Screening, sorting, and the feedback cycles that imperil peer review The process of peer review is vital to contemporary science, but is also under enormous strain. This study uses mathematical models to dissect the threats to the long-term viability of peer review, su...

1. Kevin Gross and I have a new paper out today PLOS Biology.

We used economic models based around screening games and the market for unpaid labor to highlight a meltdown cycle threatening peer review.

This is figure 1, which gives an overview of OpenScholar, ScholarQABench and evaluation results.

A paper in Nature presents OpenScholar, an open-source language model that can outperform commercial large language models in performing accurate literature reviews. go.nature.com/3MozzFq #Academicsky 🧪

William Bond, defender of grasslands In recent years, one of the loudest ideas in environmental policy has been that trees are the planet’s universal remedy. Plant enough of them, in enough places, and carbon will be soaked up, water wil...

"Bond’s work leaves behind an inconvenient lesson for an era of climate urgency: that speed is not a substitute for understanding, and that good intentions, applied without care, can erase ancient worlds as efficiently as neglect." A beautiful tribute to William Bond. Forever missed by many.

The most abundant plant species of Eastern Australia and our knowledge of their traits ABSTRACT 1. The rule that most species are relatively rare and few are common has been of central importance to many branches of ecology. This rule also implies that just a few species make up the maj...

Our new preprint out led by David Coleman, @westobymark.bsky.social and others: The most abundant plant species of Eastern Australia and our knowledge of their traits

Just <1% of species make up 50% of the entire vegetation cover of Eastern Australia.

doi.org/10.64898/202...

🏆We are pleased to announce that our Eminent Ecologist for 2025 is Angela Moles!

✨Angela has collected a few of her favourite Journal of Ecology papers together here: buff.ly/86uQ6v5

Resurveyed Island Vegetation Reveals That Species Colonisation and Extinction Probabilities Are Linked to Traits We show that species richness and community trait composition on 132 Australian islands remained stable over six decades, despite high species turnover. Colonisation and extinction probabilities were....

Paper out in Ecology Letters!

We - incl. @westobymark.bsky.social @biogeokreft.bsky.social and others - show that traits are linked to species’ colonisation and extinction probabilities on #islands — with direct implications for species persistence and the Equilibrium Theory of Island #Biogeography

1/At Macquarie Uni we are losing 50% of our units in my faculty. This is on top of cuts in 2020. We estimate by next year my faculty will be teaching 80% fewer subjects than pre Covid. Disciplines being cut do not have declining enrolments. @jennaprice.bsky.social @michaelwestbiz.bsky.social

www.publish.csiro.au/bt/Fulltext/... Reflection in Aust J Bot "Trajectories of ecology past and future" #ecology

Wind and frost have surprisingly strong effects on global patterns in leaf cuticle thickness! Latitude, biome and taxonomy matter too. Other climate variables not so much. #trait research from international team including @lawrensack.bsky.social @westobymark.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1111/nph....

Thermal acclimation of stem respiration implies a weaker carbon-climate feedback The efflux of carbon dioxide (CO2) from woody stems, a proxy for stem respiration, is a critical carbon flux from ecosystems to the atmosphere, which increases with temperature on short timescales. Ho...

Excited to share our new paper led by Tsinghua Uni ECR Zhang Han: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/.... New model based on eco-evolutionary optimality explains observed seasonal and spatial trends in stem respiration, implies stem CO2 efflux down by >25% by 2100, reducing land carbon emissions.

YouTube video by SMTPB Robert D. Holt interview

Going live in 2 hours... @jpodwyer.bsky.social and @sarperotto.bsky.social interview Bob Holt for @smtpb.bsky.social

youtu.be/q8hX3S0xMJc?...

Future Climate Shifts for Vegetation on Australia's Coastal Islands Climate warming is likely to be mild for the plants on coastal islands. Although average annual temperatures will increase relative to their current ranges, the hottest annual temperatures will remai....

New lab paper hot off the press in @globalchangebio.bsky.social by David Coleman and @westobymark.bsky.social

Australia’s #islands may offer climate refuges, but ~40% of #plant populations—especially poorly dispersing species—will face hotter conditions beyond their current limits
#ecology #nature

YouTube video by EcolClips The Value of Biodiversity with Prof. Peter Reich | EcolClips

🌿The Value of Biodiversity

Excited to share a new #EcolClip featuring world-renowned ecologist Prof. Peter Reich @umich.edu

I found Peter's insights into the future of #biodiversity especially inspiring

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVLM...
Please boost if you like it
#ecology #science #nature #biology

Do trait–growth relationships vary with plant age in fire‐prone heathland shrubs? We demonstrate that key functional traits undergo shifts in their relationship with growth as plants mature. Therefore, it will be valuable to shift our understanding of plant strategies away from th...

