Hi all, I have been in Davos a few times; two of my collaborators work and live there. Quite place. Stunning as well. And it is home to a world-leading institute for snow research. At the end of January, Davos hosts the World Economic Forum. At this year’s forum, the effects of extreme climate event and the loss of biodiversity have been identified as areas … Continue reading Tasters: 30/01/2018

Dear all, I’d like to first take the opportunity to wish you all a very happy, healthy and successful 2018. I hope that in the year that lies ahead, this blog will contribute to your work and may inspire you to submit your best work to Functional Ecology. Let me also take the opportunity to thank all contributors to our columns Insights, Hindsight, and Community+Ecology. … Continue reading Tasters: 09/01/2018

Recently accepted in Functional Ecology, a very interesting paper describing environmental conditions as an important determinant for the phenology of bird plumage. Nature Ecology & Evolution last week published a paper that shows that the effects of biodiversity on ecosystem multifunctionality increase with increasing number of functions. These findings are in stark contrast with a paper published just over 5 months earlier, which makes the … Continue reading Tuesday Tasters: 28/11/2017

Already sideways highlighted by Jennifer last week, Nature Ecology and Evolution have published a list of the 100 articles every ecologist should read. Many critical notes have followed (have a look for yourself); for example on how the list has been compiled, the average age of the listed paper (c. 38 years old), its gender bias, etc. I am excited to read these critiques and … Continue reading Tuesday Tasters: 21/11/2017

Bjorn’s away, so this week’s Tuesday Tasters are from me. Researchers used digital animation to examine how the effectiveness of a lizard’s territorial display varies across ecological environments and conditions (with video abstract!) For anyone interested in public engagement, Sense about Science have published a new (and free) guide- grab Public Engagement: a practical guide here.   (Case study is from medicine, but the principles are … Continue reading Tuesday Tasters: 14/11/17

I am preparing for fieldwork in Sweden, starting from tomorrow. While it will be really cold this time of the year, I just read that after a very hot 2016, also this year is going to enter the top 3 of warmest years ever recorded. The retreating sea ice (a result of climate warming) is threatening not only many natural processes (see the blogs of … Continue reading Tuesday taster: 07/11/2017

Published today in Functional Ecology: a study by Griffiths et al. on the links between traits, demography and species abundance in a predator-prey-resource background a study by Lea et al. describing the use of non-invasive physiological markers to identify the population dynamics in Zebra. And again…consider travelling to ‘Ecology without Borders’ by train. Ecologists need to set the example; one conference paper at the moment … Continue reading Tuesday taster: 31/10/2017

These days, I am tutoring a few first year Biology students. In search of how to do that in the best and most effective way, I found some helpful information here, and here. Most of us at some point learned about the effect of earthworms in soils and ecological processes. A recently accepted paper in Functional Ecology shows that this effect is largest in ecosystems … Continue reading Tuesday taster: 17/10/2017

This week in Functional Ecology, a very interesting paper on how feeding behaviour and diet have been instrumental in shaping waterfowl beak shape . The author, Aaron Olsen, also put together a tutorial on how to create a “backtransform morphospace” in R. Two independent studies, published in Nature, show that mobility in research increases impact. If you want to move to a new lab; what … Continue reading Tuesday taster: 10/10/2017