Rubén del Campo

Ecological catastrophe on the Neretva: Deadly fish kill caused by Ulog hydropower operations November 28, 2025 — Today, a coalition of international and Bosnian scientists, together with leading environmental NGOs, reveal evidence linking the mass mortality of fish and other aquatic life on t...

#Hydropower: Green energy? at which cost?
Check the case of the #Neretva river in Bosnia. A clear example of how HPP malfunctioning can put in high risk river ecosystems & threatened species
riverwatch.eu/en/balkanriv...

#SaveTheBlueHeartofEurope
@euronatur.bsky.social
@ulricheichelmann.bsky.social

7 basic science discoveries that changed the world Ozempic, MRI machines and flat screen televisions all emerged out of fundamental research decades earlier — the very types of study being slashed by the US government.

"Basic research is easily mocked because it can seem impractical, but, in fact, it is a major driver of economic growth. “The return on investment in basic research — the return to society — is very high, typically multiple dollars back per dollar invested,” says Holdren."

Starting new teaching and that means:
#BackToTheRoots📚

What is your favorite, reference book for #Ecology?

👩‍🔬 Caring for the elderly worsens the #GenderGap in scientific careers. A study by the Gender & Science group of @aillimnologia.bsky.social explores the issue 🔽
https://www.ceab.csic.es/la-cura-de-persones-grans-accentua-la-bretxa-de-genere-en-la-carrera-academica/

A new, different ⭐ was born!🤩
Today we started #STARDRY, an interdisciplinary project to study how #drying controls #functioning #stability in river networks through spatio-temporal changes of #communities🪲🦠
Thanks to my #EcologistDreamTeam for an amazing kickoff meeting🔝
Stay tuned!

Here's a helpful how to guide on how to break the spiral of silence...

talkclimatechange.org/howTo

A new, different ⭐ was born!🤩
Today we started #STARDRY, an interdisciplinary project to study how #drying controls #functioning #stability in river networks through spatio-temporal changes of #communities🪲🦠
Thanks to my #EcologistDreamTeam for an amazing kickoff meeting🔝
Stay tuned!

It's tomorrow at 16:30! @manudelbaq.bsky.social ( @irnase.bsky.social ) will inaugurate the Iberian Group of Urban Ecology's (AEET) online seminar series here:
teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-joi...

When my #ecologist & #runner sides meet:
- The runner: yey, feels like progress!💪🏽
- The ecologist: mmm... What could be the R2 of that relationship?🤔
😂

2026 ASLO-SIL Joint Meeting - ASLO The theme of the 2023 Aquatic sciences Meeting is Resilience and Recovery in Aquatic Systems. We encourage submissions that examine these topics and invite you to contribute special sessions on topics...

Calling fans of temporary waters! We invite you to submit an abstract to our ASLO-SIL special session "SS015 Drying waters: the science and management of temporary aquatic ecosystems".
More details at www.aslo.org/aslo-sil-2026/
Deadline 251125
@ryanmburrows.bsky.social @kuglerovastripe.bsky.social

The Imbalance of Nature: The Role of Species Environmental Responses for Community Stability This study shows that the distribution of species' fundamental responses to environmental change, quantified by a new metric, imbalance, is a key driver of ecological stability. In a large microcosm ...

New paper out in Ecology Letters!
“The Imbalance of Nature: The Role of Species Environmental Responses for Community Stability”
📖 Read it here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

We tried to answer the question: What drives community stability in fluctuating environments?

🧘‍♀️ How can nature + contemplation help with eco-distress? Interviews and co-design with practitioners reveal four pathways: building presence, facing difficult feelings, expanding self/connection, and strengthening shared values and commitments to action➡️https://buff.ly/lVgdgFx

🌊💨 Calling all freshwater gas enthusiasts! 💨🌊

Join us for SS002: Gassy Waters at the upcoming ASLO-SIL 2026 meeting! 🌍 Dive into the latest advances in understanding and measuring gas fluxes across the aquatic continuum.

📍 Registration is now open: www.aslo.org/aslo-sil-202...

Yesterday I had a great time with colleagues from the Dep. of Ecology from @ua.es talking about #Biodiversity-Functioning relationships in #DryingRivers🤩.
Great discussions about how these systems resemble #soils & how much we can learn from them.
Big thanks to Santi Soliveres for the invitation!

#ProyectosAEET
Ya se ha resuelto la convocatoria 2025 de las ayudas a proyectos de investigación en Ecología @eco-aeet.bsky.social + @sibecol.bsky.social + Asociación Ibérica de Limnología

www.aeet.org/es/convocato...

