Register by Mar 21 to be considered for partial fee waiver!
And if you're a grad student, postdoc, or PI supporting them, don't forget the Gordon Research Seminar on the theme of "Space Versus Time: A Dialogue of Eco-Evolutionary Scales in Changing Environments" : www.grc.org/unifying-eco...
Thanks for the shout out and congrats to my colleagues! Torella & Morita first recognized the abundance of viruses in seawater journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/..., and work led by @jedfuhrman.bsky.social and Gunnar Bratbak at Bergen primed the modern era.
New paper alert!
Across 256 semi‑natural grassland communities we found that genomic traits, especially ploidy, predict which plant species are most affected by fragmentation & high P levels
Polyploids are less vulnerable than diploids
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
It's always surprising to me that people read the NYT uncritically
🌎To explore forest responses to warming beyond our usual regions, our next seminar (11 March) with @swissforestlab.bsky.social heads to the tropics.
@kjfeeley.bsky.social will discuss “The Responses of Tropical Trees and Tropical Forests to Global Warming”.
biodiversitycenter.wsl.ch/en/events/de...
🗓️Next Tuesday our seminar speaker is Jonathan Levine (Princeton) speaking on:
⭐Rapid evolution and species coexistence: from theory to empirical evidence in an orchard fly system⭐
Times: www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/f... (NB Europe time shift⏰🌍)
Open Zoom link: iite.info/seminar/
See you there!
New: The number of days where extreme heat makes it too dangerously hot to walk the dog, sweep the porch and engage in other ordinary pursuits has doubled since 1950. Older people experience a month a year when heat prevents them from routine activities. Free link.
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Are you a young academic working on climate and feel ready for a move? We are recruiting two Assistant/Associate Professors @granthamicl.bsky.social at Imperial College London @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social (1/6)
Ryan (and me) are hiring a PhD student! Sweden is a great country to do a PhD, see the link or ask us for more details, or share with potential students!
Picture of DOGE guy Nate Cavanaugh
Screenshot of my DOGE letter “Dr. Joseph Rezek Dear NEH Grantee, This letter provides notice that the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is terminating your federal grant (Grant Application No. FEL29509824) effective April 3, 2025, in accordance with the termination clause in your Grant Agreement. Your grant no longer effectuates the agency's needs and priorities and conditions of the Grant Agreement and is subject to termination due to several reasonable causes, as outlined in 2CFR§200.340. For instance, NEH has reasonable cause to terminate your grant in light of the fact that the NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President's agenda. The President's February 19, 2025 executive order mandates that the NEH eliminate all non-statutorily required activities and functions. See Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy, E.O. 14217 (Feb. 19, 2025). Your grant's immediate termination is necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government, including its fiscal priorities. Any objections or appeals to this termination will be managed in strict accordance with the President's Executive Orders,
Last year, this guy (left) from DOGE used ChatGPT to find NEH grants that were too “DEI” for Trump, and canceled them, including mine, as shown by the letter I received last April (right). Huge new NYT article on the back story link below
Me a year ago: "Musk may be a happy hatchet man thinking he is reshaping the government. But for Trump he is a useful tool to help allow Trump to restaff it."
WaPo today: "A year after Elon Musk and his DOGE allies purged 100k's of federal employees, the Trump administration is ramping up hiring."
New article in Cornell Daily Sun on reactions by me and other faculty to Zeldin/Trump retrenchment on the endangerment finding last month.
www.cornellsun.com/article/2026...
Close-up of a scallop with its shell partially open, revealing bright orange inside. The scallop's shell is ridged with a line of tiny, vivid blue eyes along the edge. It rests on a sandy seabed.
Did you know that bay scallops have up to 200 eyes? 🤯
Made of guanine crystals, these small, mirror-like eyes behave like reflecting telescopes or concave mirrors—allowing scallops to see clearly close up and far away at the same time!
🌿 Postdoc opportunity in plant evolutionary ecology/genetics!
My lab in the Dept. of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan is recruiting a postdoctoral researcher to start Fall 2026.
We study plant adaptation, using weeds as model systems.
#Postdoc #EcoEvo
Pls RT!
#MicroSky Please RT
@erc.europa.eu-funded postdoc position in my lab to identify the molecular basis of prey-predator interactions using our favorite micro-vampire Bdellovibrio exovorus as a model.
Let's find what the bite is made of! 🧛
Flexible start date.
Info: euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/415877
In a scathing review, the top US medical journal's editorial board warned that the "destruction that Kennedy has wrought in 1 in office might take generations to repair."
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT
Extreme, Cold‐Season Climatic Events Can Decimate Wildlife and Imperil Population Persistence
🔗
One year in, assessing budget cuts to federal climate and science jobs.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/c...
I’m so excited for this! Who’s going?
My talk will be about time, as ecology’s final frontier: dynamics, timescales, resolution and extent, historical contingencies, and the denominator of all ecological processes.
If we survive this, I really hope parents take a long look at how they are teaching empathy to their children. It's so obvious that that is the missing ingredient in huge chunks of the population, amplified by social media algorithms and cultural rewards for reactions rather than thoughtfulness.
Graph of award probability of R35 and R01 from NIH factbook as a function of review rank percentile. As is apparent, 2025 is a significant departure, with lower award probabilities at all scores <40 and significant departures from norm, where even being in the top 10% is no longer a nearly certain indicator of success. Data source: https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/report/302
The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted.
What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards.
Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.
Our phylogenetic classification of >400 diatom genera is now published in Journal of Phycology.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
So proud to be a part of this, and thanks @katharinehayhoe.com for the shout out on the Bright Spots chapter, which is what I have worked on! #EarthOptimism www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/c...
Each Friday night, I write a briefing on what happened in US science & higher ed. 🧪
Mar 6 (Year 2, Week 10)
- NIH revoking certification of early career workers union
- FDA 'chaos' & Prasad out (again)
- even more delay & interference in NIH funding
& so much more
buttondown.com/liminalcreat...
The American Society of Naturalists @asn-amnat.bsky.social
will be holding our next meeting in Glen Cove, New York on 8-12 January 2027!
Have an idea for a special symposium? We want to hear it!
#ecology #evolution #behavior 🧪 #popgen 🧬
Applications due Apr 30: docs.google.com/document/d/1...
The program looks awesome! So excited to attend!
Love rivers?! Looking for an exciting PhD opportunity to better understand how to restore rivers at a landscape scale with multiple stakeholders?!
Details below!
@stir.ac.uk
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
INVITED COMMENTARY
Altering a Balance of Nature: Effects of Excess Nitrogen on Nutrient Dynamics in Microbes, Soil, and Vegetation
🔗
Meanwhile in Canada... 🇨🇦🍁🥌🤝
Our new review is finally out! 🌿 I’m especially excited because this is the first chapter of my PhD!
Have a read to see what shapes the range limits of alpine plants besides freezing temperatures ❄️
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