📢 New publication 'Do trait–growth relationships vary with plant age in fire-prone heathland #shrubs?' by Lily Dun, Elizabeth Wenk, Daniel Falster, Mark Westoby and Ian Wright in Journal of Ecology 🧪

doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Primary succession and plant functional traits on an oceanic island The Canary Islands island system reflects a directional succession governed by the selection of functional traits related to environmental conditions and acquisitive-conservative strategies as well a...

New paper out in @journalofecology.bsky.social led by Rudi Otto from Universidad de La Laguna (Tenerife)

Primary succession and plant functional traits on an oceanic island

Plant communities shift from fast-growing, wind-dispersed pioneers to slow-growing, animal-dispersed endemics as lava ages.

This Hawaiian island's 'freakosystems' are a warning from the future Ecosystems which have never been seen before are being accidentally created by humans. They offer a stark look into the nature of tomorrow.

We're living in a landscape of novel ecosystems, emerging in every part of the world.

The topic has been ably covered in this BBC article on "freakosystems" by Matthew Ponsford @interspecies.agency

www.bbc.com/future/artic...

APCalign: an R package workflow and app for aligning and updating flora names to the Australian Plant Census Here we present ‘APCalign’, an R package and accompanying browser-sourced application to align and update scientific names for Australian vascular plants to the most likely currently accepted name in ...

Elizabeth Wenk & colleagues from @unswbees.bsky.social are making it easier for scientists to align databases with the current taxonomic classifications of their study species #R #APCalign #AustralianPlantCensus doi.org/10.1071/BT24...

Island Plant Species Distributions Contracted at the Cooler Edge Compared to Mainland Continental islands have long been used as ecological models for understanding species assembly dynamics in isolated habitat fragments, with direct applications to biodiversity and conservation. But ....

New Research in Ecology Letters led by David Coleman: Island Plant Species Distributions Contracted at the Cooler Edge Compared to Mainland
Why? We're not entirely sure — we'd love to hear additional hypotheses beyond the ones we proposed in the paper.

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

Invisible losses: thousands of plant species are missing from places they could thrive – and humans are the reason Many native plants are missing from habitats where they should thrive – even in wilder areas. Why? Human actions such as logging, poaching and setting fires.

News article about our recent paper in Nature on global impoverishment of natural vegetation by Conny Sattler (cosattler.com) and myself in @theconversation.com @aunz.theconversation.com

theconversation.com/invisible-lo...

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

The next exciting instalment from @jradford-smith.bsky.social on how climate filters rainforest tree strategies in the Australian subtropics. Now available in early view at @ecography.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1111/ecog...

inspiring and useful #functional #ecology tea towel, with much thanks to @ianjwright.bsky.social, Sharyon O'Donnell and Nathan Hart

📣 Register for our first #webinar of 2025!
@westobymark.bsky.social is Prof. Emeritus in the School of Natural Sciences at Macquarie University. One strand of his research has defined #ecological strategy variation across plant species by means of quantitative traits.

📝: uqz.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Melinda Pickup at Greening Australia coordinating transplants in Euc delegatensis

John Raven, FRS, FRSE: a truly great innovator in plant physiology, photosynthesis and much more - Photosynthesis Research This is a tribute to a truly inspirational plant biologist, Prof. John A. Raven, FRS, FRSE (25th June 1941– 23rd May 2024), who died at the age of 82. He was a leader in the field of evolution and phy...

"John Raven, FRS, FRSE: a truly great innovator in plant physiology, photosynthesis and much more" link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Jack Westoby Lecture 2025: The Evolution of Forestry into a Natural Capital Asset Class The Jack Westoby Lecture recognises the contribution to forestry internationally by Jack Westoby (1912-1988). The Biennial Lecture Series was initiated in 1997 and is made possible by the generosity o...

Memorial Lecture Feb 26 2025 @ANU Fenner School. David Brand: The Evolution of Forestry into a Natural Capital Asset Class. fennerschool.anu.edu.au/news-events/...