This week, PCI is attending the Researcher to Reader Conference 2026 (r2rconf.com) in London. Thomas Guillemaud joined a panel on independent peer review models, featuring Katherine Brown from The Company of Biologists, Peter Rodgers from eLife, and moderated by Jonny Coates of Rippling Ideas.
A must read for field ecologists!
New paper out examining fish food web degradation in the Anthropocene. We show the structure of aquatic food webs are changing-- even when species richness doesn’t. These signals are strongly associated with decreases in body size within fish communities. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🌐🐠🐡🦈🐟
Fig. 1. The relationship between mean shoot length per grass species to species richness of the endophytic insects found in these shoots. A The number of herbivore species, B the sum of herbivore and parasitoid species. The five points indicating no species at all indicate that no one insect species has been reared from the five annual grass species studied, despite intensive shoot sampling (see Table 1). The inquilines of P. australis are included (see Table 2, see also Fig. S2A and S2B for regressions without inquilines). Regression lines were fitted to the species richness found in the ten perennial grass species.
Fig. 2. Images illustrating the insect community of the shoot-inhabiting gall midge Giraudiella inclusa on Common Reed Phragmites australis. A Phragmites australis reedbelt with the ricegrain-like galls of Giraudiella inclusa inside internodes. B The gall midge Giraudiella inclusa: Oviposition, C Early Giraudiella gall development, D late Giraudiella gall development, E the Giraudiella parasitoid Torymus arundinis ovipositing, F the gregarious Giraudiella parasitoid Aprostocetus calamarius, G T. arundinis eggs on a dead 2nd instar host larva, H the conspicuously hairy, solitary T. arundinis larva, I midge skin filled with pupae of the gregarious Platygaster szelenii, J the solitary parasitoid Platygaster cf. quadrifarius (Tscharntke et al. 1991).
🌾🐛 New #BAAE article: Hidden insect food webs thrive inside perennial grass shoots 🌿
Longer shoots host richer herbivore–parasitoid communities. Unmown refuges are key to protecting these overlooked specialists. 🕷️
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.baae.2026.01.004
@gfoesoc.bsky.social
Graphical abstract Lammers (2026)
New publication: #Lipids as currency in #parasitoid competition: #Interactions between two #lipidscavenging species.
doi.org/10.1016/j.ji...
A short guide for effective field data collection by Jones et al. @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
How specific are heritable symbioses?
And what can we learn from swapping obligate symbionts across host species?
We address this in our latest, led by @inespons.bsky.social & in our collaboration w/ @microbiome.bsky.social 🦠🪲 Out today in @natcomms.nature.com!
1/n
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Sequential herbivory and the results of Delamore et al. (2025, doi: 10.1111/nph.70822). The figure is a graphical representation of the concept of sequential herbivory, that is, the temporally distinct arrival of multiple herbivores on the same plant, with a summary of the overall findings of the meta-analysis by Delamore et al. on how the generalizable effects of sequential herbivory impact herbivore and plant responses.
Eaten alive: how plants cope with sequential herbivory
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
#Commentary by Heinen highlighting the recent work by Delamore et al.
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
@robinheinennl.bsky.social
Very nice commentary by @robinheinennl.bsky.social on our recent meta-analysis in @newphyt.bsky.social on plant responses to sequential herbivory. Thank you, Robin!
New paper with @mhab.bsky.social @jdyeakel.bsky.social and @thilogross.bsky.social out now in @pnas.org! We show when and why you can know something about an entire network, just by knowing the behavior of it's building blocks: doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
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...
Can plant pathogens boost vector fitness?
Together with @hassansalem.bsky.social, we review how phytopathogens can spread further by moonlighting as insect symbionts 🪲 More on this nifty lifestyle in @annualreviews.bsky.social!
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
I've been working on this for >20 years. It was about time to write it and stop playing dice against time (far too old for that)
"On commonness and rarity of insect pollinators: patterns of species abundance and diversity in a hyperdiverse Mediterranean assemblage"
www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
This is figure 1, which shows the locations and types of 45 forest biodiversity experiments covering 72 sites globally.
