Chris Catano

Beyond Species Richness for Biological Conservation Recent global policy developments have highlighted the need for straightforward, robust, and meaningful biodiversity metrics. However, much of conservation science is dominated by the use of a single....

Happy to share new work from the lab and a wonderful group of co-authors:

We argue that conservation biology needs to move beyond the current focus on species richness metrics.

While this has been argued before, we highlight the unappreciated impacts of using richness for a variety of problems:

What is spectral biology? We explain in this synthesis article on “Spectral biology across scales in changing environments”
esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/R6QXPK
www.spectralbiology.org

Are you a PI in a biology field looking for students to join your lab as a PhD student? I made a Starter Pack to help PIs and potential PhD students connect! If you would like to be added to this pack, please let me know! go.bsky.app/EFj87fi

Chris and Jonathan standing in front of a wood sign marking a forest dynamics research site in the foothills of Missouri Ozarks.

It was great to be back at my Alma Matter, Washington Univ. in St. Louis and the Tyson Research Center, to catch up with good friends and present at the Tyson Environment Research Conference. Tyson is an amazing community supporting great research and people. Thanks @jamyersecology.bsky.social

Which Kind of Science Reform What hope is there for science reform, if we can't agree on what to reform? Right now, principles are more important than practices.

How can we reform science? I have some ideas. But I am not sure you’ll like them, because they don’t promise much. elevanth.org/blog/2025/07...

You would not judge a hammer by how well it drives a screw; likewise, do not blame a spread metric for failing a richness test. Functional diversity is multifaceted and needs a toolbox, not a universal index.

The role of a non-native host plant in altering the seasonal dynamics of Danaus plexippus (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) development Abstract. Insect herbivores often experience seasonal fluctuation in food availability, which plays important role in signaling diapause and/or migration.

Work from our lab shows that non-native milkweed can allow monarch development into the winter, creating butterflies during a season where they can no longer migrate or breed. If you want to help monarchs, plant native milkweed only. 🧪 #plant-insect #nativeplants

academic.oup.com/jinsectscien...

Grey matters: Ensuring management information is a part of the permanent evidence base by creating open grey literature principles Sharing project outcomes for practitioners comes with a number of hurdles and barriers, but the benefits far outway these. We argue for a shift to open sharing of grey literature.

Ecological/conservation practitioners generate invaluable insights from projects, which can help science and practice. Most of this grey literature is not discoverable or permanent. Here we call for adoption of Open Grey Literature principles.

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

"Science is about interacting with and discovering the world, so isn’t it a shame that so many of us are persuaded to walk the same narrow and well-trodden path to perceived academic success?"

Researchers installing vegetation sampling plots in non-native dominated annual grasslands.

Start of a new landscape scale experiment in SoCal to understand how conservation grazing, seed arrival, and environmental heterogeneity interact to alter the distribution of biodiversity across scales.

"Thinking time —the time needed to concentrate without interruptions has always been central to scholarly work. It is essential to designing experiments, compiling data, assessing results, reviewing literature and, of course, writing. Yet, [it] is often undervalued."
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Check out our new publication lead by Lucie Mahaut in @royalsocietypublishing.org

Functional diversity shapes the stability of reef fish biomass under global change

👉 Trait diversity and redundancy drive stability; human impacts reduce it.

🔗 doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

#ReefLifeSurvey 🌐🧪🦑🌍

Endorse. One of the interesting things about LLM discourse is that so many people seem unable to picture any application EXCEPT the "AI wheel of death". Is "Author gets AI to write paper" bad? Of course! Is that the only way authors can use LLMs? Of course not.

Three common inferential errors when investigating context dependence in ecology. Consider a test of context dependence in its most basic form: a 2 × 2 factorial experiment, measuring an ecological response Y, to the crossing of factors X and Z, each with two levels. The analyst fits a statistical model with an interaction term to the data: Y ~ X + Z + X × Z, to test for and quantify context dependence. Three inferential errors are possible when the measurement scale or symmetry of the interaction are overlooked: detection and magnitude (Type D), sign (Type S) and misidentification of underlying processes (Type A).

