Reassembly Research Unit

BE20 - Emerging Topics in Long-Term and Large-Scale Biodiversity Research

The Biodiversity Exploratories @bexplo.bsky.social warmly invite *all* #biodiversity #researchers worldwide to join (celebrating the 20th anniversary).
ABSTRACT SUBMISSION AND EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO MARCH 2, 2026

www.biodiversity-exploratories.de/en/be20/

Tropical rainforests are structurally complex

Can tropical rainforests 🌴🌎🇪🇨 regain their structural complexity in 40 years? Yes! Shown by @martinehbrecht.bsky.social et al. in their new article in @journalofecology.bsky.social

www.reassembly.de/news/recover...

The new Bothrocophias pitviper found in the Tesoro reserve. Foto by Mark-Oliver Rödel.

hisssss.... 🐍
Geographically and taxonomically unexpected:
A 🆕(?) pitviper from the lowland rainforest in the Ecuadorian Chocó 🌴🇪🇨 discovered by @roedellab.bsky.social
Published in Herpetology Notes
www.reassembly.de/news/unexpec...

Subgenus Megalopta Megalopta from Quininde, Ecuador on October 15, 2021 at 05:42 AM by Philipp Hoenle

Two new papers on tropical bees:
1) Nocturnal (!) 🌘Megalopta bees 🐝 in recovering tropical forest
www.reassembly.de/news/dietary...
2) Proboscis length 😜 estimation in tropical bees
www.reassembly.de/news/models-...
www.inaturalist.org/observations...

Title page of REASSEMBLY Newsletter #4

Final #Newsletter 📰 from our first phase of #Reassembly Research Unit 🇪🇨🌴🌱🦜🐸🐜. Spanish version will follow soon.
Enjoy!
www.reassembly.de/posts/newsle...

YouTube video by OKTV Mainz Kann sich der Regenwald wieder regenerieren? | #voicesforclimate mit Prof. Dr. Nico Blüthgen

Reassembly und 🌴Regenwald-Regeneration im Kontext der Klimakrise.
Sehenswerte Vorlesungsreihe an der Uni Mainz @zukunftjgu.bsky.social
Kurzbericht:
www.reassembly.de/news/reassem...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIzT...

Burying millions of tons of wood, which would require disturbing many thousands of acres of land, sounds like such a great idea. Just like carbon offsets were a good idea. Let's do anything else but deal with the actual problem.

‘Dismal’ health of world’s forests is threat to humanity, report warns Financial institutions pouring money into land clearance and undermining efforts to stop destruction, says Climate Focus

“We already know what works to stop forest loss, but countries, companies, and investors are only scratching the surface. And even those initial efforts are facing strong pushback from the standard bearers of an economic system built on forest destruction.” 🌍 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Banks make $26bn in decade of financing deforesting companies Deforestation in the region of Maraba, Para state, Brazil Key findings US financial institutions made $5.4 billion from deforesting companies between 2016-2024, with Vanguard, JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock the top earners. EU bank...

Banks make $26bn in decade of financing deforesting companies
->Global Witness | More from Lil' Dr Glen EcoChat at BigEarthData.ai

Entscheidung im Streit über Bezeichnung: EU-Parlament stimmt für »Veggie-Burger«-Verbot Veggie-Schnitte statt -Schnitzel? Straßburg hat über die Bezeichnung von Fleischalternativen entschieden. Nun müssen die Staaten ausloten, ob solche Produkte bald nicht mehr Wurst oder Schnitzel heiße...

Ein Beweis gefällig, dass zuviel FLEISCH 🥩 dumm macht? Konservative WURSTesser können offenbar nicht lesen & "Veggiburger" 🍔 wegen begrifflicher Verwechslungsgefahr nicht tolerieren.
Winner of the Day: Massentierhaltung & Klimawandel, Prost! (mit alkfreiem "Bier"? 🍻)
www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/e...

Delayed recovery of seed-dispersal interactions after deforestation Landim et al. show that seed-dispersal interactions require about two decades to functionally recover in tropical forests in Ecuador, but the recovery time of seed-dispersal functions is delayed in pa...

Excited to share that the second paper of my PhD is out in @currentbiology.bsky.social 🍈🦜🍒🐒🍊🐿️

We show that the functional diversity of seed-dispersal interactions in tropical forests takes circa 20 years to recover after deforestation.

You can read it here: www.cell.com/current-biol...

Conservationist Jane Goodall, whose work revolutionized the study of primates, has died | CNN Jane Goodall, whose lifelong work as a primatologist helped broaden the world’s understanding of animal behavior and emotions, has died, her institute said Wednesday. She was 91.

#Jane #Goodall She was an incredibly inspiring person for #nature #conservation, appreciation of #wildlife ... and to never give up in the fight for justice! RIP.

May her legacy survive: “giving #young #people #hope and … a sense of #empowerment.”

edition.cnn.com/2025/10/01/e...

Ecological synthesis including forest ecosystems, grassland, land use, climate change, time series, stability, ecosystem functioning, biodiversity, species interaction networks

Three exciting #PostDoc 🧑‍🔬👩‍🔬🧕 positions on #Ecological #Synthesis at TU Darmstadt @tuda.bsky.social for Reassembly #rainforest 🇪🇨 🌱🌴🦜 & #Biodiversity Exploratories 🌲🐄🚜🪲🐝🥀@bexplo.bsky.social
Please spread widely ✉️♥️▶️ & apply quickly 🙃
www.reassembly.de/the-team/job...

👉 Interested in joining our #Bexplo Synthesis Team?
Apply now – the deadline is October 25!
🔗 www.reassembly.de/the-team/job...

