Wilhelm Osterman

We started the mark recapture project of florivores in Latnjajaure. Bombus lapponicus is so far the most common and truly beautiful but a species which previously was really rare at this elevation.

Moving this to the top of my reading list

Israel accused of ethnic cleansing after more than 140 killed in Gaza in 24 hours Israel says intensified bombings are part of campaign expansion to ‘achieve all of the war goals in Gaza’

This must stop! We need a full arms embargo and sanctions now, so this killing with impunity ends.

Our new Canadian govt and PM need to speak up!
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

RESEARCH PAPER 🔬

„Given the similar #insect #biomass and #abundance between the two habitat types, #Natura 2000 areas do not seem to broadly benefit flower visitors more than #urban wastelands.“
- Theodorou et al. (2025)
@wilosterman.bsky.social

Article:
doi.org/10.1016/j.ba...

Excited to see this out!! In this thought-provoking review led by @davidperis.bsky.social and Ricardo Pérez-de la Fuente we further demonstrate that insect #pollination was once widespread among #gymnosperms and existed long before the origin of #angiosperms

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Thank you for the kind words! 🌼🌱

4. Thanks to all the editors at newphyt.bsky.social who were involved in the review and publishing process! In particular @jvamosi.bsky.social

3. The increase in polyploid frequency with latitude could be explained by patterns in plant reproduction, especially the frequency of self-reproduction, rather than higher tolerance to abiotic stress as commonly suggested.

Picture credit of Papaver dahlianum and Saxifraga cespitosa: Ellinor Delin

The ecology of polyploid establishment and exclusion, with implications for polyploid biogeography The relationship between polyploid formation, triploid fitness and plant reproduction has been studied for over a century, and uniparental reproduction has long been recognized to play a crucial role...

2. 🧵Different processes that facilitate polyploid establishment on their own often co-vary negatively with each other, making associations difficult to find and causal frameworks essential. doi.org/10.1111/nph....

📢 Viewpoint in New Phyt. on polyploid establishment!
Key take-homes🧵
1. In contrast to earlier hypotheses that pollinators can help new polyploids establish, we suggest that pollinators mainly prevent polyploid establishment because outcrossing increases the strength of minority cytotype exclusion.

That is cool! Certainly more work is needed to grasp bee conservation, and a synthesis is needed!

📢 New study: Insect Biomasse & abundance were similar in protected areas & urban wastelands, but 🐝wild bee diversity was higher in urban areas! Protected areas (Natura 2000) may need targeted management to support pollinators.
👇
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

@wilosterman.bsky.social

Our study is finally out on the conservation of pollinators 🐝🦋: Protected areas (Natura2000) do not outperform urban wastelands in support pollinators and pollination in central Germany.
👇
doi.org/10.1016/j.ba...

Ice crystals today in the forest around Gothenburg in Sweden. How cool aren’t they?!

How cool arent these Vaccinium trees and their blueberry-flowers in Canary Islands? Canary island strawberry tree ☀️ Arbutus canariensis

New timeline, same problems, same solution

Oh my oh my! What a hero!

The Journal of Scientific Integrity by Laura Luebbert and Lior Pachter Background (by LL) Four years ago, during the first year of my PhD at Caltech, I participated in a journal club organized by the lab I was rotating in. I was assi…

A friend mentioned honey bee waggle dance to me recently and I had to tell them the bad news about that literature: numerous key papers appear to be fraud. So here is me sharing the bad news with you too. Extensive blog post by the hero sleuth, Laura Luebbert, and @lpachter.bsky.social:

After taking the course Statisticaö rethinking, it would be really interesting to know what Richard McElreath thinks about this paper about replications in experiments 🙏. @rmcelreath.bsky.social

The population is monitoried some, but there is no restoration. It also appears to be grazed, so some protection effort may help. It is on the border to Norway where they have some more populations but they have been in decline.

Would that not be a dream project?! 🤪

A special moment was spotting one of the rarest plants in Sweden ”Gentiana purpurea”. One single population in the country with 5-20 individuals flowering per year. Would be great to know more about the pollination of the species - at this time a single individual flowered

We could/should just call it realized outcrossing rates. Regardless of opinions about pollinators. It carries confusion and ”system” really means something else in any other context. A system where e.g rain impacts the outcome makes no sense :)

Indeed. It is a confusing terminology (see it misused alot). ”System” refers to a property of something, of which the outcome may be affected by the environment. But the environment is not a part of the system. It may seem nitpicky but this term affect how biologists think about pollination alot.

This article is great work! The term ”mating system” is terrible though :( and botanists should consider redefining it. It is just realized selfing. If we exclude the pollinators of an autonomously selfing plant, we change the ”mating system”, but the system is the same! only environment changed!

Pollination by wolves 😳😳😳

Join us in a couple of hours if you want to discuss some fun topics on polyploid genome evolution!

#OpenAccess in #AJB! #SocietyJournal
#LeafShape #Climate #HerbariumSpecimens

My first Ph.D paper is out on polyploidy and evolution of sexual systems in angiosperm plants!