New paper out led by @josemaferca.bsky.social ! Using stable isotope enrichment, we tracked aerial dispersal in a temporary river. As drying intensifies, conserving pools as refuges will be essential to prevent biodiversity loss. Access OA paper here: doi.org/10.1111/fwb.... @biologiaub.bsky.social

Next up…from our fieldwork in 2018🤣 we ask how does biodiversity control decomposition in river networks? Macroinverts drive decomposition, while functional diversity reduces decomposition variability! Network-scale #BEF Great to have this out @rubendelcampo.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1002/ecm.... 5/8

👋 I’m back with some project updates: ecosystem function, Europe-wide experiments, policy papers, a global biodiversity synthesis… and most exciting of all — a new baby💥 Big year and its not even🎄yet😉

Huge thanks to amazing collaborators for keeping projects moving and published! 1/8

Young lives cut short on an unimaginable scale: the 18,457 children on Gaza’s list of war dead Every name on a list compiled by health authorities in Gaza of the child victims of Israel’s offensive

no words

Drying halves decomposition rates in river networks by disrupting structure-function linkages https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.07.680619v1

Very grateful to the #DRYVER project & all collaborators for making this piece of work possible!
Real #interdisciplinary research combining hydrological modelling + biodiversity + ecosystem functioning.

🔊Stay tuned for coming updates!

Drying halves decomposition rates in river networks by disrupting structure-function linkages River drying is intensifying worldwide due to climate change and water abstraction, with major consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. In river networks, drying not only alters local ...

It took a long way, but FINALLY!

Happy to share our efforts to investigate how #drying alters the #biodiversity control of 🍂decomposition in #RiverNetworks.

We found that JUST 6 days of drying⚠️ halves decomposition rates due to structural community shifts🪲➡️🦠

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Ecological pathways connecting riverine drought to community change across space and time Climate change is intensifying droughts via reduced snowpack and accelerated snowmelt in high mountains globally, altering community structure in snow-dependent rivers. To predict impending ecologica...

Curious about how droughts alter mountain stream biodiversity - and why space-for-time substitution is not always a good idea when studying climate change impacts in rivers? Read our latest lab paper, led by Kyle Leathers in Ecological Monographs! @esajournals.bsky.social
dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecm....

Rivers are heating up faster than the air − that’s a problem for aquatic life and people River heat waves are rising faster than the pace of air heat waves. That’s a problem for fish, drinking water quality, and food and energy production.

Rivers are heating up faster than the air − that’s a problem for aquatic life and people

doi.org/10.64628/AAI...

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

Scientific productivity gap based on English-language peer-reviewed papers. Shown are the maximum % differences in the number of peer-reviewed papers published by female native English speakers from a high-income country (-45%), female non-native English speakers from a high-income country (-60%), and female non-native English speakers from a lower-middle income country (-70%), compared to male native English speakers from a high-income country (red flag).

Women, non-native English speakers & those form low-income countries are disadvantaged in science but by how much? We found that women with non-English first languages from low-income countries publish up to 70% fewer in English than their counterparts. 1/5
doi.org/10.1371/jour...
#languagebarriers

Rethinking Scientific Publishing: A Call for Change Scientific publishing lies at the core of academic life. It is the main mechanism through which knowledge is shared, careers are built, and progress is evaluated. However, this system has evolved i…

Our editors @ibartomeus.bsky.social and @marsobral.bsky.social have published an article rethinking the scientific publishing in PEEER. We can help reshape scientific publishing into a system that prioritizes integrity, inclusion, and sustainability.
peeer.net/2025/08/18/r...

My latest paper is now out in Limnology and Ocenography Letters @aslo.org, titled "Emerging patterns of CO2 : O2 dynamics in rivers and their link to ecosystem carbon processing". It is open access, so go read! I am mostly proud of this figure, which I spent a lot of hours figuring out how to do it

Beyond Species Richness for Biological Conservation Recent global policy developments have highlighted the need for straightforward, robust, and meaningful biodiversity metrics. However, much of conservation science is dominated by the use of a single....

Happy to share new work from the lab and a wonderful group of co-authors:

We argue that conservation biology needs to move beyond the current focus on species richness metrics.

While this has been argued before, we highlight the unappreciated impacts of using richness for a variety of problems:

Improving university policies and risk assessment to support inclusive fieldwork in environmental sciences Among 90 UK higher education institutions, there was patchy mention of protected and other identity-related characteristics in fieldwork policy and risk assessments, and very limited consideration of....

🏞️𝐅𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐝𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐝𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡?
Our new study looked at fieldwork policies and risk assessments from 90 UK universities offering environmental science courses.
The results are eye-opening:
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Carbon dioxide emissions across contrasting urban freshwater ecosystems Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from freshwaters represent a globally important carbon flux. However, CO2 fluxes from urban waters remain poorly constrained, and challenges remain for reliable upscali...

How much #CO2 do #UrbanFreshwaters emit?🌆
In this paper in @aslo.org led by Clara Romero
we measured fluxes across lentic & lotic waters of Berlin, showing:
-Strong differences among ecosystems
-Drivers linked to DOM & land cover
~8.8 Gg C-CO₂ emitted annually🤯
🔗 doi.org/10.1002/lno....
check it out