Rodrigo Granjel

‘The Ecology of Ecologists’: what, if anything, is ecology? (book review) What, if anything, is ecology? You would think I’d know that – I’ve been a practicing (academic) ecologist for about 40 years. But I don’t. Sure, I know some stuff. I know that ecology isn’t the sa…

Jeremy Fox has a new book out, 'The Ecology of Ecologists'. What's that about, and should you read it? (Quick answers: how ecology's chaos of approaches is a feature, not a bug; and YES.) scientistseessquirre... 🌍🧪

Bombus pascuorum pollinating Teucrium pyrenaicum in Gorbeia Natural Park

Three technicians sampling in Gorbeia Natural Park

Kaixo BlueSky! 👋 We are SARE Lab [Sare means network in Basque, reflecting our focus on the intricate connections within nature]. Learn more about our team and research here: gorbeea.bc3research.org

That's a very good question, Benjamin. Let me discuss this with Mengjiao and we'll get back to you!

Ecosystem stability is about local diversity! 🌏🌱

Really happy to see our new paper out in @natcomms.nature.com.

Thanks to @huangmj.bsky.social for beautifully leading this project and to coauthors @danimontoya.bsky.social, Yao Xiao, Xiang Liu & Yann Hautier for this great collective effort.

Pharmacophagy in insects: Ecological and evolutionary perspectives on the non‐nutritional use of plant specialized metabolites Insects interact with plants not only for nutrition but also to actively seek plant specialized metabolites (PSMs) for chemical defense, reproduction, and self-medication—a behavior known as pharmaco...

Did you know? Insects eat plants as medicine. #OpenAccess
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Paper alert! Our study about functional motifs is out in PNAS. We use food webs as an example to discuss how small subgraphs drive the dynamics in complex systems. While motifs that determine overall stability are rare, when it comes to reactivity, we show that small groups dominate system behavior.

Unlocking a tiny plant’s big potential for research and biotechnology Duckweed grows fast and is easy to cultivate, but until now has been difficult to modify genetically. A new, reproducible transformation toolkit for these plants opens the door to the wider use of…

'This should make duckweed an attractive and accessible research model to a wider circle of scientists.'

@gmivienna.bsky.social scientists create new, reproducible transformation toolkit for duckweed:

www.oeaw.ac.at/gmi/detail/n...

🧵1/2 #PlantScience

A photo of a computer monitor with the title page of a book, entitled 'the world beneath our feet' by Frank Ashwood. In front of the monitor is my hand, holding a mug with images of many hard-bodied oribatid mites on it.

Today is my final day of book writing, then it's off for copyediting and out of my hands!

It's been a true labour of love, and I'm feeling bittersweet. How better to cross the finish line than with coffee in this mite-y good mug by @fminifera.bsky.social

#SoilBiodiversity #TheWorldBeneathOurFeet 🧪

Warmer environments harbor greater thermal trait diversity in moth assemblages - Nature Communications Climate limits where insects can live and which species can coexist. Using thermal tolerances of 653 moths on Asian mountains, this study shows warmer temperatures broaden thermal tolerance traits div...

How do temperature regimes shape trait diversity in communities? Does variability promote more specialists or more generalists?

Our new Nature Communications paper tackles this with eco-evo simulations + 653 moth species across latitudinal and elevational gradients.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Happy to share that our new paper is out!
We quantify multiple ecosystem services in rangelands with standardized global data from #NutNet 🦌🐄🦬, and show how their synergies and trade-offs shift with grazing exclusion and fertilization 🌿🌏💫
doi.org/10.1002/fee....
@esajournals.bsky.social

All my #rstats ebooks are now in the quarto format, and hosted on Quarto Pub. Their old bookdown links will all be dead by the weekend.

1/3

Thank you for your work, Solomon. It is truly appreciated.

Join us in Bologna, Italy, 4–6 Nov 2026 for Visualising Climate — the first global conference fully dedicated to climate data visualization and its power to transform public understanding of a changing planet. Come see the data.
visualisingclimate.org
#VisualisingClimate2026 #DataVis #ClimateCrisis

Studying social transmission using STbayes Post provided by Michael Chimento. When studying animal culture, it’s important to establish whether novel behaviours or information have spread through social contact, or are rather innovated or p…

New blog post!!🚨

Michael Chimento gives an overview of the new R package STbayes, designed for creating, fitting and understanding Bayesian models of social transmission 🌍 🧪

Read the blog here 👇

Precision ecology for targeted conservation action - Nature Ecology & Evolution The fields of medicine and marketing use large data volumes and computational power to target individuals. This Perspective argues that applied ecologists should draw on such approaches to provide dec...

Meta-analysis is ubiquitous in ecology, but it is poor at determining which conservation interventions work in which contexts

That’s why we’ve developed Precision Ecology, using methods developed in, eg, medicine to inform precise, data-informed conservation

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

The global extent of the grassland biome and implications for the terrestrial carbon sink - Nature Ecology & Evolution By combining satellite observations with ground-based data and expert validation, this analysis demonstrates considerable misestimation of grassland extent and thereby carbon stock estimates in previo...

⚠️ New paper out in Nature Ecology & Evolution 🌱
#Grasslands #SoilCarbon @natecoevo.nature.com

Developmental and abiotic stress assays in Columbia-0 (Col-0) and mutants (abi1-1 and defenseless).

