Heather Clendenin🐾🧬

We have more #biodiversity data than ever — from 🛰️, field work, citizen obs., and Indigenous knowledge.

But, are we halting biodiversity loss? The answer is uncertain.
Why? Because the chain of evidence needs to be stronger

Our new #PNAS paper proposes a way forward
www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....

Finally published! We first uploaded this preprint in 2022 but dropped it after frustrating reviews.
It was well received and cited, motivating us to revisit it.
We added new content, including simulations and a proof-of-concept genomic green status assessment.
#consgen #popgen #PopulationGenomics

Can AI please fold my clothes, that’s what I really need

This article is related to this scientific paper published in Biological Conservation, where I focus on the legal vacuum in addressing the impact of pets on wildlife and suggest ways to bridging the gap between conservation and animal welfare laws in the EU. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Evaluating the analytical performance of direct-to-consumer gut microbiome testing services - Communications Biology Comparative analysis of DTC gut microbiome testing services reveals significant methodological variability, underscoring the need for standardized reference materials and guidelines to ensure reproducibility and reliability in commercial microbiome testing.

Results and health assessments from gut microbiome home-testing kits vary whether they are produced by the same or different manufacturers. The findings, published in Communications Biology, highlight the need for caution when interpreting or acting on test results, according to the authors. 🧪

Well, well, well… happy International Polar Bear Day!

2(Simine is not sure that she ever said this but agrees that it sounds like something she would have said; personal communication Dec 14, 2021)

I searched my zotero library for 'personal communication', because these tend to be interesting and can illustrate how science really works. I was not disappointed, the most recent one in my library was this from @syeducation.bsky.social. More of this! doi.org/10.36850/mr11

Interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans was strongly sex biased Sex biases in admixture and other demographic processes are recurrent features throughout human evolution. For admixture between Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans (AMHs), sex bias has been p...

Many living people carry fragments of Neanderthal DNA, remnants of ancient interbreeding events, with uneven distribution across chromosomes. New work by @sarahtishkoff.bsky.social lab suggests patterns are most consistent with Neanderthal contribution to human populations being highly male biased.🧪

Rewilding Environmental Change Webinar - British Ecological Society Does it matter what we think about environmental change? This webinar will discuss shifting baseline syndrome and rewilding.

On Tuesday, the @bes-rewildinggroup.bsky.social @britishecologicalsociety.org are hosting @sarahpapworth.bsky.social, talking about shifting baseline syndrome and rewilding

Register here: www.britishecologicalsociety.org/content/rewi...

a plot of photos of various bat species. the x axis goes from “those feratu” to “hi doggy” and the y goes from “el wiwi” to “hear it hurgling”.

adding alt to this glorious chart. h/t @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com

Humans 40,000 y ago developed a system of conventional signs | PNAS As humans, we store and share information. This allows us to distribute knowledge necessary for survival and to coordinate large groups. Our homini...

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Germans started writing 40,000 years ago! You know what that means? Any day now they might be getting to the verb

Pace of ecology drives the tempo of visual perception across the animal kingdom Nature Ecology & Evolution - Using phylogenetic comparative methods across 237 species from disparate phyla, the authors show that species with fast-paced ecologies have higher temporal...

Our new paper is now out showing how time perception in animals is linked to their ecology. Using data from 237 species we show temporal perception is faster in species that fly and pursuit predators www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🌐

Conservation and Genomics of Populations with Fred Allendorf - Organization for Tropical Studies This course will be 6 days long, and the instructors are Fred Allendorf, Sally Aitken, and Marty Kardos. This course will be based on Conservation and Genomics of Populations (Allendorf et al. 2022). ...

Join Fred Allendorf, Sally Aitken, and me this November for a 6-day course on conservation genomics at the legendary La Selva Research Station in Costa Rica. Register by April 1. Details here: tropicalstudies.org/course/conse...

🧪🐻🚨We're hiring techs for bear work this summer: jobs.rwfm.tamu.edu/view-job/?id...