Ecological synthesis including forest ecosystems, grassland, land use, climate change, time series, stability, ecosystem functioning, biodiversity, species interaction networks

Three exciting #PostDoc 🧑‍🔬👩‍🔬🧕 positions on #Ecological #Synthesis at TU Darmstadt @tuda.bsky.social for Reassembly #rainforest 🇪🇨 🌱🌴🦜 & #Biodiversity Exploratories 🌲🐄🚜🪲🐝🥀@bexplo.bsky.social
Please spread widely ✉️♥️▶️ & apply quickly 🙃
www.reassembly.de/the-team/job...

Richtig! Man muss bei solchen Falschbehauptungen immer wieder widersprechen und mit Fakten kontern. Haben wir in ähnlicher Weise auch bei Bauer Willi's Kolumne in BiuZ gemacht zum selben Thema www.biuz.de
(Gruß, Nico B.)

Forest bird communities 🦜recover -- and their choires captured by sound recorders 🎤🎶-- but biodiversity recovery is hampered in agricultural landscapes where tropical forests disappeared!
New study led by @cofeuniwue.bsky.social published in Conservation Letters
www.reassembly.de/news/impover...

It's even worse in this case! Rescuing honeybees by synthetic superfood (genetically designed yeast) to release them from the need of threatened wildflowers... this can further accelerate biodiversity loss. Synthetic ecology - for crops.

Pristimantis latidiscus #frogs bury their eggs! Froglets 🐸 from experimentally disturbed egg clutches hatched earlier - potentially to reduce predation risk. New paper by Niklas Fuchs and M.-O. Rödel @roedellab.bsky.social from the Ecuadorian rainforest.
www.reassembly.de/news/scienti...

What do Blue-bellied Whiptail 🦎lizards eat? And how? Natural history notes on Holcosus bridgesii in 🇪🇨Ecuadorian #rainforest 🌴published in #Herpetological_Review by @roedellab.bsky.social
They feed on earthworms (see picture) and four other diets that are nastier
www.reassembly.de/news/what-wh...

The picture shows a Oophaga sylvatica with four lesions caused by flesh-fly larvae

Poison frogs 🐸 with fly 🪰 parasite? First record of myiasis in a frog in Ecuador by Michelle Vélez, Mónica Guerra @roedellab.bsky.social and others published in the Intern. J. for Parasitology:
www.reassembly.de/news/poison-...

Playing death: Thin-toed Frogs 🐸🐸

To avoid being eaten by a predator 🐍- or to be stepped on by a researcher 🥾- Leptodactylus rhodomerus displays death-feigning ☠️. ‪Discovered by roedellab.bsky.social‬ www.reassembly.de/news/playing...g/

Forscher schlägt Alarm: „Größtes Artensterben seit den Dinosauriern“ Der Biologe Christian Hof spricht über den Einfluss der Klimakrise auf die stark bedrohte Artenvielfalt. Ein Interview von Theresa Stoll.

Mit der @fr-zeitung.bsky.social hatte ich die Freude, über unser Forschungsthema #Biodiversität im #Klimawandel zu sprechen. Danke!
www.fr.de/politik/fors...

YouTube video by Nico Blüthgen Megarhyssa perlata: a giant ichneumonid wasp. Mating and egg laying on tree trunk.

Whow! Riesenholzwespen sind beeindruckend - aber einer ihrer Parasiten noch mehr! Gestern entdeckt: Die riesige Ichneumonide MEGARHYSSA PERLATA auf Totholz - drängelnde Männchen, eierlegende Weibchen.
youtu.be/QKAIGg5F4wM
www.inaturalist.org/observations/2

Tropical forests in the Americas are changing too slowly to track climate change Understanding the capacity of forests to adapt to climate change is of pivotal importance for conservation science, yet this is still widely unknown. This knowledge gap is particularly acute in high-b...

In our new paper in @science.org, we show that tropical forests are changing over time, but too slowly to track climate change. Our article, led by @jeaggu.bsky.social just out:

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

@oxfordgeography.bsky.social
@naturerecovery.bsky.social
@forestplots.bsky.social

An Ecuadorian hotspot shows how forests can claw back from destruction Can a tropical forest mend itself? After trees are cut down and wildlife flees, do microbes on the dank, leafy floor and woody giants with epiphyte-laden crowns come back; do the pollinators, seed dis...

Good news! 🌴 Reassembly at the #ECTE2025 conference in Amsterdam... and featured in MONGABAY in the same week:
www.reassembly.de/news/reassem...

news.mongabay.com/2025/02/an-e...

Sample coverage matters: succession of #bird communities along a #chronosequence of a recovering tropical #rainforest.
🦜🕊️🦉🌱🌴
www.reassembly.de/news/sample-...

An Ecuadorian hotspot shows how forests can claw back from destruction Can a tropical forest mend itself? After trees are cut down and wildlife flees, do microbes on the dank, leafy floor and woody giants with epiphyte-laden crowns come back; do the pollinators, seed dis...

Good news! 🌴 Reassembly at the #ECTE2025 conference in Amsterdam... and featured in MONGABAY in the same week:
www.reassembly.de/news/reassem...

news.mongabay.com/2025/02/an-e...

More than half of the Reassembly team participates at the great #ECTE2025 conference... and warms up for their talks tomorrow at a hot pot restaurant. #tropical #ecology

#Reassembly of a tropical #rainforest: A new #chronosequence in the #Chocó tested with the #recovery of #ree attributes
Our basic article is now online, with all the information on our study design and exciting results for trees.
www.reassembly.de/posts/basic-...