Matt Koski

Jen’s awesome thesis work on flower temperature and pollination out in @funecology.bsky.social !! @omgitsmejenny.bsky.social

Fig.3 Micropatterns on the petal surface are created by variation in epidermal cell pigment, shape and cuticle textures.

✨ Paper spotlight ✨

(🧵 1/3) Evolution of petal patterning: blooming floral diversity at the microscale
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Floral shape and color impact heat accumulation and thermal stability of the floral microenvironment in a subalpine meadow Premise The floral thermal microenvironment impacts plant reproduction through its effects on gametophyte performance and plant–pollinator interactions. Color and shape are axes of floral variation ...

bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Figure 1: Steps with representative photographs of the flower color phenotyping pipeline. A) We exported all research-grade iNaturalist observations of Monarda fistulosa from GBIF. B) We used GPT-4o to classify each image as to whether it contained a flower. C) We trained a Roboflow semantic segmentation model on a subset of images and applied the trained model to extract “flower” pixels from each image in the dataset. D) We calculated the geometric median of each set of extracted pixels to represent the flower color phenotype from each image, and we paired this phenotype with the observation’s iNaturalist metadata for spatial analysis.

Figure 2: Spatial summary of Monarda fistulosa flower colors across North America. A) Map of the color of M. fistulosa flowers. Each square is a 200km x 200km cell with the color corresponding to the average median CIELAB color value of each observation in the cell. The dotted line denotes -100° longitude, separating eastern and western regions of the range. B) Boxplots summarizing LCh color components west and east of -100° longitude, with each box showing the median and interquartile range, and with the color of each box reflecting the geometric median CIELAB value from west and east, respectively.

New preprint out today! A really fun collaboration with @shchurch.bsky.social and Robin Hopkins in which we study flower color variation in Monarda fistulosa using iNaturalist data. We process >40,000 images and use them to phenotype flower color in >16,000 observations: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Unravelling the Effects of Ecology and Evolutionary History in the Phenotypic Convergence of Fishes Abstract. Understanding the ecological drivers and limitations of adaptive convergence is a fundamental challenge. Here, we explore how adaptive convergenc

Super excited to share our new paper investigating convergence across planktivorous fishes and assessing the impact of ancestry and light environment led by Dr Jen Hodge @fishncurious.bsky.social and including most members of the lab past and present academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...

The news is out! The CapituLab is moving to Clemson University this fall 🌻 We are excited to get there and get started!

I am so excited about this upcoming publication about the Bees of Pennsylvania! 🐝 Stay tuned; we will have a page online where you can purchase this book in July! @nashturley.bsky.social @napoleonicento.bsky.social @stephanidae.bsky.social

NSF Grant Termination Information Collection Form Please use this form to submit information identifying specific NSF grants that have been cancelled for any reason after January 20, 2025. We are tracking these grants to increase transparency, organize affected PIs, and facilitate responses, including via litigation. Please share the form as widely as possible with your networks. We are actively building a pipeline to organize these terminations and will soon have a tracker akin to our NIH grant tracker at https://airtable.com/appjhyo9NTvJLocRy/shrNto1NNp9eJlgpA WE WILL NOT DISCLOSE THE IDENTITY OF ANYONE WHO USES THIS FORM TO PROVIDE INFORMATION. We will keep your identity confidential. These resources are maintained by Noam Ross of rOpenSci and Scott Delaney of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, with input and support from additional volunteers. For any questions, please contact Scott Delaney on Signal (sdelaney.84). THANK YOU FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE!

🚨Report your NSF grant terminations! 🚨

We are starting to collect information on NSF grant terminations to create a shared resource as we have for NIH. The more information we collect, the more we can organize, advocate, and fight back! Please share widely!

airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni...

Check this out! Latest pub from the Hopkins lab, and the brainchild of @patrickmckenzie.bsky.social !

From 2010 to 2016 (latest data I have ), NIH research contributed to EVERY drug approved by the FDA

March 21, 2-3 pm ET: What to do when your federal grant has been stopped or terminated

If you have a federal grant, I *highly* recommend going to this Friday's webinar on responding to grant terminations.

Lisa Brown, former general counsel at Dept of Ed, will present along with other lawyers.

Friday, March 21, 2-3 pm. More info & register here: www.linkedin.com/pulse/regist...

Here's a super helpful site called Signal in the Storm that is automated to keep track of federal policy changes (EO's and Ed dept) and news re: academia. Also includes suggestions on what to do, and a faq's page about indirects, etc. Pls RT!

signalinthestorm.org/index.html

Shu-Mei Chang Obituary - Athens, GA Celebrate the life of Shu-Mei Chang, leave a kind word or memory and get funeral service information care of Bernstein Funeral Home.