Decoding plant defense signaling using the defenseless mutant

Baral and Brosché

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

Psyched to share a new paper out today in @pnas.org! W/ @zachgold.bsky.social, Haylee Oyler, Jonathan Levine and @nathanjbkraft.bsky.social, we showed that spatial clustering modifies the strength of competition in a diverse annual plant community.

Check it out here: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Soil biodiversity is a key driver of ecosystem function, including nutrient cycling, organic-matter decomposition, plant productivity, climate regulation and pathogen control (with subsequent effects on animal, human and plant health). A foundational review in 2014 described the functional role of soil biodiversity in ecosystems, but our understanding of the relationship between soil biodiversity and ecosystem functioning has deepened over the past decade. In this Review, we highlight progress in the field, discuss the approaches and methodological advances that have enabled this progress, and identify emerging research questions. Although the spatiotemporal patterns and community dynamics of soil communities are becoming well understood, topics with important knowledge gaps include the climate feedback effects of soils, the ecology of urban soils and the development of soil health indicators. Global collaborative networks, linking existing databases, and monitoring soil biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are important ways to address these knowledge gaps. By considering the relationships between soil biodiversity and ecosystem functioning we can connect small-scale interactions among plants, microorganisms and animals to ecosystem services and planetary sustainability.

New paper with many smart people, led by Nico Eisenhauer & Marie Sünemann @eisenhauerlab.bsky.social, surveying the state of literature on the effects of soil biodiversity on ecosystem functioning

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Space-for-time substitution approaches in ecology do work! (at least in temperate grasslands)
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This was the year that was not the year   This was the year that was not the year  I repaired the bathroom tap  and emptied out the kitchen drawer  of a lifetime’s worth of crap.    This was the year that was not the year in which I launched a new career.  A West End hit eluded me  as did Time Person of the Year.    This was the year that was not the year  I became a household name.  Action figures were not sold of me. I wasn’t made a dame.    This was the year that was not the year I spent less time on my phone.  A night of passion did not happen  in a boutique hotel in Rome.    This was the year that was the year  I didn't get that much done – much the same as the year before,  much like the one to come.  Brian Bilston

This year was also the year in which I failed to write a new end-of-year poem.

Probabilistic Modelling is Sufficient for Causal Inference Causal inference is a key research area in machine learning, yet confusion reigns over the tools needed to tackle it. There are prevalent claims in the machine learning literature that you need a besp...

A satisfying read! I must concede that I am fairly ignorant of the broader causal literature, and am a priori particularly suggestible to the claims herein.

arxiv.org/abs/2512.23408
'Probabilistic Modelling is Sufficient for Causal Inference'
- Bruno Mlodozeniec, David Krueger, Richard E. Turner

New Job opportunity at the University of Georgia Department of Entomology! Come work a dream job in beautiful Athens!
www.ugajobsearch.com/postings/463...

Diminuto colémbolo de colores ocres sobre una caléndula amarilla

Sospecho que los colémbolos se suben a las flores cercanas al suelo para comer polen mas a menudo de lo que solemos imaginar. Los vemos poco porque son diminutos. Este Sminthurus cf. viridis se estaba dando un buen atracón de polen de Calendula arvensis cogiéndolo directamente de las anteras.

Another campaign to go peat free, it only takes a second, please sign (link in comment below). Such an easy step we could take to address both climate and biodiversity crises.

Application Process Image Woman behind a podium presenting. Jessie Golding, BBCS postdoc, presenting at ICCB 2025. Apply to become a Lovejoy Fellow by submitting your resume, cover letter, and contact information for three references through the University of Arizona Talent Portal (link upcoming) by the first review date of January 30, 2026. Your cover letter should: Identify 1-2 Lovejoy BBCS faculty you would be interested in working with and explain the primary research directions you would want to pursue in collaboration with this faculty member. You are strongly encouraged to reach out to faculty before submitting your application. Describe your experience with or interest in inter- or transdisciplinary research. Explain how this experience will positively impact your career trajectory.

New postdoctoral fellowship opportunity! Please pass along. Excited to announce the launch of the Tom Lovejoy Fellowship Program at the University of Arizona for innovative research to protect species, sustain ecosystems, and promote a thriving planet lovejoycenter.arizona.edu/lovejoy-fell... 🧪🌐🌾

Linking Climate and Demography to Predict Population Dynamics and Persistence Under Global Change Predicting how climate change will affect the population dynamics and ultimately persistence of plant and animal populations is a grand challenge in biodiversity science and global change biology. Co...

Fun collab w an awesome group of ecologists, led by Jenn Williams and Tom Miller! Linking Climate and Demography to Predict PopulationDynamics and Persistence Under Global Change dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele....

Workflow of this study.

Plants reveal hidden hosts: aphid parasitism guides a hyperparasitoid’s search

Bourne et al. @wurplant.bsky.social @mitchelbourne.bsky.social

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

Book cover for Reproducible Code guide. The cover has a red background with a large yellow-bodied black-headed stag beetle.

Excited to launch the new improved Reproducible Code guide from @britishecologicalsociety.org @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social FREE online here! www.britishecologicalsociety.org//wp-content/... Amazing work by some very talented ECRs. We hope it’s useful!

I'm looking for good master's students for a couple of projects I'm offering. What are the best MSc/MRes courses I should send the project descriptions to? Ideally courses should be in Europe to make logistics less complex.