Julie Taylor Rivenbark

No better place to do field work than in the rainforest canopy 💚🌳🦎🐸🪲

Exploring invertebrate diversity today ft. Platyhelminthes, Cnidaria, Nematoda, Rotifera, and Crustacea #myjobiscoolerthanyours #biologyeducatorsrule

S/o to the authors of this rad paper on salamander body cond & fecundity in the face of climate change that I used for the lesson 🤝

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

Todays lesson:
Analyzing scientific papers

Donald Trump’s Second Term Will Be Bad News for Endangered Ocean and Coastal Animals • The Revelator The waters around the U.S. are home to threatened species who need conservation policies to save them from extinction. They won’t get that for the next four years.

ICYMI, my analysis of how the Trump administration will contribute to the extinction of beloved endangered marine and coastal animals.

YouTube video by Katie Hinde March Mammal Madness 2025 Epic Trailer

The #2025MMM Bracket is LIVE!!
We have a Player Portal for EVERYONE!
We have a Learner Portal w/ pages for College, High School, Middle School, & K-5 students!
We have an Educators Portal with those sweet sweet curricula materials!
libguides.asu.edu/MarchMammalM...
youtu.be/1QKQN1YC6zw?...

Stop calling these acts of deliberate malicious destruction mistakes — if you close your eyes and fire machine gun spray ceaselessly into a crowd claiming you just want to scare some of them off, it’s not a mistake that there are casualties.

Small bullfrog sitting up out of duckweed crowded water

Bullfrog of the day!
Thursday, 20 Feb 2025

Extreme close up of the eye of a great white egret.

#Connect2Nature
Keeping up the #PSA theme... Keep your eye on what's important. Focus. Do not let yourself be drawn into the crazymaking that is the news cycle today.

This Great White Egret was outside my patio yesterday looking for geckos.

#Nature #Birds #Photography

This is what we are losing thanks to the current administration. My heart is absolutely broken for these incredible people and for the beautiful wildlife and lands within our country. When will it stop?

What a fantastic collection!

Best part about being the weird science lady in the building: students bring me offerings of bones, shells, and dead bugs. Last week a secret admirer left this cool box turtle shell and this morning I was gifted another turtle shell and some mystery bones 🦴🐢

Can’t wait to be back in Peru this summer.

I’m thinking of spending 3-4 days in Lima/Huacachina before heading down to Iquitos and the heart of the rainforest. Any recs for solo female travelers in #LimaPeru ? Things to do, fav restaurants, hiking trails, tattoo artists? 👀

🦎 Chocolate Reptiles 🐍

I spent way too much time making 130 biology pun valentines for my students. I think I’m hilarious.

Nothing like getting students out into the field to experience nature. We went out looking for mushrooms today after a big rain yesterday, and had a blast!!! We slowed down our hike thru the woods to appreciate the tiny beauty of life. I love my job!!!!
#educatorinthewild #mushroomhunting

So grateful to have been selected as the John Alcock Research Fellow for @morphoinstitute.org !

I don’t think I’m being dramatic when I say this organization has changed my life since I stumbled upon it a year ago, and I can’t wait to be back in the Amazon doing research this summer. 🦋🌎🖤

An orange and white moth cupped in my hand with its feet resting on my finger. It is looking toward the camera.

It’s dangerous to go alone, take this.

#MothMonday

Just a reminder to all the educators: #BlackHistoryMonth starts in just a couple days!!!

As educators, we hold so much power in the info we present to our students. Choose to provide lessons that showcase greatness in people w/ all kinds of backgrounds and abilities. Representation matters, always🖤

It’s caecilian week in my Master Herpetologist program 💃

What she said…

And to always ask more questions about climate change, evolution, and plate tectonics during our evolution unit so I can yap quite animatedly for an hour while they gaze at me with interest 😂🥲🥰

Being an educator can freaking suck sometimes. But getting to teach this particular group of 11th and 12th graders for BIO 101 and 102 has been the highlight of my career so far. I’m so so grateful to have them as my (not so) little cheerleaders always in my corner.

I got some sad news from the vet about one of my dogs in the middle of the school day on Tuesday. My students could tell I was upset and when they found out why, they bought me a card and every student in the class signed it to cheer me up.

Excited to have @jrivenbarkbio.bsky.social as a conservation education fellow for our 2025 Amazon Research Initiative for Educators in July!

This research suggests that this species of generalist may undergo adaptive diversification and specialization, which drives their ecological success in the American Southwest. I would love to expand this study in the future to investigate the specialization in tropical species!

In the ornate tree lizard, Urosaurus ornatus, we investigated the use of microhabitats, morphology, and physical performance as fitness surfaces for local specialization. Our results found major differences in morphology and performance across microhabitats.

In widespread species, we often consider them to be a “jack-of-all-trades, master of none” in regard to habitat use and niche occupation. On the surface when considering the big picture, this may be true. However, this assumption ignores the possibility for micro scale specialization.

(PDF) Natural selection favors local specialization in a widespread habitat generalist PDF | The ecological success of widespread species is attributed to an ability to generalize across diverse habitats, a so‐called “jack of all trades”... | Find, read and cite all the research you nee...

It’s been quite a while since I officially published (hoping to change that soon), but sharing my previous research on the habitat specialization in lizards 🦎 (thread below) ⬇️

bit.ly/40IKnmb