Francesco Polazzo

@fancescopolazzo.bsky.social

130 followers 220 following 9 posts

PostDoc at the University of Zurich.
Passionate about ecological stability, environmental change, community ecology, food web, but also climbing, mountaineering, ski touring, (gravel)biking.

Videos

Environmental science 80%

Geography 20%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by Pavel Kratina, Francesco Polazzo

Frank Pennekamp @pennekampster.bsky.social · Oct 6

Does body size predict abundance the same way in all environments, as predicted by the Metabolic theory of Ecology? Our new study challenges this assumption. Read it here: 📄 doi.org/10.1111/ele....

Biodiversity modulates the cross‐community scaling relationship in changing environments

Organismal abundance typically declines with increasing body size, with metabolic theory predicting a universal size–abundance slope of –0.75. Using protist microcosms across gradients of species ric...

doi.org

Francesco Polazzo @fancescopolazzo.bsky.social · Oct 2

This work reframes how we think about the diversity–stability relationship and highlights the power of response diversity as a stabilizing force.
With: Til Hämmig, @owpet.bsky.social & @pennekampster.bsky.social

Francesco Polazzo @fancescopolazzo.bsky.social · Oct 2

Structural equation models showed that asynchrony and population stability—both shaped by imbalance—explained most of the variation in community stability.
This suggests that in our system species’ fundamental responses (measured in monocultures) determine stability, not interactions.

Francesco Polazzo @fancescopolazzo.bsky.social · Oct 2

Key finding:
A new metric—imbalance—captures how unevenly species respond to the environment.
→ Lower imbalance = higher community stability
→ Richness alone had no effect!

Francesco Polazzo @fancescopolazzo.bsky.social · Oct 2

We show that it’s not richness, but how differently species respond to the environment.
🔬 Using protist microcosms, we manipulated:

🌡️ Temperature fluctuations
🧪 Nutrient levels
🌱 Species richness
📈 Distribution of species’ thermal performance curves

Reposted by Benjamin Wildermuth

Francesco Polazzo @fancescopolazzo.bsky.social · Oct 2

New paper out in Ecology Letters!
“The Imbalance of Nature: The Role of Species Environmental Responses for Community Stability”
📖 Read it here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

We tried to answer the question: What drives community stability in fluctuating environments?

The Imbalance of Nature: The Role of Species Environmental Responses for Community Stability

This study shows that the distribution of species' fundamental responses to environmental change, quantified by a new metric, imbalance, is a key driver of ecological stability. In a large microcosm ...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Reposted by Francesco Polazzo

Owen Petchey @owpet.bsky.social · Jul 8

AI in research, tips and tricks from the retreat of my and Frank Pennekamp's research groups. Nothing too revolutionary, but we found it useful to share. Happy to hear any of your tips and tricks!
@pennekampster.bsky.social @fancescopolazzo.bsky.social

thetrophiclink.org/posts/2025-0...

AI tips and tricks | TheTrophicLink

At our recent group retreat we shared AI tips and tricks: Don’t forget all the cool stuff in Google NotebookLM, including making podcasts to listen to on the train, in the gym, or while doing the lau...

thetrophiclink.org

Reposted by Francesco Polazzo

Frank Pennekamp @pennekampster.bsky.social · May 14

Are you interested in predator-prey interactions and movement ecology?

I am looking for a PhD student to work on the project "A mechanistic theory of functional responses: zooming into movement behaviour to understand and predict predator-prey interactions"
euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/342402.

PhD student in Ecology (up to 4 years)

The position is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation project “A mechanistic theory of functional responses: zooming into movement behaviour to understand and predict predator prey interacti...

euraxess.ec.europa.eu

Reposted by Francesco Polazzo

Owen Petchey @owpet.bsky.social · Apr 15

swissuniversities and Wiley are in a no-deal situation. Suggestions include to consider alternatives to Wiley, and to reconsider review activities for Wiley. Very sad---some great ecology and evolution journals are with Wiley. www.swissuniversities.ch/en/topics/op...

Wiley - swissuniversities

www.swissuniversities.ch

Reposted by Francesco Polazzo

Mike Fowler @theorecol.bsky.social · Feb 24

Happy to announce that JF Arnoldi (Theoretical and Experimental Ecology Station, CNRS, France) will present the next #ResponseDiversityNetwork Seminar, Wednesday 26th Feb 15.00 CET.
"Linear functional ecology: Rethinking species contributions to ecosystem functions"
Zoom link via rb.gy/3pf8dh

Details of the Response Diversity Network seminar, given by JF Arnoldi, including a Zoom link and Abstract:

Ecosystem functions describe processes like biomass production, respiration, or nutrient cycling, that can be key to the livelihood of humans and other life forms. These functions are collectively performed by the many species that constitute an ecosystem; trees in a forest, plants in a grassland, or bacterial strains in a microbiome. Here, I will use linear algebra to show that generically, there is a sense in which a rare species can have as much importance as an abundant one. The reason why this claim is not obvious comes from the fact that in functional ecology, under the mass-ratio hypothesis, species contributions should be well predicted by their effect traits and abundance. I will illustrate using soil-microbiome data that this hypothesis has merit, even for complex functions related to nutrient cycling. Yet the mass-ratio hypothesis has an awkward corollary: functions are typically performed by just a few dominant species, so that most of an ecosystem's diversity appears redundant, or even useless. To understand why rare species can be important, one has to take a perturbative approach, looking at the sensitivity of a function to say, added mortality (a pathogen) on a given species. Doing so reveals a completely different picture than the one the mass-ratio hypothesis depicts. Via direct and indirect interactions between them, species can have large impacts on a given function, even if those species are rare or if they do not possess traits that relate to the function.

Reposted by Francesco Polazzo

Rachel Stubbington @rstubbington.bsky.social · Jan 4

All are invited to sign this petition in support of saving the free-flowing Tagliamento—the King of Alpine rivers—from fragmentation by two proposed barriers
www.freetagliamento.org/it_IT/home-e...

ENG

ITA ENG SIGN THE PETITION! FIND OUT MORE 815 scholars and experts from 35 countries have signed an appeal to ask the competent bodies to guarantee in every way the protection of this river and in…

www.freetagliamento.org

Reposted by Anne Ebeling, Pol Capdevila, Francesco Polazzo

Charlotte Kunze @ckunze.bsky.social · Nov 25

Read our new paper in EcologicalMonographs esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
We introduce a framework on how to partition species contributions to ecological stability in disturbed communities based on species absolute change in biomass and relative change in proportion.

Francesco Polazzo @fancescopolazzo.bsky.social · Nov 21

Very exciting and fun collaboration with @pennekampster.bsky.social, @gsimpson.bsky.social, Romana Limberger, Sam Ross, and Owen Petchey

Francesco Polazzo @fancescopolazzo.bsky.social · Nov 21

We then used simulated species responses to investigate what determines response diversity in a multifarious environmental change context.

Francesco Polazzo @fancescopolazzo.bsky.social · Nov 21

We propose a new way of calculating response diversity that is unrelated to the environmental change a community experiences, and that describes the insurance capacity of a community to all possible environmental changes.

Francesco Polazzo @fancescopolazzo.bsky.social · Nov 21

Starting here in the best way: presenting a new paper.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Have a look at our new proposed way of calculating response diversity when multiple environmental drivers change simultaneously.

Measuring the Response Diversity of Ecological Communities Experiencing Multifarious Environmental Change

This study explores how response diversity—variability in species' responses to environmental changes—relates ecological stability under complex, multifactorial environmental shifts. The authors intr...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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