors section called "Foraging or eating" that works fine!

Great shot. Will you be uploading to eBird? Would be useful for our dietary analysis

🚨New paper led by @adrianaalzate.bsky.social showing that in most plant and animal groups the age of a species predicts its geographical range size, although the relationship is strongly mediated by dispersal ability and occurrence on islands 🧪🌐🪶

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Songbirds play optical tricks to make their feather colors ‘pop’ Concealed black or white bands on feathers boost the vibrancy of bird plumage

Pick an idiom: "more than meets the eye", "beauty more than skin [feather] deep" etc.

In work led by Rosalyn Price-Waldman, we describe a hidden (and ignored!) black or white layer found below the visible surface of bird feathers which helps make bird colours so striking!

🧪 🪶 #colsci

🥳 New paper out in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society!

Manakin’s moving melody: the interplay between courtship dance display and vocalization as a predictor of hybridization in manakins (Aves: Pipridae)
academic.oup.com/biolinnean/a...

#ornithology

Hmm yeah, I saw that. If it's the post I'm thinking about. Not exactly insightful comments either.

I mean, I agree that some room for debate on socials is good, and comments shouldn't always be fluffy. But the tendency you report is real and annoying

Well done, @kerrys189.bsky.social, and a much deserved ‘no corrections’. A really excellent thesis and it was a pleasure being involved. Best of luck with next steps!

Well done to you and Anne for getting all of us over the line. Long journey! Thanks for getting me involved and for the opportunity to put some well-brewed ideas into words. 🙏🌳🌎

Limited carbon sequestration potential from global ecosystem restoration - Nature Geoscience The maximum carbon sequestration potential from global terrestrial ecosystem restoration efforts until 2100 is 96.9 Gt, which is equivalent to 3.7–12.0% of anthropogenic emissions until then, accordin...

We should come to terms with the fact that forest, shrubland, grassland, and wetland ecosystems cannot offset fossil fuel CO₂ emissions.

But we should still protect and restore them for biodiversity and other ecosystem benefits.

Agreed. We make this point clearly, including the abstract. It's the reason why species-centric conservation has taken centre stage and will continue to do so. Problem is it won't work without better integration with the second column – and fortunately that process of integration is underway.

All good points. I think the key point you are missing is that we are not advocating replacing one strategy with the other. More like the left hand box (traditional conservation approaches) is doomed to fail without better integration with the right hand box

I think your critique is also oversimplistic and false!
Agreed about the co-supportive element though. We make this point very clearly in the paper (including the title)

Warning: May include parrots (all of them)

A new time tree of birds reveals the interplay between dispersal, geographic range size, and diversification Flight may affect the dispersal and evolution of birds. Using a new evolutionary tree, Claramunt et al. find that efficient fliers have broader geographic ranges, and speciation reduces range size, bu...

🫠. A tree came out today with 9,072 bird species, all placements based on actual DNA. It looks like they used eBird 2022 taxonomy; 10,096 were recognized back then. That means these folks just dropped (molecularly well informed) knowledge on 83% of the world's birds.

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Beautiful thread by my brilliant colleague, Silu Wang, outlining the special issue she has just released (with Anne Yoder). She highlights some of the wider themes inspiring our article (in same issue) about rethinking the boundaries and targets of biodiversity conservation.

🕊️🙏

Kudos to @sclaramunt.bsky.social @josephwb.bsky.social @sheardcat.bsky.social and the rest of the team. 3/3

The two new trees have different strengths. This one has no interpolated tips (placed by taxonomy) and emphasises the timetree element, making it particularly suitable for global analyses requiring a robust temporal framework, eg evolutionary models.

2/3

A new time tree of birds reveals the interplay between dispersal, geographic range size, and diversification Flight may affect the dispersal and evolution of birds. Using a new evolutionary tree, Claramunt et al. find that efficient fliers have broader geographic ranges, and speciation reduces range size, bu...

🚨 The New Age of global bird phylogenies continues!

Hot on the heels of the fantastic updated tree created by @eliotmiller.bsky.social and others, we use a different approach to generate a near-comprehensive timetree of >9000 bird species. 1/3

www.cell.com/current-biol...

🧪🌐🪶

I’m recruiting graduate students to join my lab at the University of New Orleans starting in January or September 2026!
If you're at #Evol2025 and curious about my research, come to my talk on Saturday at 11:30 AM in Macroevolution & Diversification II.
Contact me if interested.
claramuntlab.org

Genomics of Neotropical biodiversity indicators: Two butterfly radiations with rampant chromosomal rearrangements and hybridization | PNAS A central question in evolutionary biology is what drives the diversification of lineages. Rapid, recent radiations are ideal systems for this ques...

Fantastic paper from an amazing team:

Genomics of Neotropical biodiversity indicators: Two butterfly radiations with rampant chromosomal rearrangements and hybridization
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

What Happens to a Forest When the Birds Are Gone? New research reveals how missing seed dispersers are quietly limiting tropical forest recovery When I left academia to work in conservation, I landed in an organization...

Forests can’t regrow if seeds can’t move.

New research shows 60% of tropical regrowth zones have lost the animals that once carried seeds there.

No dispersers, no recovery.

Rewilding isn’t optional: it’s the missing link in climate and restoration plans. 🌱🐦‍⬛ 🦜
🧪 #SciComm

In our new perspective in PNAS we call for a move away from conservation focused on saving individual species to focusing on ecological processes, which underpin ecosystem resilience and the capacity to adapt to environmental change. Led by @josephtobias.bsky.social 🌍🌐🧪

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Global incidence of female birdsong is predicted by territoriality and biparental care in songbirds - Nature Communications Elaborate traits like birdsong are thought to be sexually selected in males but are poorly understood in females. This study shows that year-round territoriality and biparental care are selected for f...

What life history and behavioral traits predict female bird song at a global scale?

Our collaborative paper let by Karan Odom and out today in @natcomms.nature.com helps to answer that question

@josephtobias.bsky.social @sheardcat.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Good point. Could be tricky.

Pour one out for "Hedge Sparrows" 🥃