Ruby E. Stephens

'Hello human, nice to meet you'

Expert identification blitz: A rapid high value approach for assessing and improving iNaturalist identification accuracy and data precision and confidence Citizen science data are increasingly used in research and conservation, so assessing and improving data accuracy is important. We recruited 50 experts to review a dataset of Western Australian plant....

New paper open access in @plantspeopleplanet.bsky.social: nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Cit sci data quality is a hot topic, and assumptions about ID accuracy are often made without evidence. We decided to test identification accuracy for a WA plants @inaturalist.bsky.social dataset

In part two of our #BiologyLetters #ECR Competition series, we speak with Ruby Stephens, the runner-up of the 2024 competition, about her research paper: Zygomorphic flowers last longer: The evolution of floral symmetry and floral longevity. ow.ly/tRWt50V2BrO @rubyecology.bsky.social

Giant 400-year-old tingle tree accidentally destroyed by authorities WA officials have defended the state's prescribed burning strategy after an enormous tingle tree was destroyed in a recent fire.

Widespread planned burning accelerates loss of large trees and locks in higher flammability for decades. There are alternatives that the Western Australian government should invest in. Check the video featuring fire expert Phil Zylstra🌏

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01...

Excellent news to start the new year on, thanks @royalsocietypublishing.org !

I've just moved back to the blue mountains as an adult, and have spent a lot of time going "wow I never paid attention to how beautiful this all is"

My teenage stepdaughters are less thrilled by all the bush and quiet though 😅

Code sharing in ecology and evolution increases citation rates but remains uncommon Biologists increasingly rely on computer code to collect and analyze their data, reinforcing the importance of published code for transparency, reproducibility, training, and a basis for further work...

I'd like to encourage folks to publish their code. Not only does it make studies more transparent and reproducible, but it also increases citation rates!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Great shirt!

The feral flying under the radar: why we need to rethink European honeybees Feral honeybees have become a major problem in Australia. It’s time to develop effective and practical control measures.

This conversation article is a good start! theconversation.com/the-feral-fl...

Nice shot! Honey bees are somewhat controversial pollinators in Australian ecology, but they're definitely good on the lemon tree 🍋

Photo of a slide showing a map of western Victoria, with photos of three rare plant species and their approximate distributions in Grampians NP and Little Desert NP. The species, all shrubs, are Spyridium furculentum, Sphaerolobium acanthos and Grevillea microstegia

Photo of a slide entitled "Grevillea microstegia", with images of the many vertebrate pollinators found visiting this plant's flowers, including the eastern spinebill (55% of visits), new holland honeyeater (17%), pygmy possum (image in black-and-white as taken at night, 15% of visits), yellow-faced honeyeater (6%), brown thornbill (4%), silvereye (1%)

Linda Riquelme highlighted that pollination can be key to plant translocation success.

She investigated pollination in three critically endangered shrub species, all of which depend on pollinators to set seed. Pollinators = 🐝 (S. aca), 🐦🐿️ (G. mic) and 🪲🪰🦋 (S. fur)

#ESAus2024 🌏🧪

A photo of a slide entitled "Visitors -> Pollinators", with bullet points that state "pollen library from study plants", "matched to pollen on insects (539 identifications)", "created pollen transport networks". Images on the right hand side of the slide show close up photos of a pinned Flower Wasp specimen (Austroscolia sp.) bearing a mix of pollen grains. Other images show pollen grains from 5 native and 1 non-native plant species, with the clarification that the non-native species (Hypochaeris sp.) was not included in network analyses

A slide showing a bipartite pollination network, with insect pollinator morphospecies on the top and flowering plant species on the bottom. Text below the network states that 545 interactions were detected overall, with 237 individuals from 54 morphospecies of insects in 7 orders (and 5 flowering plant species), with high connectedness in the network

Allison Menzies @invertally.bsky.social spent 8 weeks sampling pollination networks in a Victorian grassland.
Though field conditions weren't great (lots of rain) she still found a decent network with lots of connectance, few honey bees and a lot more flies visiting than pollinating