Forest biodiversity experiments test how species diversity affects forest ecosystem functioning. A Review in Nature Reviews Biodiversity discusses key findings from these experiments and puts them into context with observational studies from forests. go.nature.com/4sEQkfZ 🔒
Soil biodiversity is a key driver of ecosystem function, including nutrient cycling, organic-matter decomposition, plant productivity, climate regulation and pathogen control (with subsequent effects on animal, human and plant health). A foundational review in 2014 described the functional role of soil biodiversity in ecosystems, but our understanding of the relationship between soil biodiversity and ecosystem functioning has deepened over the past decade. In this Review, we highlight progress in the field, discuss the approaches and methodological advances that have enabled this progress, and identify emerging research questions. Although the spatiotemporal patterns and community dynamics of soil communities are becoming well understood, topics with important knowledge gaps include the climate feedback effects of soils, the ecology of urban soils and the development of soil health indicators. Global collaborative networks, linking existing databases, and monitoring soil biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are important ways to address these knowledge gaps. By considering the relationships between soil biodiversity and ecosystem functioning we can connect small-scale interactions among plants, microorganisms and animals to ecosystem services and planetary sustainability.
New paper with many smart people, led by Nico Eisenhauer & Marie Sünemann @eisenhauerlab.bsky.social, surveying the state of literature on the effects of soil biodiversity on ecosystem functioning
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
How are host organs remodeled for symbiosis?
And do some insects converge in how they sustain life within/on these structures?
Loved unpacking these Qs w/ @francespi.bsky.social in light of the stunning Nishino & @fkttkm.bsky.social study!
www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...
📢Don’t miss it! You have until 31 january to submit your abstract and register at the early bird rate!
Join us at the XIII European Congress of Entomology (29 June – 3 July 2026, Tours, France)! 🪲🦋🐜🪰
All details and submission: ➡️https://www.ece2026.org/
@irbi-tours.bsky.social
Academia friendly peer-reviewed journals in EEB: academic.oup.com/jeb/advance-...
A Database of Academia-Friendly JourNals in Ecology and Evolution (DAFNEE), dafnee.isem-evolution.fr
Paper: doi.org/10.1093/jeb/... | @jevbio.bsky.social
🧪🌍 📚 👀 #ecoevo #PlantScience #AcademicSky
New online! Ecological insights from three decades of forest biodiversity experiments
🚨BREAKING: GRETA THUNBERG ARRESTED UNDER TERRORISM ACT FOR SUPPORTING 'PALESTINE ACTION PRISONERS'
The next XVII International Congress of #Acarology - #ICA2026 - will be held from July 20th to 24th, 2026 in #Montpellier, France.
All the Acarologists from our lab. will be there !
meeting website: www.alphavisa.com/ica/2026/ind...
Poster deadline for the Keystone Microbiome Meeting in Banff is December 30th www.keystonesymposia.org/conferences/...
Will be a great meeting focused on human microbiomes, spanning basic, mechanistic, and applied. Organized by myself, @amibhatt.bsky.social , and Harry Sokol. Join us!
Behavioural ecology in the 21st century..... www.nature.com/articles/s41... @asgriffin.bsky.social
We set out to investigate polygenic footprints of altitude adaptation in a moth species, but instead we uncovered a major selective sweep at genes often associated with insecticide resistance @prrnhd.bsky.social @schifanoalexandre.bsky.social @mgda76.bsky.social @cbgpmontpellier.bsky.social
New study out in Ecology Letters 🌱🐑!
Using long-term Åland monitoring data, we found that herbivory increases plant diversity across scales and flips the diversity–area relationship: a positive relationship is found in grazed sites while a negative one in ungrazed sites.
🔗 doi.org/10.1111/ele....
3-year #PhD student #position open in my group @uniofjyvaskyla.bsky.social Finland on #gut #microbe- host communication in #birds. DL 20.12, start date in April2026. #microbiome #metabolomics #vesicles, please RT
ats.talentadore.com/apply/doctor...
There’ll be several opportunities to join the group, starting w/ a PhD studentship via the BBSRC-NRP Doctoral Training Partnership.
Team up w/ us, @saskiahogenhout.bsky.social & @berasymbionts.bsky.social to answer how microbes shape insect behavior:
biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/projects/mic...
Restoration ultimately aims to recover complex ecological systems with many interdependent species at large scale
To understand the driving processes, we combined experiments & modelling
Finding a trade-off between species recovery and food-web complexity
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
