Walter Andriuzzi

Piranesi read by Chiwetel Ejiofor

School of fish / by Toby Matthews, Ocean Image Bank

What happens when fish communities shift towards smaller species?🐟
Global study led by alumnus @juancarvq.bsky.social shows widespread changes in food webs across marine & freshwater systems. Even where species numbers stayed stable, interactions & body size changed.
🔗 www.idiv.de/smaller-fish...

Warming enhances soil carbon accumulation in boreal Sphagnum peatlands - Nature Ecology & Evolution Data from long-term experiments in Finnish peatlands shows that warming induces a metabolic response in boreal Sphagnum peatlands that enhances accumulation of soil carbon, in contrast to the carbon l...

Data from long-term experiments in Finnish peatlands shows that warming induces a metabolic response in boreal Sphagnum peatlands that enhances accumulation of soil carbon, in contrast to the carbon losses in response to warming in boreal forests and tundra 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Carboniferous recumbirostran elucidates the origins of terrestrial herbivory - Nature Ecology & Evolution A new species of pantylid microsaur from the Late Carboniferous of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, has teeth with dental occlusion consistent with herbivory, indicating an early transition to this co...

A new species of pantylid microsaur from the Late Carboniferous of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, has teeth with dental occlusion consistent with herbivory, indicating an early transition to this condition among terrestrial tetrapods 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congrats! That's a rather impressive line-up of soil ecologists in this picture

This is figure 1, which shows palaeontological information in an Earth system context.

An analysis in Nature Ecology & Evolution surveys community palaeontological databases, documenting their contributions to science as well as their vulnerabilities, and provide recommendations for the future of open science databases. go.nature.com/3ZwTeGl #Paleosky 🧪

Abiotic and biotic controls of non-native perennial plant success in drylands - Nature Ecology & Evolution It is unclear whether the harsh abiotic conditions of drylands hinder biological invasions. This global analysis shows that drylands are vulnerable to non-native plants and are likely to become more s...

It is unclear whether harsh abiotic conditions in drylands hinder biological invasions. This global analysis shows that drylands are vulnerable to non-native plants and are likely to become more so as native plant diversity declines and grazing pressure intensifies 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Temperature variation and life history mediate nonlinearity in fluctuations of marine fish populations worldwide - Nature Ecology & Evolution A global analysis of marine fish populations involving 243 recruitment and 266 spawner time series across 143 species finds that nonlinear dynamics are widespread and that the degree of nonlinearity i...

A global analysis of marine fish populations involving 243 recruitment and 266 spawner time series across 143 species finds that nonlinear dynamics are widespread and that the degree of nonlinearity is amplified by temperature variation and in fast-lived species 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Commodity frontiers expand more slowly into tropical forests where forest smallholders are present – new paper out in PNAS led by Marie Pratzer

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

@tkuemmerle.bsky.social
@humboldtuni.bsky.social
@pnas.org

📢 Open PhD opportunity with us at Teagasc Johnstown Castle and University of Limerick on forestry soils #SoilCarbon #SoilMicrobiome #GreenHouseGases. Further details and application form teagasc.ie/about/resear... Closing date 18th March. Join our team 🤗

Cellular-level preservation of cutaneous spikes in an Early Cretaceous iguanodontian dinosaur - Nature Ecology & Evolution A juvenile iguanodontian from the Lower Cretaceous of China preserves both spikes and scales in its skin that are different from integumentary structures in either non-avian dinosaurs or extant squama...

Also in the 'Old Dead Things' section of @natecoevo.nature.com this week, we've got a spiky baby iguanodontian www.nature.com/articles/s41... rdcu.be/e3CZH ...

Già le stavo seguendo molto poco queste olimpiadi, con quest'ultimo sviluppo direi che chiudo e basta

The billion-dollar case for sustaining palaeontology’s digital databases - Nature Ecology & Evolution The authors survey community palaeontological databases, documenting their contributions to science as well as their vulnerabilities, and provide recommendations for the future of open science databas...

What do we want?
Fossil databases! 🐚🦕
When do we want them?
Forever! 🗓️
Nice new paper highlighting how academic funding systems and digital architecture need to change, to ensure we can protect and sustain our precious fossil data 📚
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Cover image for the February issue of Nature Ecology & Evolution showing a Darwin's frog sitting on a log, resting its front leg on a mushroom. The cover line reads "Hidden epidemics"

Our February issue is now live! www.nature.com/natecolevol/...