#ESAus2024 🌏🧪

Photo of a slide showing a Xenoplatyura conformis fungus gnat attempting to mate with the labellum of a 'rustyhood' Pterostylis orchid. For pollination to be successful the labellum should trigger and capture the fungus gnat

Photo of a slide with the title "Pollinator behaviour", and bullet points "high rate of attempted mating" and "low capture rate". A graph shows that, for four species of Pterostylis orchid, more fungus gnat pollinators alighted on the flower and attempted mating than triggered the labellum (necessary for pollination to occur). An image on the left shows one species of Pterostylis with a visiting fungus gnat

Eamonn Culhane investigated pollination in 4 species of arid Pterostylis orchids (rustyhoods).

Despite sharing a widespread fungus gnat pollinator, these sexually deceptive orchids rarely set seed - perhaps because they rarely succeed at capturing their amorous gnat visitors

#ESAus2024 🌏🧪

A slide showing bright pink flowers of Eremophila maculata with flower parts labelled with botanical terms

A slide posing the question, "Does trait matching determine feeding and pollen transfer efficiency in honeyeater-plant interactions?" and answering this question with "Somewhat... Honeyeater species differ in feeding and pollen transfer efficiency at Eremophila maculata flowers. Trait matching: pollen removal (cross); pollen deposition (tick); feeding efficiency (cross)

Okay some belated highlights from pollination talks at #ESAus2024 :

Amanda Hewes ran behavioural experiments to test trait-matching between Australian honeyeaters and Spotted Fuschia-bush. Results? A bit mixed - some matching between bill and corolla length for pollen deposition but not removal
🧪🌏

A DnD campaign for environmental educators! So cool 🤓

Doesn't load for me (Australia)

🖐️🙏

Oh I love the cockatoos!

Yeah the low richness in India does seem weird. This richness is only from described ant species- is it possible India has a lot of undescribed ant species?

Map of ant richness globally from Kass et al. (2022) Science. Northern Australia doesn't look very species rich but this may be because of a large number of undescribed species

Fabulous address by @ecolsocaus.bsky.social Gold Medal winner Alan Anderson at #ESAus2024 on ant biodiversity in Australian savannahs - which may be much higher than pictured in this map due to a large number of undescribed Australian ant species!

Excited for a room full of (Australian) pollination talks! #ESAus2024

Loss of pollinator diversity consistently reduces reproductive success for wild and cultivated plants Nature Ecology & Evolution - A meta-analysis finds that decreasing diversity of pollinator species has a negative affect on multiple measures of plant reproductive success, with wild plant...

[new paper] You probably suspected that loss of pollinator diversity consistently reduces reproductive success for wild and cultivated plants, but here we quantify it: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Today’s opening plenary at #ESAus2024 by @philzyl.bsky.social urges us to look deeper & not simply accept the dominant dogma that more fuel load means higher rate of spread. Tall biomass can calm the fire by slowing wind. We need to learn from deep Indigenous knowledge to better manage our forests.

Delightful to see an orchid nerd butcher an orchid- for science!
I loved Andrew Bird's method for figuring out what part of the Caladenia flower smells most attractive to pollinators #ESAus2024

Second day of #ESAus2024 and we have 60 people in the conference starter pack. Follow other austral ecologists, ask to join the list, and maybe even share the link with people who need a little encouragement to come over to Blue Sky.

#StarterPack 🧪🌏🇦🇺

go.bsky.app/5YmZLNm

Thank you!

Thanks for organising this! I'm here too if you can add me :)

Ooh thanks Hervé!

So much to tell you: or, piercing plant tissue with needle-like mouth-parts - Overland literary journal Looking for things meant I could enjoy the feeling in my body. Something like hope, or friendship.

In her latest, beautiful comic, Sofia Sabbagh goes in search of forest critters, from the graciillaridae to the psyllids. Generously sponsored by @copower.bsky.social.

Floury baker cicada conveniently posing beside a ruler for scale (may have been set up)

Hard to go outside without earplugs right now thanks to these cutie cicadas and their many cousins #WildOz