Chloe MacLaren

Interested in #agdata? Then join us at the @rothamsted.bsky.social data hackathon using the rich long-term data from our Long-term experiments, North Wyke Farm Platform and Insect Survey @rothamsted-lte.bsky.social, @thefarmplatform.bsky.social www.tickettailor.com/events/rotha...

Leaving Zimbabwe 😢 ... and moving to Sweden!🥳

Had a classic Reviewer 2 this morning. They wrote half their comments in CAPITAL LETTERS, APPARENTLY OBLIVIOUS TO THE FACT THAT IT READS LIKE SHOUTING 😂
🧪🌱🌾🌐

‘Empathy is a kind of strength’: Jacinda Ardern on kind leadership, public rage and life in Trump’s America Young, progressive and relatable, the former prime minister of New Zealand tried to do politics differently. But six years into power, she dramatically resigned. In an exclusive interview with the Gua...

'Empathy is a kind of strength' - wish we had more world leaders who thought this way...

I love that this has struck a chord. This was a chance for me to think out loud about some of the things I've learned over the years in my research career. If you're an #ECR, you might find something useful. You also might not, but take a look and if you like it, subscribe for more.

Join conversation

On May 15th at 9:00 (CET), I will be presenting my HDR dissertation

'Sustainable intensification of smallholder farming systems for improved food security and adaptation to climate change in Africa'

Use this link to join online:
teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-joi...

Open postdoc position in my lab @earlhaminst.bsky.social @quadraminstitute.bsky.social
We will generate large-scale soil metagenomes to research the impact of agriculture on healthy soil microbiomes, developing strategies to increase carbon retention: jobs.earlham.ac.uk/Details.asp?...
Please RT

YouTube video by Life in academia Importance of maintaining professional distance in academia: how to avoid harm

On the importance of maintaining professional distance in research labs: how much harm in academia (maybe) comes from seemingly good intentions.

Recorded spontaneously today in Ishikawa, during a hike, since this has been on my mind.

Let me know what you think!

#AcademicSky

youtu.be/ppbnxMkgo3Q

Don't forget to apply for this PhD in lovely Aotearoa! Closes 30th April

Guardian screenshot: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/22/activate-climate-silent-majority-support-supercharge-action

In the news this week, what do you have in common with 89% of the rest of the world but think you are in a minority?

It turns out that although we feel like a silent minority we are actually a rather large majority.

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With co-authors from @w-u-r.bsky.social, SLU, @cimmyt.bsky.social, @inrae-france.bsky.social, @srucnews.bsky.social, @helsinki.fi, and LUVY

Narrowing the ecological yield gap to sustain crop yields with less inputs Sustainable production of sufficient and healthy food requires efficient use of agricultural inputs. In many regions of the world with intensive agric…

In a new paper, we propose the 'ecological yield gap' as a framework to strengthen collaboration between agronomists and ecologists in our quest to enhance on-farm ecosystem services in ways that effectively sustain crop yields while minimising input use:
doi.org/10.1016/j.gf...
🧪🌱🌾🧑‍🌾🐞💚🤎

📢 New #PhD offer. You have a MSc degree in agronomy, soil science or plant ecophysiology AND you are from Kenya? This offer might be for you.

"Contribution of #agroforestry systems 🌳 🌽 🥑 🐐 to provisioning ecosystem services, #climatechange adaptation and mitigation in Kenya"

Deadline: 31.05.2025.

Any particular directions or contexts in which you think we should especially try to think more radically? I'm curious 😊

1. LLM-generated code tries to run code from online software packages. Which is normal but
2. The packages don’t exist. Which would normally cause an error but
3. Nefarious people have made malware under the package names that LLMs make up most often. So
4. Now the LLM code points to malware.

Accurate simulation of the provision of nitrogen by soil organic matter is critical in low-input smallholder systems.

recrutement.cirad.fr/job/job-cher...

