Graydon Gillies

Great to meet you too, looking forward to chatting more! Safe travels back!

Congrats Jalene!! 🌲

I'm very proud to receive the 2025 Robert P. McIntosh Award from the @ecologicalsociety.bsky.social Vegetation Section at #ESA2025 with an amazing group of colleagues, for our paper on Community #MastSeeding. 🥳

Paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
Award info: esa.org/vegetation/a...

#ESA2025! We would love to fill this up with signatures. Let's show support to the folks at NSF. Find it Wednesday morning at the spot below, and it'll be at the NSF funding session at 10-11:30am.

If you’re at ESA @ecologicalsociety.bsky.social 2025 in Baltimore, come check out my talk about population dynamics and the geographic range limits of a coastal dune plant! Tomorrow (Wednesday) at 8:45am in Hilton 5!

OOS 05 - Beyond Budburst–Connecting Phenological Transitions Among Tissues and Times in Woody Plants Monday, August 11 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM EDT Hilton Key 8 Session Type: Organized Oral Session

Presentations OOS 05-01 - Seasonal underground phenology of ectomycorrhizal fungi varies by group and host tree traits Monday, August 11, 2025 at 3:30 PM – 3:45 PM EDT Presenting Author - Nicholas Medina OOS 05-02 - Genetic structure across a poplar hybrid zone will cause variation in phenological responses to a warming climate Monday, August 11, 2025 at 3:45 PM – 4:00 PM EDT Presenting Author - Alayna Mead

OOS 05-03 - Aridity decouples carbon assimilation and growth in temperate deciduous oaks Monday, August 11, 2025 at 4:00 PM – 4:15 PM EDT Presenting Author - Mukund Palat Rao OOS 05-04 - Cold hardiness connects bud development in the summer and fall with budbreak in the spring Monday, August 11, 2025 at 4:15 PM – 4:30 PM EDT Presenting Author - Al Kovaleski

OOS 05-05 - Phenology of tree reproduction; environmental cues and vetos Monday, August 11, 2025 at 4:30 PM – 4:45 PM EDT Presenting Author - Jalene LaMontagne OOS 05-06 - Macrophenology: expanding the taxonomic and geographic scope of phenology research using volunteer- and network-collected observations Monday, August 11, 2025 at 4:45 PM – 5:00 PM EDT Presenting Author - Amanda Gallinat

I'm giving a talk on Monday at #ESA2025, in the OOS about #phenology "Beyond Budburst" (3:30-5:00pm), organized by Luke McCormack & Christy Rollinson. There's a great list of speakers. I'm presenting at 4:30pm.
Room: Hilton Key 8

🚨 NOTE: Individual talk times within the session were updated today!

Undertook a side-quest during fieldwork to search out an alpine sorrel population in the Lewis Hills on the west coast of Newfoundland! One of the coolest and most beautiful overnight trips I’ve ever done.

Rethinking conservation in a changing climate | Queen's Gazette Queen’s researchers show what determines where species live, which could change how we protect them as the climate warms.

Short media release about our latest paper in the Queen’s Gazette! 🌱 www.queensu.ca/gazette/stor...

This map ⬇️ is from a challenge I designed that encourages people to go out and observe the major group of taxa 🐟🍄🐍🪲🦫🪻 that is unusually under-represented in their county 🇨🇦

Mammals on the Margins: Identifying the Drivers and Limitations of Range Expansion

🔗 buff.ly/Dhmwwng
@rolandkays.com

Thanks Takuji! 🍃

Evidence That Metapopulation Dynamics Maintain a Species' Range Limit https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40326375/

Wind-swept sand dunes with a large thicket of trees on the right.

Two researchers walking across sand into the trees.

A researcher walking across the beach.

A large thicket of trees and shrubs standing starkly against the wind-swept sand devoid of vegetation.

In all, this suggests that variation in patch dynamics (particularly inter-patch dispersal/establishment) may be responsible for dwindling occupancy towards the range limit, supporting the metapopulation hypothesis in this system.