Since we are still talking about interactions, I worked with some ecologists a couple of years ago on measurement scale, interactions and interpretation issues. I think some problems arise from failure to distinguish prediction from inference, a chronic problem in ecology imo doi.org/10.1111/brv....

A well-connected Earth: The science and conservation of organismal movement Global biodiversity targets focus on landscape and seascape connectivity as a foundational component of biodiversity conservation, including networks of connected protected areas. Recent advances allo...

So happy to share our Review paper

A well-connected Earth: The science and conservation of organismal movement
@science.org

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

It’s official! The Dutch translation of my @princetonupress.bsky.social book just came out with @knnv.bsky.social Uitgeverij. I’m so excited to share all the fascinating stories of animals acting like doctors and pharmacists in my native language.🧪

Editorial Click on the article title to read more.

A 🆕 Editorial from the Editor-in-Chief of "Ecological Applications" hypes our new article type ("Method") and reaffirms the journal's commitment to being a forum for all authors. Read it here: doi.org/10.1002/eap....

What I wish I knew: 33 thoughts for early career researchers Thirty three reflections I wish someone had shared with me early in my research career.

What I wish I knew: 33 thoughts for early career researchers
Reflections I wish someone had shared with me early in my research career.

predirections.substack.com/p/what-i-wis...

White lab sitting on top of his crate with stuffed animal in his mouth.

Sunny forgot how to use his crate...

Exploring Priority and Year Effects on Plant Diversity, Productivity and Vertical Root Distribution: First Insights From a Grassland Field Experiment In a field experiment, we tested how priority and year effects influence the aboveground and belowground structure and functioning of dry acidic grasslands. Time since establishment and year of initi...

Alonso-Crespo et al. explore priority and year effects on plant diversity, productivity and vertical root 𖣂 distribution. Read about their insights from a grassland field experiment.🌿
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Want to understand grasslands? Look at the bigger picture

Great writeup of @chriscatano.bsky.social's recent paper showing how arrival rates of individuals and species alter community assembly locally, influencing diversity patterns over time and across scales

natsci.msu.edu/news/2025-05...

I'm hiring a postdoc! Searching for a candidate interested in the process of speciation to come join me at Georgia Tech in Atlanta -- an exciting place with a growing core of eco-evolutionary researchers. Various skill sets will be applicable. Please share!

This was predictable.

Leaf Turgor Loss Does Not Coincide With Cell Plasmolysis in Drought‐Tolerant Chaparral Species Drought-tolerant chaparral species can survive months with water potentials below their turgor loss point. We find that turgor loss point can vary with drought and temperature increase and does not c...

Leonie Schönbeck showed how drought tolerant species with leaves below turgor loss point maintain photosynthesis and avoid plasmolysis with me and @santiago-ecofiz.bsky.social. check it out online-library.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Leaf drought and heat tolerance are integrated across three temperate biome types - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Leaf drought and heat tolerance are integrated across three temperate biome types

Leaf drought and heat tolerance are integrated across three temperate biome types

I am very happy to see our paper out! Plant responses to many stresses are mediated by the same processes and I have long wondered how this relates to hotter droughts.

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

Composite image of map of North America, with route of travel. On the side are pictures of myself, Kevin, and a blooming monkeyflower.

Twenty years ago this month Kevin Wright and I set out on an 18,000 mile journey from Durham, NC across North America to collect monkeyflowers. The seeds from that trip (my third rotation project) have given rise to major advances and scores of scientific publications over the past two decades.

An interview where I reflect on a decade of work on biodiversity change and in particular the evidence for local biodiversity change - some of the most inspiring and heated debate happened at iDiv. It’s is great to be part of this podcast.

Not sure, but I wonder if it has anything to do with the continuous vs discrete nature of the beta vs binomial functions?

I'd love to be added to the scaling starter pack, Brian. Thanks!

Why aren't more researchers publishing in society journals?

Two potential reasons:

1) They're often unfamiliar to early-career researchers,

and/or 2) they need better promotion, a task for all of us.