Karen R. Lips

Science at Risk: The Urgent Need for Institutional Support of Long-Term Ecological and Evolutionary Research in an Era of Data Manipulation and Disinformation Abstract. Planet Earth and the biodiversity it supports are in crisis. The human impact on terrestrial, marine, and freshwater ecosystems and the hundreds

academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...

Freshwater biodiversity in a rapidly changing Arctic: An expert horizon scan of key research questions - Ambio Arctic freshwater biodiversity is rapidly changing due to climate warming, resource extraction, infrastructure development, and landscape transformation. To improve understanding, predict future respo...

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

An Army Corps project could wipe out one of Florida’s last thriving coral reefs The fate of one of the last thriving coral reefs in Florida may be imperiled by plans to widen the shipping channel leading into Port Everglades.

www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

Building Up the Next Generation of Scientific Society Leaders

www.aip.org/statistics/b...

NASA’s Artemis moon exploration programme is getting a major makeover

NASA’s Artemis programme is being shaken up, delaying an actual moon landing in favour of smaller, faster steps forward.

www.biographic.com/the-future-o...

White House stalls release of approved US science budgets The US Congress rejected sweeping cuts to science agencies. But the NIH, the NSF and NASA have had their spending slowed.

White House stalls release of approved US science budgets www.nature.com/articles/d41...

#academic #job @ucllifesciences.bsky.social Professor / Associate Professor of Computational Genomics in Health and Disease

NSF officials break silence on how AI and quantum now drive agency grantmaking Leaders acknowledge White House role in controversial moves

www.science.org/content/arti...

The Economics of Water - Valuing the Hydrological Cycle as a Global Common Good Water is essential for life. It moves in complex, often invisible ways, all around us. And this water is under threat.

Read more in our report from the GCEW ➡️ watercommission.org#report
Read our new report on blended finance ➡️ www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/pub...
Our letter in the Financial Times, with Ministers Carlos Cuerpo, Fernando Haddad & Enoch Godongwana ➡️ www.ft.com/content/53cd... 2/2

Birds are vanishing from tropical forests. Is another ‘silent spring’ coming? As mysterious bird declines crop up in the Amazon and beyond, scientists suspect climate change may be to blame

tropical lowland birds aren't doing well -- this is an excellent article on what's happening featuring a slew of fantastic research projects
www.science.org/content/arti...

Acceleration hotspots of North American birds’ decline are associated with agriculture Human activities might have accelerated declines of population abundance, but this acceleration remains underexplored. Using 1033 North American Breeding Bird Survey routes, we analyze abundance chang...

Thrilled to share our new paper out in @science.org, led by François Leroy and Petr Keil! Using the Breeding Bird Survey, we document not only a continent-wide decline in bird abundance since the 1980s — but, crucially, the acceleration of these declines over time. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Our work underscores the importance of monitoring not just population trends, but their rate of change over time. Incorporating acceleration into conservation assessments could reveal early warning signals that abundance trends alone could miss!

The numbers are sobering: 122 species (47%) show significant declines, 63 of which also show acceleration of decline. Declines are strongest in birds of towns, grasslands, marshes, and open woodlands — with marshes and open woodlands showing accelerating losses.

Graphic with two parts, a map and a chart. Top section: A map showing intact tropical forests in northern South America, most of them in the Amazon River basin. Three locations are called out: 1 is in Panama; 2 is on the eastern border of Ecuador, near the borders with Colombia and Peru; and 3 is in Brazil, on the Amazon River. Undisturbed tropical forest areas are defined as areas where no disturbances were detected in a comparison of satellite imagery from 1990 to 2024. Bottom section: Dot plot with confidence intervals. For each of the three map locations, the chart shows the average annual change in mist net captures for insectivores and for the total bird community. For all three locations, the average annual change for insectivores is in the negative and is lower than for the total bird community.

Intact tropical forests are seeing mysterious bird declines. Is another “silent spring” brewing?

Learn more: https://scim.ag/4aCs0Er

Acceleration hotspots of North American birds’ decline are associated with agriculture Human activities might have accelerated declines of population abundance, but this acceleration remains underexplored. Using 1033 North American Breeding Bird Survey routes, we analyze abundance chang...

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

Birds are vanishing from tropical forests. Is another ‘silent spring’ coming? As mysterious bird declines crop up in the Amazon and beyond, scientists suspect climate change may be to blame

www.science.org/content/arti...

Roadmap for Europe’s biodiversity monitoring system IIASA contributed to a new European roadmap for biodiversity monitoring through its involvement in the Horizon 2020 project, EuropaBON. The study, proposes a comprehensive roadmap to build a modern, i...

“People remain central to biodiversity monitoring in Europe… low-cost sensors, eDNA & AI are enhancing this contribution.” – IIASA's Ian McCallum. New European biodiversity roadmap in @nature.com, via #EuropaBon, led by Uni of Amsterdam, et al: iiasa.ac.at/news/feb-202...

I’m looking for scholars / scholarship with a very specific expertise: what have been the most effective tactics in subverting the U.S. Department of State in UNFCCC? I’m looking very specifically for IR/IL researchers who have asked this question empirically. Please connect me if you know!

Number of academics working in the UK falls for first time Some universities reduce staff teams by more than a fifth after year of cutbacks and job losses, new data show

The number of academics working in UK institutions has fallen for the first time on record, new figures reveal. Patrick Jack reports #EduSky #AcademicSky
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/number-academics-working-uk-falls-first-time

Left: diagram representing a 'web' of connected data that influence the makeup of a city, such as houses, road networks, time etc. with the city in the centre. Right: diagram representing how these elements can be layered as GIS data (buildings, roads, land use, land use layers) for spatial analyses.

NEW How did the diverse cities of the past form, function, evolve and adapt?

By compiling datasets from cities across time and space, the new URBank database enables us to address fundamental questions about ancient urbanism.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology

Protecting academic values is key to preserving democracy Universities play a crucial role in addressing the major challenges threatening our global sustainable future but need to find new ways to communicate...

www.universityworldnews.com/post-mobile....

My department at CSU Northridge is hiring a vertebrate functional morphologist! We've got a great EEB group, and we're looking for someone to carry forward a tradition of enriching organismal courses and community-engaged research. App review starts March 15

csucareers.calstate.edu/mob/cw/en-us...

Musical-chairs leadership shakeup planned for science agencies CDC acting Director Jim O’Neill to be nominated to lead NSF while NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya does double duty at CDC

CDC acting Director Jim O’Neill to be nominated to lead NSF while NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya does double duty at CDC. https://scim.ag/4tJEr90

Transboundary water conflicts, cooperation, and pathways forward
#scidip #policy

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

At @munsecconf.bsky.social talking #pandemic preparedness & finding common ground (& language) among health, defense, research sectors @cepi.net panel

Are we ready for a multipolar world of research? - LSE Impact The majority of research now takes place outside the Global North. How should research institutions globally position themselves in this new multipolar order?

"The world of research is rapidly changing. For the first time in history, there are more active researchers outside the richer countries in the planet." blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

Loss of ‘hunger hormone’ has made snakes masters of fasting Ditching ghrelin genes may have helped a wide variety of reptiles deal with a boom-or-bust feeding schedule

🐍🧪🌎🧬🔬 www.science.org/content/arti... Magazine

Loss of ‘hunger hormone’ has made snakes masters of fasting Ditching ghrelin genes may have helped a wide variety of reptiles deal with a boom-or-bust feeding schedule

🐍🧪🌎🧬🔬 www.science.org/content/arti... Magazine