Robert Fletcher

NEW JOB in #ornithology chasing #nutcrackers in Switzerland to understand seed dispersal patterns: buff.ly/Cx0OOQy

This thread shows a deliberate defunding of U.S. science, engineering, social science, innovation, and education excellence. It’s a U.S. national security, competitiveness, and economic disaster.

One nice result in the new great tit analysis by @davididiaquez.bsky.social et al. is a lovely illustration of Simpson's paradox: within cohorts of great tits, mass increases as birds get older, but across cohorts the population trend is in the other direction
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Opinion | A.I. Companies Are Eating Higher Education

Important perspective:

A.I. Companies Are Eating Higher Education www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/o...

We are recruiting three new lecturers!

Read on if you'd like to bring your passion for biology to @bristolbiosci.bsky.social at @bristoluni.bsky.social and join our team of ambitious, creative, inclusive and collaborative researcher–educators:

www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

Why I want to bring lions back to my village As a child in rural Kenya, conservationist Seif Hamisi fell asleep to the sound of lions outside his village. Today, the lions are gone, mirroring a continent-wide trend: African wildlife populations ...

Well said:

www.ted.com/talks/seif_h...

Long-term agricultural diversification increases financial profitability, biodiversity, and ecosystem services: a second-order meta-analysis - Nature Communications Feeding a growing population while protecting the environment is a major global challenge. This study suggests that agricultural diversification enhances long-term profitability, biodiversity, soil he...

Do agricultural diversification practices pay off in the long run? Our new paper synthesizes 100+ years of evidence showing that diversification practices become more profitable over time and delivers growing benefits for soils, biodiversity, and carbon.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I will probably be posting about this one a lot in the coming weeks: our special issue on ALAN / light pollution in Biological Conservation is now open for submissions! With @gkalinkat.bsky.social, Jacqueline Degen, and Franz Hölker.

www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...

The brutal geography of global elite scientific research - LSE Impact In theory where you are from is not meant to determine the quality of your research. The geography of elite research shows this to be untrue.

blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

Agreed! For my group, the rigor and depth is just as deep in the UK as the US—just a much faster process.

Inevitably, less field work can be squeezed in to a shorter UK Phd, but some is still very doable.

‘Humanity’s favourite food’: how to end the livestock industry but keep eating meat Bruce Friedrich argues the only way to tackle the world’s insatiable but damaging craving for meat is like-for-like replacements like cultivated and plant-based meat

“industrial agriculture is a shockingly inefficient way of producing food

It takes 9 calories of crops to get 1 calorie of chicken, 10 or 11 calories of crops to get 1 calorie of pig meat or farmed fish and 40 to 100 calories of crops to get 1 calorie of beef”

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Today I had the good fortune of meeting a few beautiful firetails and until now I far not fully appreciated their fantastic snoots

This is a wonderful summary of how two common connectivity models used in ecology and conservation are related:

Circuit theory is a special case of connectivity modeling with the SAMC (Spatial Absorbing Markov Chains)

Ed Zitron on big tech, backlash, boom and bust: ‘AI has taught us that people are excited to replace human beings’ His blunt, brash scepticism has made the podcaster and writer something of a cult figure. But as concern over large language models builds, he’s no longer the outsider he once was

Was honored to get the call to be one of The Guardian’s Big Interviews in G2. A thorough and thoughtful piece that digs into the real fundaments of the AI bubble narrative.
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Beautiful and incredible scenes from the centre of the Netherlands, a country with 1.5 times the density of people in the UK. A pack of 11 wolves roaming through the snow!

A great start to the new year: registration for the European Congress of Conservation Biology (ECCB 2026) is now officially open! Participants can take advantage of a special Early Bird discount, available until 31 March 2026. More on: eccb26leiden.eu/registration/

Soy giants drop Amazon no-deforestation pledge as subsidies come under threat The world’s largest buyers of Brazilian soy have announced a plan to exit from a landmark antideforestation agreement, the Amazon Soy Moratorium. The voluntary agreement between soy agribusinesses…

World’s biggest buyers of Brazilian soy plan to exit the Amazon Soy Moratorium — a voluntary pact that kept deforestation-linked soy out of global supply chains for nearly 20 years.

Critics warn the move could reverse hard-won gains, especially in Mato Grosso, where deforestation is rising.

Thanks, Chris!

Both perspectives are important and both need each other.

If you do not go into the field, collaborate with those that do.
If you are incredible in the field, find a quantitative friend.

4/4

When we only view nature from the data we collect at our desks, we often ask, "What data are available?" rather than asking, "We data do we need & how should we best get it?"

We often assume the data are reliable, but I have frequently seen scientists misinterpreting the data they download.

3/4

In addition to all the important points made, I would add another: field work not only gives insight into the depths of nature, but it also gives insight to the value and limits of data we collect to understand nature.

2/4

As someone trained as both a field ecologist and quantitative scientist, this tension runs deep for me. Some of my group are entrenched in the field whereas others work with models for a living.

‘I rarely get outside’: scientists ditch fieldwork in the age of AI www.nature.com/articles/d41...
1/4

Congratulations, Gavin! So happy for you!

It’s official: I’m joining the School of Earth, Environment, and Sustainability at the University of Iowa as an assistant prof starting Fall 2026!

I’ll be recruiting multiple grad students and postdocs to join my lab, so if you’re into disturbance ecology and conservation science… watch this space!

Kolby Jardine, working on a laptop under a canvas canopy in a tropical forest.

'Science is at its best when guided by curiosity, intuition, and the courage to explore ideas that others might overlook.'

In Profile: Kolby J. Jardine

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

#PlantScience

Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in Biodiversity The Department of Biology was established in 2010 through the merger of the Departments of Ecology, Cell and Organism Biology, Biological Undergraduate Education, and the Biological Museums. The depar

Come and join me and my colleagues at the Department of Biology, #LundUniversity in #sweden! We have am open position as Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in Biodiversity.

Apply here no later than February 11 2026:

https://lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/jobID:848749/type:job/where:4/apply:1

2025 was the warmest year on record for Central England in a dataset that starts in 1659.

(Daily data available since 1772.)

www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadce...

YouTube video by Nature on PBS This Bird Is Evolving Right in Front of Us

Happy New Year!

Here is a good news conservation story to start the year off right:

@camzoology.bsky.social @conservation.cam.ac.uk

youtu.be/cCBut3BAsCU?...

We are recruiting several PhD students. If you are interested in conservation conflicts, population ecology, quantitative ecology, or biodiversity, check these projects out (links in the thread, feel free to reach out):

Why Britain has a deer problem Deer numbers have rocketed over the last 40 years and particularly since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Deer numbers have been rocketing in the UK and Ireland, causing *massive* damage to nature and society.

The solutions?

Eat wild venison instead of farmed meat, and reintroduce missing native predators like lynx.
www.bbc.com/news/article...