Featuring research on 🧪

🐙 Deep-sea mining impacts
🦖 Dinosaur skin spikes
🐒 Same-sex sexual behaviour in non-human primates

Cover image shows a Darwin's frog, from Valenzuela-Sánchez et al. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I invite you to check our paper entitled “Rebuilding Ukraine’s capacity for fundamental research in evolutionary biology” doi.org/10.1038/s415... in @natecoevo.nature.com about the Ukrainian School in Evolutionary Biology #USEB we organized in 2025.
#biology #evolution #school #science #Ukraine

📢 Postdoc opening in avian biogeography & macroecology (Olomouc, CZ)
Vladimír Remeš (excellent scientist and mentor) is hiring a postdoc to study bird diversity across biomes, linking species pools, traits, climate & history using big data, fieldwork, and modelling.
🔗 pracuj.upol.cz/nc/zprava/cl...

This is crazy. Maybe there should be a hybrid system with a lottery for projects scoring >90% or whatever.

NB this is in addition, not as an alternative, to increasing funds and cover more projects...

New Nature Ecology & Evolution paper out today @natecoevo.nature.com!

We find that models deviate from observations in the weighting of important soil processes. This mismatch has important implications for developing soil carbon models and improving predictions of soil carbon fate in the future 🌍

Biodiversity science and policy need more model intercomparisons Nature Reviews Biodiversity, Published online: 06 February 2026; doi:10.1038/s44358-026-00134-4Climate model intercomparison projects have been essential in identifying mechanisms of human-caused climate change, but similar efforts in biodiversity science have lagged behind. This Perspective discusses existing biodiversity model intercomparison projects and identifies opportunities for their advancement in the future.

New online! Biodiversity science and policy need more model intercomparisons

From death comes diversity - Nature Ecology & Evolution A high-throughput laboratory experiment tracking the assembly of soil-derived communities shows that species-rich bacterial necromass supports increasingly diverse communities, with each additional de...

and From death comes diversity, @martinadalbello.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Discrepancies between observations and models highlight how to improve predictions - Nature Ecology & Evolution Integrating observational datasets and model simulations of soil organic carbon reveals not only that growth rate outperforms carbon use efficiency as a microbial predictor, but also that models under...

... and their respective News & Views commentaries: Discrepancies between observations and models highlight how to improve predictions, @luizdomeignoz.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41... (3/4)

Bacterial necromass recycling promotes diversity maintenance in bacterial communities via resource partitioning - Nature Ecology & Evolution In this study, the authors conduct experiments involving 276 soil-derived microcosms to reveal that the ecological process of necromass recycling promotes diversity maintenance in bacterial communitie...

... and Yi-Qi Hao et al., Bacterial necromass recycling promotes diversity maintenance in bacterial communities via resource partitioning (2/4) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Microbial growth rate is a stronger predictor of soil organic carbon than carbon use efficiency - Nature Ecology & Evolution Microbial carbon use efficiency is a strong predictor of soil organic carbon stocks. Here the authors reveal that the microbial growth rate is a more reliable and informative predictor, and that model...

Folks interested in soil carbon and microbes, you may want to check these two papers recently published in @natecoevo.nature.com: Xianjin He et al., Microbial growth rate is a stronger predictor of soil organic carbon than carbon use efficiency... (1/4) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Payment‐based open access is biasing ecology against participation from the Global South
nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

New paper from lab-@natecoevo.nature.com

Abiotic and biotic controls of non-native perennial plant success in drylands

Non-native plant success in drylands is facilitated by high grazing pressure & resource availability.

Led by Rahmanian and @ftmaestre.bsky.social

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

Gladys Mae West obituary: mathematician who pioneered GPS technology She made key contributions to US cold-war science despite facing huge barriers as a Black woman.

No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition.

Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Bacterial necromass recycling promotes diversity maintenance in bacterial communities via resource partitioning - Nature Ecology & Evolution In this study, the authors conduct experiments involving 276 soil-derived microcosms to reveal that the ecological process of necromass recycling promotes diversity maintenance in bacterial communitie...

Experiments involving 276 soil-derived microcosms reveals that the ecological process of necromass recycling promotes diversity maintenance in bacterial communities 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Diverging selection on body size in specialist terrestrial mammals - Nature Ecology & Evolution A comparative analysis of trait data combined with a mathematical model suggests that dietary specialization drives selection towards the smallest and largest body sizes in terrestrial mammals, as gen...

A comparative analysis of trait data combined with a mathematical model suggests that dietary specialization drives selection towards the smallest and largest body sizes in terrestrial mammals, as generalists outcompete specialists at intermediate sizes🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Nordic Oikos 2026 | Nordic Society Oikos Join us for one of Europe’s leading ecological conferences, where scientists, students, and professionals from across the Nordic countries, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland come together to explore t...

Looking forward to this meeting. FYI a message at the top of the page states "the Registration will close on April 17, 2026", but Important Dates list below states "Registration opens:15 June 2026". I assume the latter is correct...?
nordicsocietyoikos.glueup.com/event/nordic...

This is figure 3, which shows forest plot and regional changes in richness.

A study in Nature Ecology & Evolution shows the long-term changes in tree species diversity across tropical forests in the Andes and Amazon. go.nature.com/45FPc1M 🌍 🧪