Carla Staver

My colleague Sarah Batterman and others from @caryinstitute.bsky.social are organizing what looks like a great crash course on ecosystem ecology for graduate students at an exceptionally affordable cost:

Assistant/Associate/Full Professor Tenure System - East Lansing, Michigan, United States Working/Functional Title Assistant/Associate/Full Professor Tenure System Position Summary The Plant Resilience Institute (PRI) at Michigan State University invites applications for multiple tenure-st...

Super excited about this new Open Rank tenure-track faculty search for the MSU Plant Resilience Institute. We successfully hired two excellent new faculty in our last search and we are hoping to build on that success with this search. careers.msu.edu/jobs/assista...

Assistant Professor - Plant Resilience to Climate Change - Department of Plant and Microbial Biology University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!

Our department (Berkeley PMB) is hiring an asst. prof. in Plant Resilience to Climate Change! aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05049

DOE CWG STATEMENT (second paragraph of section 2.1.1, page 3): “Piao et al. (2020) noted that greening was even observable in the Arctic.” COMMENT: This statement implies that the Arctic greening signal was caused by elevated CO2 , however that is not the scientific consensus. Piao et al. (2020) attribute the greening trend in the Arctic predominantly to growing season length driven by warmer temperatures (see also Y. Zhang et al., 2022). Piao et al. (2020) also note that this positive impact of increasing temperatures appears to have weakened over the past four decades, “suggesting a possible saturation of future greening in response to warmer temperature” (see also comment on greenness trends related to Section 2.1.1, first sentence of Page 4). It is also important to put Arctic greening more broadly into the context of the carbon cycle and other impacts. While above-ground plants may have displayed more leaf area over the past decades, rising temperatures also thaw permafrost and drive accelerated decomposition in highly carbon rich soils (Turetsky et al., 2020), a process which is expected to accelerate as climate continues to warm (Miner et al., 2022). Thus even with Arctic greening, high latitude terrestrial systems may become net carbon sources to the atmosphere, causing an amplifying feedback (Braghiere et al., 2023). Other risks to the Arctic linked to higher CO2 levels and rising temperatures are not mentioned in this report (Virkkala et al., 2025). The Arctic is warming at a rate of 2 to 3 times the global average, leading to thawing of permanently frozen soils (permafrost), with downstream impacts including loss of structural support for buildings and subsidence, threatening communities, roads, runways, and other assets across Alaska (Manos et al., 2025; University of Alaska Fairbanks Institute of Northern Engineering US Army Corps of Engineers Alaska District & Laboratory, 2019).

Our comment on the DOE CWG report is done. It tips the scales at 439 pages, approx. 3x longer than the DOE report.
This is related to Brandolini's law: The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.

Example: refuting one sentence.

Fine root and soil carbon stocks are positively related in grasslands but not in forests - Communications Earth & Environment A positive relationship between fine root carbon and soil organic carbon stocks is well established in grasslands, particularly at greater depths, but the relationship varies across forests, based on ...

Excited to see this paper out! We used NEON data to explore the relationship between fine root and soil carbon stocks. With @sr-weino.bsky.social @katerinageorgiou.bsky.social @aaberhe.com @josephtumber.bsky.social @mingzhenlu.bsky.social et al. doi.org/10.1038/s432...

Multiple Early Career Faculty Positions in Ecology The Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame invites applications for multiple, tenure-track assistant professor positions that will enhance existing institutional excellence in ecology. We are searching broadly for creative and collaborative individuals (1) working at any spatial scale, from local to global, in any system, (2) studying any level of biological organization, from genes to ecosystems, and (3) using any mode of inference, from empirical to theoretical. Applicants should demonstrate research excellence that crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries; ongoing growth in the department will emphasize new hires that use quantitative and/or integrative approaches to study ecological processes. Postdoctoral experience is desirable in applicants. Successful candidates will engage with and benefit from UNDERC, Notre Dame’s 8000-acre environmental field station and home to NEON’s Great Lakes domain, superb on-campus chemical and genomic analytical facilities, an experimental research facility located close to campus, cross-disciplinary interactions through multiple centers and institutes including the Environmental Change Initiative, and a unique Interdisciplinary Graduate Training Program in Environment and Society. New faculty will benefit from Notre Dame’s recent campus-wide Strategic Framework that included the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative. Modern research facilities exist in a new environmental research building, which opened in 2025.

Multiple ecology faculty positions at @notredame.bsky.social. Apply at apply.interfolio.com/171650. (1/2). 🌎🌐🧪

The University of Arizona is hiring a tenure-track Assistant/Associate Professor in Physical Geography! Research specialities could include wildfire, climate and water resources, and/or natural hazards, amongst others. Please apply and join us! arizona.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

Assistant Professor position in Traditional Ecological Knowledge at Stanford University. Applications due Sept 30, 2025

facultypositions.stanford.edu/en-us/job/49...

FOUR TT positions in ecosystem ecology at Odum School of Ecology, 2 aquatic 2 terrestrial, over next 2 years! visit www.ugajobsearch.com/postings/439... for more info.

Delighted to share that the Staver lab has moved to Princeton EEB (on July 1 — I’m a little late)!! Excited for new adventures!