Join us at Cirad - Postdoc position to help with crop model intercomparison @agmip.bsky.social

Could drought and poor soil undermine the performance of intercropping ?

Our study in semi-arid Zimbabwe found that the benefits of intercropping are maintained even with water and N stress.

doi.org/10.1016/j.fc...

Congrats Illiana Kwenda - A nice combination of field experiments and modelling

Crop pest responses to global changes in climate and land management Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, Published online: 08 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s43017-025-00652-3Crop yield losses to insect pests pose a risk to food security. This Review assesses global trends of crop pest prevalence associated with global environmental change, identifies the underlying ecological mechanisms and proposes strategies for effective, sustainable management of pests to support future food security.

New online! Crop pest responses to global changes in climate and land management

An open letter to graduate students and other procrastinators: it’s time to write - Nature Biotechnology Nature Biotechnology - An open letter to graduate students and other procrastinators: it’s time to write

Lots of excellent advice in this piece. The core message - only through writing do you really think and order your thoughts into logical sense. Makes a case for not using AI for 1st draft because you bypass the thinking step
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@naturebiotech.bsky.social
#PlantScience

Storm clouds over landscape in Rwanda

Soil conditions can significantly increase rainfall in the world's megastorm hotspots, a new UKCEH-led study has found ⛈️ .

The ground-breaking research led by @drexomole.bsky.social is set to transform early warning systems in tropical regions.

See our news: www.ceh.ac.uk/press/soil-c... 🧪

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New grant for recruiting researchers active outside Europe In mid-April, the Swedish Research Council will issue a call for grants of 2 million SEK to enable Swedish higher education institutions and other research organisations to recruit prominent researche...

The Swedish Research Council is offering 2 million SEK grants directed at scholars from outside Europe who want to relocate to Sweden and work at Swedish research institutions. The call opens 15 April. www.vr.se/english/just...

PhD offer in the #GALILEO project @lerouxlouise.bsky.social @cirad.bsky.social @mcorbeels.bsky.social

"Multi-criteria & multi-scale assessment of performances & trade-offs induced by #agroforestry 🌳 🌽 🥑 🐄 for #climatechange resilience"

Deadline: 11 May 2025:

gaia.umontpellier.fr/documents/SU...

A view of a landscape with a mosaic of crop fields and woodland, with a lake left of centre. Big puffy white clouds in a blue sky. Savannah sloping away in the foreground, small mountains along the horizon in the distance.

Lovely view from a hilltop in Chipata, #Zambia.
🌱🌳🌽🐐🌍

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky 🚀🪐🕷️🐜🧑‍🚀

Nice of the White House to put my own little mistake into perspective 🫣😬

www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

🚨We are hiring🚨ECR with a PhD within 7 years? Tenure track position (akin to Assistant Prof) in Earth and Env Data Science at U of Gothenburg, Sweden. Expertise in remote sensing and machine learning. Work on climate change, Earth systems, biodiversity, #EO, #UAV Deadline May 10 tinyurl.com/58ft38du

📢 You are from Sub-Saharan Africa, have a MSc in biological science?
Here is a PhD offer in 🇰🇪 w\ ICIPE, Univ Embu, CIRAD:

"Evaluation of impact of #agroforestry 🌳🌽 & conventional farming systems on belowground #biodiversity 🐜🪱 & regulating services"

📅 19 Mar 2025
scholarships.icipe.org/calls/51

PhD position in the UK on invasive plants with a fantastic supervisor 🤩🌱🌿🧪

Just out - new paper exploring associations between weed species' life history strategies, the environments they grow in, and whether they are perceived as 'problematic' weeds or not 🌱🌾🚜
Led by my colleague Darwin Hickman:
authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

I wrote this about the “boys have no role” models narrative - there are so many problems for both male and female and much of them lie in underfunding of youth centres, schools and a perilous job market where people are paid the bare minimum

thecosmicshamblesnetwork.substack.com/p/the-death-...