Valentin Moser

🚨 new podcast episode!
🦫 this episode explores the story behind the paper, "habitat heterogeneity and food availability in beaver-engineered streams foster bat richness, activity and feeding".
🎙️ listen to the full episode here: buff.ly/AbdBmjW

Swiss Breeding Bird Monitoring dataset is now openly accessible! The team from @vogelwarte.bsky.social made the long-term dataset of the Swiss CBM program (“Monitoring Häufige Brutvögel”, MHB) freely available under CC-BY 4.0 licence. esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Earth's largest land animals are limited by salt.

Sodium availability constrains the density and distribution of elephants, giraffes and rhinos across Africa, and offers a new explanation for the so-called 'missing megaherbivores'.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Free access: rdcu.be/eTPY2

Beavers create habitats for bats A study shows that land animals benefit from beaver dam construction – for example, endangered bats.

🦫 #Beavers help bats: Where these industrious builders fell trees and dam streams, there are more #bats. New study by WSL and @eawag.bsky.social: www.wsl.ch/en/news/beav... #NatureConservation #DeadWood #Ponds #EnvironmentalProtection #RedList @vmoser.bsky.social @animalecology.bsky.social

Habitat heterogeneity and food availability in beaver‐engineered streams foster bat richness, activity and feeding Beavers reshape ecosystems in ways that benefit bat richness, activity and feeding activity. We linked increased habitat structures (standing deadwood and canopy heterogeneity) and prey abundance to ...

Beavers boost bats! Beaver ponds had higher bat richness (4→5 spp/night), 1.6× activity, and 2.3× feeding vs. controls. Structural changes (standing deadwood, more heterogeneous canopy) and more prey help explain why:
Journal of Animal Ecology:
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants - Nature In a case of obligate cross-species cloning, female ants of Messor ibericus need to clone males of Messor structor to obtain sperm for producing the worker caste, resulting in males from the same moth...

Reproduction in ants 🐜 just keeps blowing my mind 🤯

But this here is the crown for sure... for now.

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

(go also check out obligate chimerism, social chromosomes, clonal production of females and males, and much more...)

Pretty much.

BEHOLD! One of Earth's greatest lineages of life: the lil wiggle arm guys, Meteora.

These single-celled critters, originally found in deep-sea sediments, are SO DIFFERENT from other lifeforms on Earth that they're likely in their own kingdom (as in, the Animal Kingdom, the Plant Kingdom etc). 🧪🌿

Black-headed Gulls (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) don't just return to the same roost site every night, but also to specific daytime sites like a park or a river stretch, often over multiple years. They appear to specialise in familiar foraging habitats in winter
#Switzerland #Biodiversity #Basel

In our 2021 national roost count, we recorded 39,000 individuals, more than the 32,000 counted in the regular waterbird census. This means Switzerland hosts around 1.5% of the Western European winter population of this species

#Ornithology #CitizenScience #Gulls

10+ Years of Black-headed Gull Research: Ring-reading in a youth birding group evolved into Switzerland’s first nationwide, coordinated roost count, involving many volunteers

Both studies are now published in the Ornithologischer Beobachter, available here: www.researchgate.net/profile/Vale...
🌍

Thanks to everybody who chimed in!

I arrived at the conclusion that (1) there's a lot of interesting stuff about interactions and (2) the figure I was looking for does not exist.

So, I made it myself! Here's a simple illustration of how to control for confounding in interactions:>

Tadpole aggregations create biogeochemical hotspots in wetland ecosystems This research demonstrates that tadpoles can create biogeochemical hotspots in wetland ecosystems and has important ramifications for our understanding of the functional role of animal species in nut....

Glad to share this recently published article in @animalecology.bsky.social led by Nick Corline on how "(wood frog) #tadpole aggregations create biogeochemical hotspots in (geographically isolated) #wetland ecosystems": besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

💧🧪🌎🐸 #DelmarvaDisco

🚨 Stat tips 🚨

Are you aware of the regression to the mean #RTM effect?

This artefact is often overlooked in #ecology & especially in biodiversity resurveys 🌳🍄🦔🦅🦎🦋🐝🐞 It basically shows up each time you investigate changes between 2 time events: t2 vs t1

Let me unfold it for you 🧵

This was the best place on Earth to see great white sharks—then they vanished A new study based on two decades of data shows what happens in an ocean ecosystem without great white sharks.

When #greatwhitesharks disappear: This was the best place on Earth to see great whites - and then they vanished.

A new study based on two decades of data shows what happens in an ocean #ecosystem without great white #sharks.
🌍🦑🐋

Aquatic and terrestrial environmental DNA signals reveal decoupling of blue-green communities along an urbanization gradient Urban blue and green spaces, like ponds and parks, can mitigate the negative effects of urbanization on biodiversity by providing diverse, connected h…

🚨New paper alert🚨

Exploring urban #aquatic & #terrestrial biodiversity with #eDNA 🧬

❗ #Urbanization weakens land–water linkages
❗ Aquatic & terrestrial communities follow distinct drivers 🐞🦟
❗ Adapted primers for aquatic & terrestrial invertebrates 🧬

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

(PDF) Die Schweiz als Winterquartier und Rastgebiet für die Lachmöwe Chroicocephalus ridibundus PDF | Moser V, Barbalat A, Ertl P, Fuetsch I, Ganz M, Hörster H, Niffenegger C, Sahli C, Schneider A, Strebel N (2025) Switzerland as a wintering and... | Find, read and cite all the research you need...

more on researchgate:
www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Further, while observing Black-headed Gull at roosts before and after the count, we counted even higher numbers of birds during spring migration. My hypothesis: These #gulls rest in lake-rich Switzerland (here: #Zurich) a final time before migrating back to the breeding colonies in NE-Europe 🌍

New #research! Trying to find the true winter abundance of #Black-headedGulls in Switzerland, we organised a national count - at the overnight roosts! With this method, we recorded with 39'000 gulls about 20 % more than during the traditional (diurnal) water bird counts

Aquatic-terrestrial researchers coming together for the #systemlink seminar 🌊🌱 Amazing talks ranging from leaflitter, beavers, urbanisation, to ecosystem size effects. Thanks a lot for the amazing talks @vmoser.bsky.social, @kperrelet.bsky.social, @LukeIreland, @ema-giacomuzzo.bsky.social

1/ I'm constantly amazed at the naivety of so much of conservation science (& other mission-driven disciplines)

As if all we have to do is generate the evidence and society's leaders will use it to do what's needed

As if there's no-one trying to make sure that doesn't happen

‘We work on topics that people care about’ Rolf Holderegger has been Director of WSL for 100 days. In this interview, he talks about the challenges ahead.

Rolf Holderegger has been Director of WSL for 100 days. In this interview, he talks about tight finances, WSL's new strategy and why he wants to promote the practical implementation of #research results. www.wsl.ch/en/news/we-w... @sciena_ch @ETH_Rat

YouTube video by distrustful dinosaurs Harder! Faster! Louder! – Crows! Fireworks! Berlin! (Krähen in der Silvesternacht)

I can also highly, highly recommend this beautiful video by @distrustful-dinos.bsky.social about Berlin's #urbanwildlife, in particular its #Corvids, during NYE.

Incredible rooftop footage of #birds flying around in a panic, surrounded by exploding fireworks. #ornithology #fireworks #conservation