Congressional Event: A Science Fair of Canceled Grants The Things We’ll Never Know: A Science Fair of Canceled Grants.

A focus on the futures we will lose if the WH continues to dismantle research across agencies spanning the EPA, DHS, NIH, NSF, USAID, and DoD (via NASA Watch).

When: Tuesday, July 8, 2025, 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. ET
Where: Rayburn Foyer, Rayburn House Office Building

nasawatch.com/congress/con...

I’m also thrilled to announce that I will be starting a faculty position with @centreecomgmt.bsky.social @ U of Guelph this fall!

I will be recruiting students & postdocs for 2026 - please reach out or come find me at #CSEE2025 if you’re interested in theory, global change & fisheries ecology 🐟

On the Trail of the HUD/NSF Switcheroo and the Mystery of the Top Floor Sky Mansion I wanted to update you on the story I flagged yesterday in...

Talking Points Memo is on the HUD-->NSF story. I've subscribed to TPM since 2016, very much worth it. Here's a free article. They are looking for folks on the inside at NSF and HUD to help break open this story of flagrant corruption.

talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/on-th...

How an idealistic tree-planting project turned into Kenya’s toxic, thorny nightmare Introduced from South America, mathenge was intended to halt desertification, but now three-quarters of the country is at risk of invasion by the invasive tree

Nice article about the very real real-world and long-term ills of efforts to combat “desertification” with tree planting

Ethical scientific journals and where to find them....here is DAFNEE, a #database of non-profit journals in #Ecology and #Evolution #EvoBio, to choose an ethical place where to publish your next articles! (1/2)

dafnee.isem-evolution.fr

🧪 #science

JFC to the whole thread but this especially

Awesome new faculty job -- the University of British Columbia is looking for a senior ecosystem scientist to fill a new research chair position.
geog.ubc.ca/job-opportun...

California plan to ban most plants within 5 feet of homes for wildfire safety overlooks some important truths about flammability Hedges and trees may actually reduce home exposure to radiant heat and flying embers, but they must be well maintained. Two scientists who study how plants burn explain.

Lots of great suggestions here on how vegetation around your home can reduce fire hazard, in response to overly prescriptive laws.

California plan to ban most plants within 5 feet of homes for wildfire safety overlooks some important truths about flammability theconversation.com/california-p...

Simons Graduate Fellowships in Ecology and Evolution The purpose of these awards is to provide support for students entering U.S.-based Ph.D. programs with a plan to perform research in ecology and evolution. While we will consider all projects in ecolo...

Simons Graduate Fellowships in Ecology and Evolution www.simonsfoundation.org/grant/simons...
Application Deadline July 31, 2025

the U.S. Capitol building on an overcast day, looking ominous

URGENT! Contact your senators today to advocate to fund science agencies and programs!

The Senate Appropriations Committee & its subcommittees are writing appropriation bills for the federal FY26 budget now.

Here's how you can help: esa.org/esablog/2025...

Graphs showing 25 years of budgets for the National Institute of Health, NASA, and the NSF. In all cases, the proposed budget for next year is far, far below any year of the previous quarter century.

There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.

MPS budget

Presidential budget is out. Here's NSF. Biggest cut, by amount, is $1 billion, or 66.8%, from MPS (Physics & Math directorate). nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00-NSF...

Casey Ryan and I wrote a fun little comment about how carbon finance mechanisms perversely incentivize savanna degradation, arguing that expanding concepts of Loss and Damage might be a better way to think about the effects of woody biomass carbon accumulation in open ecosystems (as in oceans!).

"Imagine the auto industry without 3D printing. NSF funded that. Artificial intelligence? NSF. MRI machines that help doctors diagnose you? NSF. Doppler radar technology that makes aviation safer by conquering wind shear? NSF. Duolingo‘s underlying programming? NSF. The internet itself? NSF."

Exclusive: NSF faces radical shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions Changes seen as a response to presidential directives on what research to fund

Exclusive: National Science Foundation staff were told today that the agency’s 37 divisions—across all eight directorates—are being abolished and the number of programs within those divisions will be drastically reduced.

$500 million is… less than 1.25% of the NIH’s 2024 budget.

When I say there is no capacity to absorb the shock, I mean it.

From promises to practice: Persistent challenges in safeguarding local rights in forest carbon market initiatives | CABI Reviews Abstract In recent years, a strong push has been underway to expand the scope and number of forest carbon market initiatives (FCMIs) to meet climate change mitigation goals set by the United Nations F...

Recent research shows that the Forest Carbon Market doesn't really store any carbon, but at least its sometimes good for people, but this new paper shows that it is *very common* for it be quite bad for local/forest dependent people. www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/10.1079/...

For those with despair about today's extreme proposed funding cuts for NIH, NSF, NASA, NOAA, etc... remember:

CONGRESS 👏 SETS 👏 BUDGET 👏 LEVELS

Today's news is simply just the President's **request**.

Tell your elected representatives to REJECT this assault on science and scientific training.

High-flying ecologist blurred boundaries, broke financial rules, ETH Zürich report finds Thomas Crowther has lost his post at the university but denies any misconduct

Thomas Crowther, whose high-impact ecology research has garnered him prominence and funding, will be leaving ETH Zürich after complaints about the environment in his lab. scim.ag/3RzRbgG

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081