Chris Jolly

From anecdote to evidence: experimental validation of fire-cue recognition in Australian sleepy lizards | Biology Letters Fire has shaped the evolution of both plants and animals. Animals exposed to fire throughout their evolutionary history are predicted to exhibit behavioural adaptations that enhance survival during fire. Here, we investigated whether Australian sleepy ...

New paper out today with @biodiversityguy.bsky.social and @lizardlab.bsky.social

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Hot off the press! Check out our new paper on sleepy lizard aka shingleback skink fire cue discrimination led by @ecolojolly.bsky.social DM if you want a PDF.

Knocking out genes to reveal drivers of natural selection on phenotypic traits: a study of the fitness consequences of albinism | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Conclusions about the adaptive significance of phenotypic traits typically rely on correlations between the trait and fitness, but pleiotropic effects of a single trait on fitness and covariation amon...

It’s always worth celebrating a student’s first paper! And an excellent one at that!

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Climate change and the cost-of-living squeeze in desert lizards Climate warming can induce a cost-of-living “squeeze” in ectotherms by increasing energetic expenditures while reducing foraging gains. We used biophysical models (validated by 2685 field observations...

🧪🌎🌍🦎🌡️ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Evaluating the utility of environmental DNA for detecting a large Critically Endangered lizard in tropical northern Australia It can be challenging to reliably detect rare or cryptic species. Environmental DNA (eDNA) is an emerging tool for detecting species and is increasingly being used to detect reptiles in terrestrial en...

New paper evaluating the utility of eDNA metabarcoding for detecting the cryptic and Critically Endangered Arnhem rock skink in Kakadu National Park.

Despite sampling high activity crevices, we were unable to detect them using eDNA.

www.publish.csiro.au/PC/PC24072

Surely a flash in the dark would reduce nocturnal vision, not improve it?

It may be hot and wet, but at least it’s consistent #darwinweather

ALA Labs frontpage & text logo. ALA LABS text is in white, formatted as off-centre stacked text. Underneath is smaller text, "Experiments in code, data analysis & visualisation from the Atlas of Living Australia." The background is green grass with a Southern Brown Tree Frog in the middle, hanging onto the grass. It has a darker brown top and lighter brown underside. The frog's eye is a rich dark yellow, with a black pupil in the shape of an oval, stretching from the left to right side of the eye

An animated scroll through an ALA Labs post, showing code, text and visuals to make a data visualisation in R. The article is on how to make a hexagon map of Australia, where each hexagon is an area of Australia, and each point in the hexagon is positioned and coloured to represent a species.

Examples of dataviz that ALA Labs posts show how to make in R. They are colourful and fun. One of them is even 3D!

✅ Do you use R or Python?
✅ Are you an ecologist/biologist?

Then you might find our website ALA Labs useful!

ALA Labs is full of how-to articles to visualise or analyse biodiversity data. Some are for beginners, others are advanced/experimental 😀

labs.ala.org.au

🧪🌏 #rstats #python #quartopub

A swamp wallaby, one of my favourite macropods, on the cover of Nature, and I’m a coauthor on the paper www.nature.com/articles/s41..., led by @dadriscoll.bsky.social.

Achievements unlocked!

🧪🌎. Our short film "The Waiting" 🐸🎥🐸🎬 is been awarded as a Vimeo Staff Pick, so since yesterday it's publicly accessable on Vimeo! vimeo.com/1036802517?s...

Research thrives on innovation and the diversity of ideas, yet our funding system often penalizes both. In our new study published in PNAS, we explore the hidden costs of competition in allocating scarce research funds. (1/10) www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

😂 yeah, let’s blame him

@biodiversityguy.bsky.social delivering his @ecolsocaus.bsky.social Australian Ecology Research Award.

Congratulations, Dale! Thoroughly deserved recognition for your wonderful and important work. #ESAus2024

Wow! Who’s that handsome fella holding a blue tongue so awkwardly?!

Next up... fauna and gigafires!

Grant Linley

@glinley.bsky.social

#ESAUS2024

How to train your apex reptilian predators! Great research on how to protect varanids from cane toads #ESAus2024

Skink on the brink - Australian Geographic These researchers gave everything to their search – and found not one, but 23 critically-endangered long sunskinks.

A great article highlighting the incredibly important work @chapplelab.bsky.social, @julesfarquhar.bsky.social and team are doing to improve our understanding of Australia’s data deficient skinks! 🦎

www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildl...?

Similar here in Darwin before 7am

Warm winters are waking snakes early. Here’s what that means for them and us Evidence suggests climate change could make snakes come out of hiding earlier. But it’s also likely to cause population declines or shifts in the long run, as snakes adjust to the new conditions.

theconversation.com/warm-winters...

It’s a big year for snakes in Australia. In fact, it’s always going to be a big year, so homework helps Hot, dry conditions bring numerous species into contact with people and pets, and not just in the bush. It’s good to know which is which

It’s a big year for snakes in Australia. In fact, it’s always going to be a big year, so homework helps www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Saving ‘old and wise’ animals vital for species’ survival, say scientists Hunting bigger, more experienced animals eradicates memories and knowledge crucial to group survival, research suggests

Saving ‘old and wise’ animals vital for species’ survival, say scientists www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Our review about the value of older animals appeared this weekend in the Age of Extinction series www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Don’t even think about it mate!

Exciting to see an endangered northern quoll in Kakadu last night clearly avoiding its primary threat—toxic, invasive cane toads (Rhinella marina).

Just because they’re great, here’s a reptile!

Hidden dragon (Cryptagama aurita).

These little pebble mimicking dragons go decades between being seen. Before we found this guy in 2018, they hadn’t been seen since the 90s!

www.publish.csiro.au/book/7930/

If you enjoyed that, imagine how much you’d love making one for Ctenotus!

Islands are key for protecting the world’s plant endemism - Nature A standardized checklist of all known vascular plants shows the distribution of island native and endemic species, identifies their conservation status and highlights the need for actions to conserve ...

Celebrating @altmetric.com with this repost!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Islands harbor 1/3 of the world’s #plant species, including 63,280 endemics—making them #biodiversity hotspots. Yet, only 6% meet global #conservation goals.
@natureportfolio.bsky.social
#nature #science #research

Scientists, academics, researchers: We’re excited to share that @altmetric.com is now tracking mentions of your research on Bluesky! 🧪

That’s not my handle 😂

Whoa! It had never occurred to me that someone would do that. Sorry that happened to you!

‘It felt very icky’: This scientist’s name was used to write fake peer reviews Elsevier retracts dozens of journal articles that were published based on “fictitious” reviews

Earlier this year, I received news that fake peer reviews were allegedly being submitted impersonating me and approximately six others

I shared my story with Science to, hopefully, reduce the chance of this kind of breach happening again

www.science.org/content/arti...