Dave Klinges

(Plz share) We're hiring! 5-year PhD student to join our new lab at Rutgers University. Broadly, exploring how climate change impacts terrestrial species, ecosystems and biodiversity – compute, field, or lab! See here:
ecoclimateglobal.org/join/
(hiring a 2-yr postdoc too, more news on that soon)

How to set up your own microclimate network Back in 2021, we had an important thought: maybe we should start treating microclimate the same way we treat macroclimate. Weather and climate are monitored by national governments through organize…

New for all microclimate enthusiasts!

A step-by-step workflow to build your own sensor network - with awesome R code for site selection + tips on engagement, fieldwork & outreach.

Led with @thenaturedave.bsky.social and @rebeccasenior.bsky.social

🔗 the3dlab.org/2025/08/16/h...

Excited to share the news that I have accepted a TT assistant professor position at @rutgersuniversity.bsky.social in the Dept of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources! I will be recruiting a postdoc and grad students soon for my wildlife disease ecology lab, so check back in here!

Great to have this one finally out-- our open-access workflow for optimized deployment of microclimate networks! Collab b/w ecologists, data scientists and computational engineers. Check out the GitHub repo for the R software (soon to be a package):

github.com/dklinges9/Mi...

Yes because us Jerzians are mild-mannered non-opinionated folk

Having grown up in central NJ, can confirm! Land of the Taylor roll, pork ham, and Philadelphia Jets.

Thrilled to have accepted a TT faculty position in the Dept of Ecology, Evolution & Natural Resources at Rutgers ‪@rutgersuniversity.bsky.social‬! Keen on climate change ecology, Madagascar, amphibians, range shifts? Visit our lab website & watch for upcoming PhD + postdoc ads! ecoclimateglobal.org

And if you want quality biodiversity data, cost-effectiveness, or local economic dev, it's always optimal to include community members. We're hoping to integrate more local communities into Mada park wildlife monitoring. Congrats to Lydia & Lalatiana who led this charge! (4/4)
tinyurl.com/53h6vx84

Sampling from real data from 6 protected areas in Mada, we simulated different combos of wildlife surveys by Malagasy scientists (great observations, expensive) and Malagasy community members (good observations, inexpensive) to see what proportion scientist vs community yielded best outcomes (3/4)

Natural resource managers can have different (non-mutually exclusive) priorities: eg "eco-centric" that prioritizes knowledge of ecological outcomes, and "people-centric" that prioritizes socioeconomic development for local peoples. We can represent each with value functions...(2/4)

The capstone paper from our community-based wildlife monitoring project in Madagascar, led by @lysoifer.bsky.social : employing local communities is more cost effective than hiring just scientists, even when you put a high premium on quality biodiversity data
BioCon paper: tinyurl.com/53h6vx84 (1/4)

And if you want quality biodiversity data, cost-effectiveness, or local economic development, it's always optimal to include community members. We're hoping to expand integration of local communities into Mada park wildlife monitoring. Big congrats to Lydia & Lalatiana who led this charge! (4/4)

Building on real data from 6 protected areas in Mada, we simulated different combos of wildlife surveys by Malagasy scientists (great observations, expensive) and Malagasy community members (good observations, inexpensive) to see what proportion scientist : community yielded best outcomes (3/4)

Natural resource managers can have different (non-mutually exclusive) priorities: eg "eco-centric" that prioritizes positive ecological outcomes and associated data, and "people-centric" that prioritizes socioeconomic development for local peoples. We can represent each with value functions...(2/4)

SoilTemp is now MEB! Over the past six years, I’ve poured my heart into SoilTemp. What started as a vision for a global soil temperature database quickly grew into something much more: a living, breathing community of …

The word is out officially, now: SoilTemp has finished its transformation into 'The MEB-network' - a fully-fledged research network that goes far beyond just being a database. And boy, does that make me proud!

Let me show you all the ways you can get involved here:

the3dlab.org/2025/05/31/s...

I FOUND IT. I once read a great line about how weather station data are only useful for things living on the weather station. I wanted to cite it but could never remember the damn paper! By sheer luck, it found me. From @mikekaspari.bsky.social in @globalchangebio.bsky.social
tinyurl.com/2jyd4z72

NSF slashes number of ‘rotators’ and well-paid managers as part of restructuring Smaller future budgets will require fewer people, NSF official tells staff

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

In response to climate change #CC, #species #shift in many dimensions, moving in space along many climatic clines, including #microclimatic ones (horizontally & vertically) & adjusting their #phenology & #behaviour in time

🧪🌐🌍🍁🌳🌲🌴🦔🦅🦎🐝🦐🦑🐠🦈🐋

@cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social

shorturl.at/W9fGd

Thread with an email being sent to @asn-amnat.bsky.social @sse-evolution.bsky.social @systbiol.bsky.social members today calling for a Tri-society week of action for NSF:

Dear members:
The tri-societies (ASN, SSE,SSB) are running a ‘Week of Action for NSF’. Your engagement is crucial.

I wish I could say I can’t believe this. But I guess I could.

UF, other Florida universities to deputize campus police for immigration enforcement The police departments of at least three public universities in Florida are seeking agreements with the federal government to carry out immigration enforcement on campus.

"Under the agreement being pursued by the University of Florida, participating officers would have the authority to interrogate “any alien or person believed to be an alien” about their right to remain in the country, as well as the power to make arrests without a warrant in some cases."

Worth a visit at the Yale Peabody for those in the New Haven area!

We are very happy to announce that the next Microclimate Ecology & Biogeography (MEB) conference will happen in Montpellier (FRANCE), 1 - 5 June 2026 ☀️
meb-network.com/meb-2026/
Microclimate scientists: save the date in your agenda!!

Trying to confirm. This is terrible for so many reasons

I’m pretty stubborn about avoiding graveyard projects, and so quite fulfilled to see this one through...even if almost a decade later than expected. Better late than never! And, recommend a visit to south Louisiana and LUMCON, I loved my time down in the swamp:
lumcon.edu

We think it's not just because of grazing preferences, but predator avoidance: they climb sturdy stalks, eg of Juncus roemerianus, to avoid blue crabs. So snail distributions may be driven by both bottom up + top down controls. Makes a difference when there's 100s of snails per sq meter out there!

What'd we find? Well periwinkles indeed prefer S. alterniflora (and prefer dead / senescing plants to live green tissue), but in both the field and lab we found them choosing other plants too. Why?

We wanted to find out. So we set up 24-hr time trials, with a different plant species placed on each side of an area, and six snails per arena. Because these snails graze mostly at night, we had to record nocturnal behavior.....and thus the rave snails were born!

Littoraria irrorata, the marsh periwinkle snail, is likely the most abundant herbivore in salt marshes in the Gulf (of _Mexico_) and American Atlantic coasts. Most assume they only graze on smooth cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora) and fungi, but why do we find them hanging out on other marsh plants?

Yes, only 9 years after my long nights in the lab painting 100s of snails with neon paint, installing camera traps above salt water tanks, and sifting through 72,000 photos of snail locations (my AI skills less savvy in 2016), my undergraduate thesis is finally published....