Mason Heberling

Guest Post - Rethinking Disciplinary Data Regimes - The Scholarly Kitchen Between a political policy environment focused on defunding and deleting data collections – an environment in which little can be trusted – and an onslaught of new AI tools that feed indiscriminately ...

Come for this pitcher commemorating the first Federal Census and stay for my plea for rethinking data. Thanks to @jmheberling.bsky.social for the inspiration and to @kawulf.bsky.social for the encouragement.

Please share — Michigan State Plant Biology is searching for an Herbarium Director! Tenure stream, open rank faculty position balancing research, teaching, service, and admin responsibilities. Join us! Reach out to me or @emjo.bsky.social with questions!

plantbiology.natsci.msu.edu/job-postings...

Tracing holotype trajectories: Mapping the movement of the most valuable herbarium specimens Global efforts to protect biodiversity depend on fair access to key plant specimens. This study examines the distribution of 119,361 holotypes—unique herbarium specimens used to formally describe new...

Interesting study on holotypes, where they were collected compared to where they are stored. “The distance between collection sites and herbaria has decreased over time, that is, around 1800, the median distance was 8,800 km, while by 2000 it decreased to 750 km.” doi.org/10.1002/ppp3...

Fighting Invasive Plants: The Ones We’ve Got and Those We Think Are Coming

Great NYT article today about how not to make problems with invasive species even worse, featuring @evecologist.bsky.social and @jmheberling.bsky.social
🌐🧪🌱
Free link: www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/r...

Fighting Invasive Plants: The Ones We’ve Got and Those We Think Are Coming

Great new piece on dealing with #invasivePlants with Evelyn Beaury and @jmheberling.bsky.social
Dr. Beaury is out of Bethany Bradley's Lab at @umassamherst.bsky.social and is already well published. She has this new position New York Botanical Garden.
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/r...

No but it helped me be motivated to find it! (I found it by searching my old paper drafts where I thought I cited it. )

Mystery solved! Whitehead (1976) "Collecting Beetles in Exotic Places without Leaving Home: The Herbarium" www.jstor.org/stable/3999695 That was really bothering me.

to clarify, this essay is specifically pointing out herbaria as neat places for entomologists to look for insects, accidentally pressed with the plants

Insects pressed on herbarium sheets...I'm looking for a paper I know exists on the topic, a short essay in a relatively narrow audience bulletin, ca. 1970s-1980s perhaps. Going nuts trying to locate it again.

Every year at this time, I’m reminded that Lonicera morrowii has two different fruit colors. And each year, I wonder if there is any explanation. I think the same species, right? Maybe I’ll remember to tag a few this year to see if color maintains year to year. Maybe.

Powdermill Nature Reserve is hiring a position to work up some datasets, with fairly broad, open ended goals that can be tailored to interests/expertise. Possibility for remote work. Would make a great postdoc or even sabbatical project.

us251.dayforcehcm.com/CandidatePor...

My god, the really cool herbarium papers are coming in faster than I can read them.

Excited for our new paper out led by Chatham University undergraduate Searrah Bierker presenting a new, holistic approach to herbarium specimen collections, what we call "integrated vouchers," that aims to capture intraspecific variation not well documented in herbaria. dx.doi.org/10.2992/007....

Powdermill Nature Reserve yesterday 😍

Signing in to OrcID to sign in to Web of Science profile to sign in to Scholar One… 😆 (but actually way easier than remembering another log in)

🤣 catchy huh?

Standing Up for Invasive Species (Gift Article) Artists and scientists are finding ways to highlight troublesome plants and animals, tell their stories and, in some cases, use them as raw materials.

So I’m in the New York Times today 👀 😃 in a nice piece on artists and invasive species featuring our new exhibition at Carnegie Museum on invasive plants nyti.ms/42fFzpa

Non-native species are presumed guilty by ecologists until proven innocent. This onus stems from precautionary principle. Not totally sure how I feel about that.

Defended my dissertation ten years ago today! Will always remember the day and the date. (Grateful my committee didn’t celebrate April fools) surface.syr.edu/etd/213/

A nice thread on Elton (though natural history was a “science” long before him and remains critical today #inductiveReasoning)

Thanks 😊 Yeah it’s been fun. You’ll have to visit! It’ll be up for at least two years.

Challenging the Invasive Plant Narrative Botanist Mason Heberling challenges how we think about invasive species and our role in their spread.

Invasive Plants Are Not the Enemy:
Botanist @jmheberling.bsky.social [and #BSAmember!] challenges how we think about invasive species and our role in their spread.

www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/epis...

#botany #plantscience

Making the most of herbaria. A commentary on ‘Integrating datasets from herbarium specimens and images to treat a Neotropical myrtle species complex’ At first glance, herbarium specimens (dead plants glued to paper) may not seem like much, but they are far more than meets the eye. With >3500 instituti

The title summarizes it best. Check out our commentary in @annbot.bsky.social: Making the most of herbaria. A commentary on ‘Integrating datasets from herbarium specimens and images to treat a Neotropical myrtle species complex’ doi.org/10.1093/aob/...

PETITION: Stop Trump's E.O. Attacks on Federal Funding for Libraries In a new executive order, President Trump has targeted the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the federal agency charged with distributing congressionally approved funds to state librari...

Trump attacked Federal Funding for Libraries and Museums.

We need Americans like you to take action today!

Please sign and share the petition before it's too late!

action.everylibrary.org/eoimls2025 via @everylibrary.bsky.social

😱 ❤️

Does authorship mean anything when academic papers are simply citable tokens? The bibliometric infrastructure of citations has become an inescapable organising feature of academic life. Drawing on a range of evidence of the use and misuse of citations data, Stuart Macdonald …

"The notion that the best papers are the most cited papers was always questionable
The most citable, and therefore publishable, papers are mundane, ‘water is wet’ papers
What was once the most cited paper of all is about cleaning test tubes"
Great read: blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

Aldi is my church #sunday

I'm excited to see this come out. Been a line of research we have been pursuing for a long time. Worked with a great group of undergrads while completing the study!

The Nature journals keep coming

Today’s bogus spam email is tempting!: Request to accept for the position of "Editorial Board" for the journal "Journal of Pain"