Alli Pierce, PhD

Oh man I could see that! Less a problem in Colorado where if anyone sees it there’s a good chance I might since I’m in a rural area. It has to be a pretty big storm for us to catch it tho!

As much as I hate Facebook it's also a really good tool for checking for Aurora action by following local photo groups!

Excited to be a part of this year's Climate Week NYC!
@planscape.bsky.social and @americanforests.bsky.social will be chatting post-fire reforestation at Doris Duke's Treehouse with amazing speakers from @nature.org, @moorefound.bsky.social, and more!

The “you can see the mountain way back there” plover 😉

Large male elk with a big set of antlers walking through an aspen grove.

I LOVE this time of year. Check out this huuuge bull elk I saw in my yard today! It’s been 2 weeks of listening to these fellas sing and it’s magical ✨

Libby rocks so I bet these jobs do too! Forest people get on it!

The best plover in my very biased opinion! Shore? Who needs it!

Second this! Great location, great people, great size, and great science!

Showy dragonflies are being driven extinct by warming and wildfire Nature Climate Change - The authors use 1,603 estimates of local extinctions from 1980 to 2021 to show that dragonfly species with wing ornamentation have disproportionately gone extinct and lost...

new paper from my lab @cudenverclas.bsky.social in @natclimate.nature.com, led by @sarahnalley.bsky.social!

Dragonflies with dark mating ornaments on their wings are disappearing from parts of the United States that have had more warming and wildfire over the last 40 years 🧪🌍🐙

rdcu.be/eFm7e

2025 - Hypoxia PhD job ad The Moore lab at the University of Colorado Denver is searching for 1 Ph.D. student to study the elevational limits of dragonflies in Colorado (http://moore-evo-eco.weebly.com). This position is fully...

Are you looking for a PhD position and want to spend your summers in the Rocky Mountains?

My lab @cudenverclas.bsky.social is looking for 1 PhD student to work on a NSF-funded project to study elevational range shifts in Colorado! 🧪🌍🐙

Apply by Nov 1!

Details here docs.google.com/document/d/1...

High and hardy: Cold‐tolerant generalists inhabit extreme elevations in Rocky Mountain Pardosa spiders Pardosa species richness is highest at mid-elevations in the Rocky Mountains, declining at the lowest and highest elevations. Pardosa species that inhabit extreme elevations tend to be generalists, ...

new paper out with Paula Cushing @denvermuseumns.bsky.social in @royentsoc.bsky.social! We explore elevational distributions of 🕷️ in Colorado

Species that live at extreme elevations tend to be cold-tolerant generalists that can live anywhere 🧪🌍🐙

resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Kentish Plover chicks are masters of camouflage.
Can you spot it?
#plovers #shorebirds #waders

Bogong moths use a stellar compass for long-distance navigation at night - Nature Every spring, Bogong moths use the starry night sky as a compass to navigate up to 1,000 km towards their alpine migratory goal.

cool new paper in @nature.com about moth migration, showing they use the stars to navigate up to the mountains in the summer 🧪🌍🐙

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

In case it looks like we were way too close and unsafe, I took the pics zoomed between the wires of the heavy duty fence between the herd and us.

Last I heard this nest topped out at 10! eggs (so weird!) and is still being incubated. Craziness!

Not science or bird content but I think we can all use some nice nature content ❤️

Herd of Bison grazing in a grass field. Photo is centered on a red colored Bison calf with other adults and calves in the background.

Close up photo of a red colored Bison calf’s face.

Photo of a Bison herd in a grass field with a large dark colored bull centered in the shot.

I pass this Bison herd off I-70 all the time driving home. This time we stopped to appreciate all the adorable red-dogs since the herd was right next to the viewing fence. This full Bison herd has been maintained by the city of Denver for over 100 years!

That would be awesome to know! A lot of times these larger nests get eaten early in incubation but hopefully they get a chance to collect some feathers/unhatched eggs!

Males and females are near impossible to distinguish in the field so unfortunately we won’t know if the incubator of this super nest is a super mom or super dad unless they can collect a feather sample for sexing. Super interested to find out if they do and if any make it to hatch!

A Mountsin plover nest overflowing with 8 speckled eggs nestled in a shallow scrape on bare ground.

check out this 9 (!!) egg nest Casey Weissburg’s field crew found (1 laid after photo)! I don’t know of any instances of so many eggs in one nest! I wonder what circumstances led to it?

A Mountain Plover nest with 5 speckled eggs resting in a shallow scrape on bare ground.

rarely we find nests with 4-6 eggs which we THINK is the female laying all the eggs in one nest for some reason. Also super cool and interesting but..

A Mountain plover nest containing 3 speckled eggs nestled in bits of dried vegetation in a shallow scrape on bare ground.

Normally a Mountain plover clutch is 6 eggs split between 2 nests that the male and female split up to incubate and rear independently which is super weird and cool in itself but…

Males and females are near impossible to distinguish in the field so unfortunately we won’t know if the incubator of this super nest is a super mom or super dad unless they can collect a feather sample for sexing. Super interested to find out if they do and if any make it to hatch!

A Mountsin plover nest overflowing with 8 speckled eggs nestled in a shallow scrape on bare ground.

check out this 9 (!!) egg nest Casey Weissburg’s field crew found (1 laid after photo)! I don’t know of any instances of so many eggs in one nest! I wonder what circumstances led to it?

A Mountain Plover nest with 5 speckled eggs resting in a shallow scrape on bare ground.

rarely we find nests with 4-6 eggs which we THINK is the female laying all the eggs in one nest for some reason. Also super cool and interesting but..

Almost always! If they do fly it’s not far at all. They spend most of their time just cruisin’ around on the ground.

Last week I got to help my colleague, Casey Weissburg, GPS tag some Mountain Plovers and it was the nostalgic itch I needed to scratch.

Enjoy this plover being released looking a bit like a lil 🦖 I love these shoreless shorebirds ❤️

Watch till the end for a cute lil tweet!

All work done w/permits

Grad students: Free training and community-building event this week!! If you are working on anything involving individuals or populations from an ecology or evolutionary perspective (including modeling!) your work probably qualifies as "animal behavior" for our purposes. You can still register!

A male and female Black-headed Grosbeak perched on a platform bird feeder.

A male Western Tanager perched on a Ponderosa Pine branch.

Pretty fitting our first of the year Black-headed Grosbeaks and Western Tanager arrived on Migratory Bird Day! All the summer friends have now arrived!

Nursery Manager Under the direct supervision of the Associate Director of Forest Planning and Implementation, this position is responsible for planning, directing, and coordinating all activities related to a forest ...

Colorado State Forest Service is hiring a nursery manager. Please share widely!

jobs.colostate.edu/postings/159...