Phil Martin

Ha. I remember meeting you there! All being well I should be there too - would be fun to catch up!

Senior Editor for Journal of Applied Ecology - British Ecological Society Join the editorial board on Journal of Applied Ecology! Apply by 21 Dec 2025.

We're looking for a 6th Senior Editor!

If you…
👉are intrigued by the interface between ecology & biological resource management
👉are interested in contributing to the journal’s strategic vision
👉have editing experience

…we’d love to hear from you!

www.britishecologicalsociety.org/content/seni...

Ok, fair. I didn't workshop the question before asking it and it's very biased towards the subset of applied ecology that I'm interested in.

It's only one week until #BES2025 kicks off - so if you could respond to this survey, and help shape my talk on the 16th, that'd be great!

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.

Totally fair comment, I realise that this is lacking a lot of nuance!

Please repost for visibility! @jappliedecology.bsky.social @billsutherland.bsky.social @josbarlow.bsky.social @ashsimkins.bsky.social @drkevinwood.bsky.social @rupertseidl.bsky.social @jmbecologist.bsky.social @tatsuya-amano.bsky.social @markuseichhorn.bsky.social

I'm preparing for my talk at #BES2025 and want to know what people think the main goal of applied ecological and conservation research is. If everything goes to plan, I’ll be using the poll results in the talk itself, so the more responses the better! @britishecologicalsociety.org

What do you think the primary goal of applied ecological/conservation research is?

1️⃣ Diagnose threats and impacts
2️⃣ Understand ecological processes
3️⃣ Inform management or policy
4️⃣ Something else (comment below)

📊 Show results

Maybe? It's hard for me to say without having any solid evidence (although I'm sure there's papers on this stuff). I think there's definitely room for replication as well as novelty - we also need lots of similar studies to help us generalise about things.

Job Opportunity at University of Leeds: Research Fellow in Global Conservation Salary: Grade 7 (£41,064 – £48,822 p.a. depending on experience) This role will be based on the university campus, with scope for it to be undertaken in a hybrid manner. We are also open to discussing...

📣Job vacancy!📣

Research Fellow in Global Conservation at Leeds, working with Dave Williams (and me, a bit) to assess the impact of conservation initiatives on biodiversity, carbon, and people: jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...

#ConservationScience 🌍

Yeah, I totally get that but I'd also like stats on the submission to first decision, excluding the desk rejects. The submission to first decision for journal I'm ed for is 13 days, but I know that once peer-review starts it's more like 70+ days.

Yeah, I'm an editor at J Applied too I often have to invite 10+ reviewers to get 2 people to agree. It pays to invite lots of people in on go in my experience. Interested in what you mean by redundant. Stuff on the same topic?

Great looking PhD offer with @laurajanegraham.bsky.social assessing the importance of Miyawaki ‘Tiny forests’ for biodiversity. There's a paper due out soon in @jappliedecology.bsky.social that calls for more robust assessments of the Miyawaki method, so good to see projects aiming to fill this gap!

Yeah, I'm really hoping for the same. If they hate it after all this it's going to be really annoying!

Is peer-review getting slower? Anecdotal I know, but I've been waiting four months to hear back about a manuscript I submitted to a pretty prestigious journal. It would be great to have reliable turnaround times published on journal website so we could make an informed choice about where to submit.

Twenty-five years of misinterpreting the biodiversity hotspot approach - Nature Ecology & Evolution A quarter of a century after its publication, the biodiversity hotspot concept remains one of the most cited and influential frameworks in conservation science. But its real-world impact is poorly doc...

This 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

"This has led groups of researchers to publish increasingly detailed maps of global conservation area priorities, but none of these articles have directly influenced the implementation of the biodiversity hotspot approach..."

This has gained some traction. There's now twenty something conferences and workshops on there. However, there's a very obvious European bias. Any N or S American, Asian, African or Oceanian (is that even a word) additions would be gratefully received!

Thanks Juan Antonio! Much appreciated. ¡Que tengas buen finde!

It was great to host @julenastigarraga.bsky.social at BC3 today. He gave a fantastic talk about improving predictions in ecology and the role of mechanistic models in predicting change in forests. Hoping we can keep the conversations going and collaborate in the near future!

Ok, so since there's nothing coordinated anywhere, I've decided to make my own crowd-sourced list of ecology and conservation conferences here. If you know of a conference that fits, please add it to the list! Let's turn this into a useful resource for the community tinyurl.com/yb6e6mb2

Congrat man! Good luck with the new position, Coimbra seems like a really cool place.

Yeah, that was my fear. Those are good ones, but I just feel like I might be missing out on something...

Professor Yadvinder Malhi, Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery Director, awarded Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology News Article - Award

🎉 Congratulations to our Centre Director, Prof @ymalhi.bsky.social, on being awarded the Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology! 🌿 A well-deserved recognition of his pioneering research on tropical forests and global leadership in ecology.
🔗 naturerecovery.ox.ac.uk/news/4071 @ecioxford.bsky.social

I'm trying to organise conferences and workshops that I want to go to in 2026. Is there a decent list out there for ecology and conservation people anywhere? Everything I've come across by Googling seems to be full of predatory conferences.

I had a wonderful few days this week, hosted by the government of Catalonia and the University of Barcelona, and receiving the Ramon Margalef Prize for ecological research from the president of Catalonia

Fungi growing in a woodland, it looks remarkably like zombie fingers reaching up from the ground

When in the woods, best beware of dead man's fingers lurking there.
Reaching up above the ground, a creepy fungi to be found.

Happy Halloween everyone.

Photo: Sheringham Park by Rob Coleman

Evidence synthesis folk: are there any published standards for how to use AI and report its use? I've been using an AI tool to help with screening articles and want to make sure that I report things well.

Soil Ecology Group - British Ecological Society Understanding the vital ecosystem services provided by soil

We are happy to introduce the Soil Ecology SIG @britishecologicalsociety.org! Our aim is to connect soil ecology researchers across career stages, facilitating knowledge exchange and collaboration. Check out www.britishecologicalsociety.org/content/plan... and feel free to get in touch!

more PhD info here www.linkedin.com/posts/efuent...