Andrew Abraham

Super important work by Tim Kuiper and co!

Great opportunity to lead discussions in biodiversity conservation for ECRs

Great project, with a great team!

Closing tomorrow! Last chance to apply for postdoc to explore the role of animals in savanna ecosystem productivity & nutrient cycling! Link to job: tinyurl.com/53dy4584 #savanna #termites #largemammals

Pretty simple instructions to follow

The "great whale conveyer belt" that transports nitrogen, carbon, and biomass from high latitude feeding grounds to concentrated low latitude breeding grounds in gray, humpback, and right whales.

Lovely figure by A. Boersma
doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Sure to be an interesting talk by @andrebellve.bsky.social.. also, be prepared for some excellent graphics! #scicomm

Beautiful sighting of a martial eagle eating a mongoose at iSimangaliso park today

Should we stop feeding birds, what happens if we do and does it spread disease? Half of British households put food out for birds but there is increasing concern it can spread disease

Half of British households feed birds.. but should we? Ft our recent study on potential issues of nutrient pollution.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Full paper: esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

The stunning power of whale pee A single whale can produce more than 250 gallons of urine in a day. It helps sustain life across the ocean.

Nice coverage by Nat Geo of our new paper quantifying the longest nutrient transport system in the world: whale pee

www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...

For the full paper, see here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Great Whale Conveyor Belt: Earth's Largest Mammals Keep Oceans Thriving Large whales operate what scientists have called “the Great Whale Conveyor Belt,” the largest long-distance nutrient transport on Earth.

We recap the whole study here: whalescientists.com/the-great-wh...

Our world is connected in many more ways than we think! Many thanks to a fabulous co-author team, led by Joe Roman @jjkiszka.bsky.social @luishuckstadt.bsky.social

But, industrial whaling has decimated whale populations, reducing this vital ecosystem process by about two-thirds. Today, conservation efforts have partially re-established the Great Whale Conveyor Belt, although climate change poses a new threat.

The whale-derived nutrients help support nutrient-poor tropical lagoon ecosystems, such as coral reefs. In Hawaii, we calculate that nutrient release by whales is ~1.5x more than abiotic processes, such as upwelling.

Each year, the whales undertake long migrations to give birth to their calves in warm tropical lagoons. In doing so, they transport vast quantities of nutrients such as nitrogen and release these in their urine, placenta and carcasses.

Whales spend their summers feeding in cold, nutrient-rich waters at high-latitude locations such as Alaska or Antarctica. During this time they build vast energy reserves and store this as blubber.

The Great Whale Conveyor Belt - Earth's largest mammals keep the oceans thriving!

Our new study quantifies the world's longest nutrient-transport system as whales migrate across vast ocean basins.

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

So what actually happened when the dinosaurs died?🦕

Using simple ecological rules*, we explore how the interplay between ecosystem engineering, seed size and light environment can explain temporal patterns of animal and seed sizes from the fossil record🌳🐘🐀🌱

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

A great thread by @alexanderlees.bsky.social on the positive and negative impacts of bird feeding, including our recent paper highlighting issues of nutrient pollution and changes to local biogeochemical cycles:

esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...).

Nice coverage of our recent paper on using animal death as a rational approach to improve zoo population management: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

@pnas.org @econovoau.bsky.social @aarhusuni.bsky.social

Image credit: Frank Rønsholt;

23. We must instead take responsibility for the welfare-oriented way in which animals live and die under our care, while educating the broader public about the biological and ethical reasons for using death as an effective and sustainable population-management strategy.

22. We live at a time when outsourcing unpleasant truths about animal deaths is no longer adequate. To do so shirks our duty of care to species under human protection—in the interest of minimising presumed backlash from the public.

21. There are circumstances when planned mortality is most appropriate. Clearly, it should be an option when zoo capacity is full. The more vulnerable a population is to extinction, the more important that its reproduction is not to be halted and that robust population structures are maintained.

20. Simply put, an aversion to death in the Global North should not limit the capacity of wildlife managers in the Global South to utilise death in their management practices.

19. This can partly be blamed on a system that conceals animal death from the public. As tourists from the Global North are important for wildlife tourism, such narratives influence how conservation managers across the world are able to care for their wild spaces and local communities.

18. A misconceived aversion toward animal mortality in the Global North also curtails conservation options in the Global South. E.g., there are clear links to recent trophy hunting bans in Europe, North America and Australasia, despite warnings from scientists of negative impacts for biodiversity.

17. Beyond zoos, prevailing Western attitudes toward animal mortality are shaping conservation practices worldwide. For example, in European rewilding projects, natural peaks in ungulate death appear unacceptable to some of the public, with vigilantes providing supplementary feed during the winter.

16. For this, it is essential that reproductively active zoo animal populations are maintained, along with zoo staff who are experienced in caring for reproducing and young animals.