If you've made it to the end, here's some bonus dune pics: (9/9)

Lastly, we found measured occupancy of plots declined towards the range limit - as we would expect (left). Further, this decline in occupancy is closely matched by the decline predicted by incorporating our estimated rates of colonization and extinction into a metapopulation model (right). (8/9)

Interestingly, each of these variables (suitable plot area, local abundance, and initial plot abundance) each exhibited variation towards the range limit in a manner that is consistent with declining colonization rates/increasing extinction rates. (7/9)

Extinction, however, was more likely when there was little suitable habitat at the plot and when the initial plot abundance was smaller (in other words, smaller subpopulations were more likely to go extinct). (6/9)

Second, we found the likelihood of colonization and extinction were predicted by habitat and population structure. Colonization was greater at plots with more suitable habitat and that had greater local abundance (i.e., abundance of nearby plots), possibly due to higher propagule pressure. (5/9)

First, we found that the likelihood of patch colonization declined substantially towards the species' northern range limit, while extinction of occupied patches increased non-significantly - changes that we might expect from the metapopulation hypothesis for range limits. (4/9)

A small plant (Camissoniopsis cheiranthifolia) with fuzzy leaves and a lone yellow flower growing in the sand.

A researcher hiking through the wind-swept coastal dunes in Oregon.

To test this hypothesis, we looked at coastal dune endemic Camissoniopsis cheiranthifolia, and hiked the northern ~900 km of the species' distribution to visit several thousand plots across a multi-year survey. At each, we measured patch occupancy and abundance of this short-lived perennial. (3/9)

The metapopulation hypothesis posits that a range limit may be imposed by subtle variation in patch dynamics. If colonization of patches declines or extinction from patches increases across space, the metapopulation may collapse, consequently generating an abrupt range limit. (2/9)

Evidence That Metapopulation Dynamics Maintain a Species' Range Limit The metapopulation hypothesis for species range limits posits that a range limit may be imposed by subtle variation in rates of either patch colonisation or extinction. Using a multi-year survey acro...

So excited that one of my MSc chapters is out now! We used a large-scale, multi-year survey to empirically test the metapopulation hypothesis for range limits: doi.org/10.1111/ele.... (1/9)

A person standing in front of a research poster.

Yesterday, I presented a poster at MUN’s Biology Symposium, where I chatted about our approach to understanding density-dependent fitness towards elevational range limits. I had a ton of fun, many valuable chats about field methods, and am grateful to have been awarded best poster presentation!

New Blog post alert 🚨

The photo that got away: Camera traps may monitor less space than we think 📸 🌎 🧪 Read Brendan Carswell's full post here 👇

buff.ly/R9j5xvi

Code sharing in ecology and evolution increases citation rates but remains uncommon Biologists increasingly rely on computer code to collect and analyze their data, reinforcing the importance of published code for transparency, reproducibility, training, and a basis for further work...

I'd like to encourage folks to publish their code. Not only does it make studies more transparent and reproducible, but it also increases citation rates!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

A small sundew with red leaves that look like they’re covered in water droplets. It is sitting next to a pool of water among some moss

A tiny Florida native sundew for your viewing pleasure. Our native carnivorous plants hold a very special place in my heart ❤️

Image of the first page and abstract of the paper "The ecology of plant extinctions Author links open overlay panel Richard T. Corlett 1 2 Show more Add to Mendeley Share Cite https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2024.11.007 Get rights and content Highlights The fossil record suggests that climate change was the major driver of plant extinctions and regional extirpations from the Pliocene until recently, when anthropogenic habitat loss became dominant. Known recent plant extinctions are disproportionately few in comparison with well-studied animal taxa, but many more species are probably committed to inevitable extinction unless given targeted support. Recent warm-edge extirpations demonstrate the growing impact of anthropogenic climate change and show that predictions of massive climate-driven extinctions later this century are plausible. The proximate causes for population extirpations are still rarely known but are likely to be highly varied and both species and location specific."

An important review - The ecology of plant extinctions - "Recent warm-edge extirpations demonstrate the growing impact of anthropogenic climate change & show that predictions of massive climate-driven extinctions later this century are plausible" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 🌾🌎🧪🌐

A snowy valley with sparse vegetation.

A snowy field with two people in the background.

Spent a couple days this week scouting out potential field sites at Gros Morne National Park. The snow was magical!

There is still space left in the #biodiversity #redistribution starter pack ⬇️ If you are working on or interested in biodiversity responses, aka #species #range #shifts & #community #composition #changes, to global change drivers, I'd be happy to add you in the list 😀

go.bsky.app/6KqEpb9

Hi Jonathan! Could you please add me? Thanks!

I created this stater pack with women in ecology and evolution.
If you want to be added you can comment or DM me, but also please suggest the names of those I am missing 🧪🌎🌐

go.bsky.app/8jFH7cS