Matt Buys

Continental‐scale interactions of Australian showy mistletoes and their hosts Premise Showy mistletoes are obligate hemiparasites of woody plants. Host specificity is therefore a fundamental determinant of mistletoe diversity, persistence, geographic distribution, and abundan.....

🌿 Using specimen records from @bioeconomyscience.bsky.social's National Forestry Herbarium & others, Santiago-Rosario et al. mapped mistletoe-host interactions. Showy mistletoes show strong preferences for rosid hosts—hinting at ancient co-evolution. #Botany #Ecology #NZFRI #Mistletoe 🧪

"The Australian ORCID Consortium led by AAF has been essential in moving Australia forward..." Natasha Simons, Director, Nati

We are pleased to see that the successful uptake of ORCID across Australia is proving to enhance research reporting and measuring. 🇦🇺

Read more here ➡️ https://shorturl.at/z4Ygl

Just updated @bioeconomyscience.bsky.social's National Forestry Herbarium data on GBIF! 🌿
Fresh records for researchers, conservationists & biodiversity enthusiasts. Explore the richness of our collections to unlock new insights and create impact.
#BioCollections #GBIF #Herbarium #BiodiversityData

Welcome to the Bioeconomy Science Institute - formed by the merging of AgResearch, @manaakiwhenua.bsky.social, Plant & Food Research and Scion.

We’re here to grow a resilient, sustainable bioeconomy — through innovation, collaboration and science that delivers real-world impact. 🌱

Good to see @bioeconomyscience.bsky.social here on Bluesky.

The disambiguation of people names in biological collections Scientific collections have been built by people. For hundreds of years, people have collected, studied, identified, preserved, documented and curated collection specimens. Understanding who those peo...

Cheers to Pensoft for incorporating a Bluesky share option. I've just embarked on the Wikidata/ORCID/Bionomia journey as curator and database manager of the #NationalForestryHerbarium @scionresearch.bsky.social. All this to make data #FAIR

How about coinciding the first female head with a new entity where no one has a veto, amongst other things?

Close-up photo of a hand holding a node of a climber with pinnately compound leaves and green legumes. Each tiny stipule has a dark spot, which is an extra-floral nectary. Photo by Scott Zona CC BY-NC 2.0.

What else can stipules do? The dark spots on the tiny stipules of Vicia sativa are extra-floral nectaries. They attract ants, which defend the plant against herbivores. 🐜 #stipule #Fabaceae #EFN #Botany 🌾🧪🌱

Leveraging the BRAHMS database at the National Forestry Herbarium @scionresearch.bsky.social boosts efficiency in managing #BioCollections. Linking duplicates to a single event streamlines data and reduces redundancy. This integration leads to more reliable data and improved research outcomes. 🌿📊🧪

1. Infuriatingly, here in the UK, the government still seems to believe that the only way of introducing trees is to plant them (see, for example, the current Land Use Framework consultation).
News just in: trees can self-seed, which could be why they've survived for 360m years. 🧵

YouTube video by Firefly Aerospace Moon Landing - Firefly Blue Ghost Makes History

Watch Firefly land on the Moon! After identifying surface hazards and selecting a safe landing site, #BlueGhost landed directly over the target in Mare Crisium. A historic moment on March 2 we'll never forget. We have Moon dust on our boots! #BGM1

youtu.be/NpHhEybJdxg

If the government wants science to have an economic impact it has to put its money where its mouth is Science sector reforms are long overdue. But questions remain about implementation and whether there will be enough funding to be effective.

My science system reforms analysis is here: I wanted to first focus on the difference between the SSAG recommendations and the govt announcement. There’s a lot 😳 but the headline is the lack of govt investment.

theconversation.com/if-the-gover...

Stephen Kotkin "What happens when you break things is when you try to rebuild you're rebuilding with the
shards of what you broke and often unwittingly you rebuild what you think is something new but is actually
the old system."

Figure 2. Measuring changes in insect biodiversity (centre column 'Metrics' and 'Trends') can be achieved by focusing on drivers that directly or indirectly impact insect biodiversity metrics and trends (left column 'Drivers of Change'). Where data on insect populations specifically are unavailable, data from other species and ecological processes can provide inferential support for changes in insect biodiversity (right column 'Indicators of Change').

*New paper* Denialism campaigns are growing in attempts to discredit science, scientists, and the scientific process generally. Biodiversity loss denial is a new phenomenon that needs our attention.
-With @alexanderlees.bsky.social + Eliza Grames!
#CommSky 🧪🌏 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Brahms v 8.7 available now.🥳

herbaria.plants.ox.ac.uk/bol/brahms

Bluesky’s science takeover: 70% of Nature poll respondents use platform Roughly 6,000 readers answered our poll, with many declaring that Bluesky was nicer, kinder and less antagonistic to science than X.

On the migration of the scientific community to Bluesky:
www.nature.com/articles/d41... 🧪

Millions of ‘cloud trees’ are being planted in the Andes | CNN Constantino Aucca Chutas is leading a group of conservationists on mission to restore forests of the world’s highest-altitude trees.

I wonder how Polylepis (Rosaceae) fairs at lower altitudes? It seems like a must for keen gardeners. I did a quick search of Scion's #BioCollections, we have a wood sample of Polylepis incana Kunth in the National Forestry Xylarium.

When it comes to a reference manager, let it be known I really want to use Zotero, but the one thing that prevents me from using it is that, as far as I call tell, it cannot auto format intext citations as "Author (Year)" as opposed to "(Author, Year)" or "(Year)" #Zotero #ReferenceManager

Unlocking a new dimension of #herbarium specimens: Master student Khalil Boughalmi U. Grenoble studying #NIRs spectra of herbarium specimens in #Annonaceae. Can we identify species from spectra of herbarium sheets?? More very soon!

Putting Brahms to good use. One #BioCollections database for plants, fungi and insects at New Zealand Forest Research Institute.

Screenshot of the Ecdysis Symbiota portal, designed for the digitization of entomological collections.

During my PhD at the #ASUBiocollections, I digitized over 3,000 #Anthribidae specimens 🥰. This was possible with the wonderful #Symbiota portal ecdysis.org, now updated with new tools! Let us know if you want to join to #digitize your collections 🥰.

My new favourite from #NationalForestryHerbarium. Echium plantagineum, commonly known as Paterson's curse, indigenous to Eurasia and northern Africa. Earliest collection in NZ from 1893. Farmers hate them, bee keepers love them. #BioCollections

Wahoo! #BioCollections data refresh from National Forestry Herbarium @ Scion Research supplied to Australasian Virtual Herbarium. See biocache.ala.org.au/occurrences/...

New Zealand's Science System Advisory Group online news page last updated in April 2024. I worry about the future of #BioCollections in this country.

From #NationalForestryHerbarium @ScionResearch. 55% of specimens now imaged. Here's a sample. Melianthus major, an evergreen suckering shrub, endemic to South Africa and naturalised in New Zealand where it's on the Weedbuster list.

Elsie, what a legend! I had the fortune of doing fieldwork with her.

You never realize how much you rely on a service until it’s no longer available.

E.g. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I think Ian's comment has merit. Is this a consequence of the rise of
biology as a dominant discipline,
as opposed to the study of plants
and animals that formed the
cornerstone of natural science for
centuries?

I note she studied/studies baboons... Being a biologist probably does not cut it anymore. Is this a consequence of the rise of biology as a dominant discipline, as opposed to the study of plants and animals that formed the cornerstone of natural science for centuries?