Cheekiness aside (and no shade to overwhelmed editorial staff, who were super helpful with each challenge), I genuinely don’t know if this is typical and whether I should account for a similar workload in the future. IS this normal?? Did I maybe get off easy?? Insight appreciated! (4/4)

The online editing portal for the proofs made it literally impossible to make certain changes— including addressing the chunk of the methods section that was mysteriously moved to the end of the discussion. I had to annotate the pdf manually and also use the portal. (3/4)

For instance: automatic reformatting of references treated every gov’t and tribal entity like a person— e.g. USFWS became somebody named “Fish” for some (but not all) pubs and Tribe, N.P. replaced Nez Perce Tribe. (2/4)

Academic publishing, amirite? 😮‍💨

After my recent 1st experience as corresponding author, I’m wondering if I was unlucky or if there’s always this much work after acceptance. If the latter, my appreciation for my PIs (who’ve wrangled this part of this work in the past) has a new facet! 😵 (1/4)

Kudos and MUCH appreciation to my co-authors, Dave Ausband, Jennifer Adams, @phohenlohe.bsky.social, and Lisette Waits!!

Genetic structure in a previously extirpated population of gray wolves following reintroduction and natural recolonization - Conservation Genetics Conservation Genetics - Genetic structuring in wildlife populations is driven by barriers that restrict gene flow as well as the history of population demography. Mechanisms driving genetic...

This project started with results that made me go, “Huh…” & led me on a lil deep-dive into wolf ecology, behavior, & patterns of recolonization (I had fun 🤓). In the end, I can’t shake the impression of wolves keeping the deed to the homestead in the family link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Overall, lots of juicy stuff in this paper (Ancient floods! Swamp bears?? Legal drama!) & I’ll be following up with some highlights soon

My personal humble-brag for this paper: We tracked down an archeological expert on the time/region of a precolonial bottleneck we detected (Hi, Dr. Dye!). After synthesizing a LOT of lit outside my comfort zone, his feedback on the relevant writing was to add the word “increasingly” to a sentence🤓💅

How far back in time can you understand English? An experiment in language change

If you liked this experiment, I published a full piece today in the same vein: a text that gets 100 years older with every section, from a modern blog post to a medieval chronicle.

It's a single story spanning 1000 years of English. See how far you get.

www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-ba...

This recently-accepted study highlights the critical need to incorporate genomic erosion—the loss of genetic diversity, accumulation of harmful mutations, maladaptation, and introgression—into conservation assessments.
1/3

Eco-evolutionary dynamics shaping biodiversity in the urban mosaic Nature Reviews Biodiversity - The urban mosaic is a complex assimilation of habitats, biotic and abiotic factors with eco-evolutionary influence on local and regional biodiversity. In this Review,...

Excited to share our new review in @natrevbiodiv.nature.com, coauthored w/allstar postdocs @vale-alaasam.bsky.social @annainthefield.bsky.social @anthonysnead.bsky.social Bridging island biogeography & evolutionary processes, we explore how eco-evo dynamics play out in the urban mosaic rdcu.be/e4tcj

I think this is the best thing my home doorbell camera has picked up. FWIW, the chicken made it back to her home a few doors down shortly after this.

This is figure 1, which shows palaeontological information in an Earth system context.

An analysis in Nature Ecology & Evolution surveys community palaeontological databases, documenting their contributions to science as well as their vulnerabilities, and provide recommendations for the future of open science databases. go.nature.com/3ZwTeGl #Paleosky 🧪

Colour plate depicting two snails in a garden setting, separated by some distance, firing love darts at each other which fly through the air.

Happy #ValentinesDay! 🐌❤️🐌

Delightful, if fanciful, depiction of garden snails exchanging love darts. By English artist Frederick Polydore Nodder and published in the Naturalist’s Miscellany in 1790. [The darts don’t propel through the air as the image depicts but are fired on contact.] #histsci 🌈🗃️