Plant evolutionary ecology has lost a very rare talent. Shu-Mei was a genuinely kind, whip-smart, reasonable, creative, bright light of a person.

www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/a...

Just extended the deadline to March 21 for this position in the Plant Phylogenomics group at the University of Vienna. It is sort of a "post doc plus" position funded for up to six years.

Please reach out if you want to chat - I'd love to talk to you about it!

jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Universi...

Good question! Species w variegation most common in broadleaf evergreen forests esp. tropics. Not sure more detailed biogeography studies exist?

If you're looking for a concrete action to take today--and you're a Visa cardholder--take 2 min and send an email to them today. 👇

Cierra SULLIVAN | PostDoc Position | Doctor of Philosophy | Michigan State University, East Lansing | MSU | Department of Plant Biology | Research profile Cierra SULLIVAN, PostDoc Position | Cited by 29 | of Michigan State University, East Lansing (MSU) | Read 3 publications | Contact Cierra SULLIVAN

dissertation work by Dr. Cierra Sullivan (not on bluesky) www.researchgate.net/profile/Cier...

Top panel showing Hexastylis plant with variegated leaves. Bottom panel showing Hexastylis plant with uniformly green leaves

basic research funded by #NSFGRFP with implications for ag. and plant resiliency to climate change. "...multicolored leaf tissue can yield similar, if not improved, photosynthetic resilience than uniformly colored tissue under certain environmental contexts"

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Lmk if you hear anything about what’s happening with “pending” ORCC proposals. I haven’t heard anything from POs yet and know they’re swamped so haven’t reached out.

Funding cuts by state

Total NIH funding cuts by state. This can be helpful when talking to your representatives

www.datawrapper.de/_/Y0Pnk/

I have a confession
.
.
.
I was an “overhead cost”.

I was a beaker washer, agar plate pourer, research secretary. I was paid by “overhead cost” fees. Loved it.

Those “overhead cost” jobs allowed this rural kid to become a physician.

Please tag how #OverheadCostJob impact u.

A photo of speaker Jesus Martinez-Gomez by a river with lots of plants around.

Next Thursday!
Jesus Martinez-Gomez

February 13th, 2025
7-8 pm PT

“The genetic basis of variable ultraviolet pigmentation in yellow monkey flowers (Erythrante sect. Simiola)"

Zoom link at calbotsoc.org/botany-speak...

#PlantScience #evobio

Around 35% of SpaceX’s revenue comes directly from the federal govt.

Less than 1% of NPR’s budget comes from the federal govt.

"...don't give in to cynicism or apathy. That's what the people promulgating these horrible policies want - a bored, indifferent public who figures that who cares, nothing matters any more, it's gonna happen no matter what. But it doesn't have to. Never forget that: it doesn't have to happen."

Best grant writing advice I ever received:

"Write your proposal as if someone from a completely different field will search through it looking for 100 banned words"

Darby makes this point but I just want to reinforce it: These words are entirely legitimate to discuss science, accurately and correctly. This attack on "DEI" (🙄) is not only an attempt to resegregate science but also an attack on expertise, itself.

Resisting it is a defense of science

Despite the world being on fire, I'm extremely psyched to see this paper with Vero Iriart, Tia-lynn Ashman, @anahvsb.bsky.social and Matthew Armstrong finally out!

Photograph of perennial Mimulus guttatus along a creek

Image from published paper showing that plants invest in more flowers and more stolons when surrounded by unrelated plants, compared to when their neighbours are relatives.

For something uplifting... Mimulus is kind to its kin!

We add to the growing evidence that plants sense their neighbours and respond differently to kin vs unrelated individuals!

Congratulations to @isabeaulewis.bsky.social 🧪🌾 #evolution #mimulus #botany

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

NSF PRFB fellows: talk to your POs and transfer the remaining year’s balance of salary and research funds by 5pm today!! Dm me if you want to join the prfb slack where fellows are sharing info with each other #nsf #nsfprfb

Find and contact elected officials | USAGov Use USAGov’s Contact Your Elected Officials tool to get contact information for your members of Congress, the president, and state and local officials.

It is very easy to call your representatives’ offices. They have to log your calls and the call numbers are meaningful. You don’t even have to try to convince anyone; just call and tell them your concerns. They are there to represent you. Let them know what that means. www.usa.gov/elected-offi...