Pablo García‐Díaz

Pablo Garcia-Diaz

@pablo-ecology.bsky.social

3.4K followers 1.8K following 410 posts

Ecologist. Ecological modelling, ecosystem services, invasive alien species, and wildlife trade. Often found running models or marvelling at reptiles

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Environmental science 73%

Geography 18%

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Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · May 23

Interested in modelling multiple ecosystem services and their interactions but don't know where to start? Check out our OA new paper! We combined expert knowledge and network analyses to build conceptual system maps and guide data-gathering efforts. 🌎🧪🌐 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Graphical abstract of the paper 'Conceptual system maps to guide research and management of multiple ecosystem services and disservices' showing a map of the Lules river watershed (Tucuman Argentina); two photos of experts working in groups; an arrow indicating that the knowledge derived from experts was encoded into a network; and a network showing the relationships between ecosystem services and disservices and their environmental, social, and economic drivers

Reposted by Julie L. Lockwood

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 1d

A digital twin for real-time biodiversity forecasting with citizen science data 🌎🌐🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A digital twin for real-time biodiversity forecasting with citizen science data - Nature Ecology & Evolution

Citizen science data are increasingly used in biodiversity monitoring. This study applies a digital twin approach to biodiversity monitoring using a large citizen science dataset on birds from Finland...

www.nature.com

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 2d

Stakeholder mapping to support invasive non-native species management in South America @neobiota.pensoft.net www.sciencedirect.com/org/science/...htt

Stakeholder mapping to support invasive non-native species management in South America

Effective long-term management of invasive non-native species (INNS) in South America is a pressing yet complex task. Critically, the environmental, h…

www.sciencedirect.com

Reposted by Julie L. Lockwood

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 2d

If interested, check our own related papers: Identifying Priorities, Targets, and Actions for the Long-term Social and Ecological Management of Invasive Non-Native Species link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Identifying Priorities, Targets, and Actions for the Long-term Social and Ecological Management of Invasive Non-Native Species - Environmental Management

Formulating effective management plans for addressing the impacts of invasive non-native species (INNS) requires the definition of clear priorities and tangible targets, and the recognition of the plu...

link.springer.com

Reposted by Julie L. Lockwood

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 2d

Realizing and assessing social successes in invasive species management 🌎🌐🧪 conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Realizing and assessing social successes in invasive species management

Each year untold numbers of land managers and volunteers work individually and collectively to manage invasive plant, animal, and insect species. Whether such efforts are deemed successful depends on...

conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Reposted by Pablo García‐Díaz

Erle Ellis @erleellis.bsky.social · 3d

Scientific Warnings Don't Work:
Climate Messaging Needs a Rethink @aibsbiology.bsky.social academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...

A Psychological and Linguistic Analysis of “The 2024 State of the Climate Report: Perilous Times on Planet Earth”

Abstract. A traditional goal of science and environmental communication, including climate communication, has been to encourage disinterested or uninformed

academic.oup.com

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 4d

Interesting - can you elaborate on what those implications are?

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 4d

The making of novel ecosystems: A process-based framework for measurement, analysis and application 🌎🌐🧪 besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social

The making of novel ecosystems: A process‐based framework for measurement, analysis and application

Ecological novelty is emerging rapidly due to global change drivers such as climate shifts, species introductions, defaunation, and land-use transformation. These changes challenge how we assess, ...

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 5d

Picaflor enano / Slender-tailed woodstar (Microstilbon burmeisteri) in the mountains of NW Argentina #birds #birdingArgentina #Argentina #birdsArgentina

Reposted by Anthony Ricciardi

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 8d

Alien range size, habitat breadth, origin location, and domestication of alien species matter to their impact risks 🌎🌐🧪 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Alien range size, habitat breadth, origin location, and domestication of alien species matter to their impact risks

We collected information on 1071 established alien terrestrial vertebrate species (mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians) and created a comprehensive database of 108 alien species to assess their ...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Reposted by Dennis Rödder

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 11d

Cold-blooded commerce: Characterizing and predicting trade in Australian squamates. Sad to read that John Measey has passed away - John was a leading invasion biologist 🌐🌎🧪 #bioinvasions conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Cold‐blooded commerce: Characterizing and predicting trade in Australian squamates

Despite a national ban on native wildlife exports, Australian reptile species continue to appear in international trade. Using boosted regression trees, we found that large body sizes and taxonomic f...

conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Reposted by Julie L. Lockwood

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 11d

Good to see an evaluation of horizon scans. The authors are quite positive about horizon scans, but the success rate was around 22%? I understand it’s difficult to define the candidate pool for these exercises, so I guess it depends a lot on the purpose and how it is used #bioninvasions 🌎🧪

Journal of Applied Ecology @jappliedecology.bsky.social · 11d

📖Published!

Assessing the success of a horizon scanning approach in predicting invasive non-native species arrival🐀

This paper highlights the importance of citizen science, including biological recording, and of local expertise for detecting and documenting arrival of INNS👇️

buff.ly/2Uhrl97

Reposted by Pablo García‐Díaz

Journal of Applied Ecology @jappliedecology.bsky.social · 11d

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 21d

Tracking the hidden trade of non-native pet amphibians in the United States 🧪 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Tracking the hidden trade of non-native pet amphibians in the United States

The global wildlife trade is contributing to biodiversity loss, with amphibians especially vulnerable and overlooked in trade regulations. The trade i…

www.sciencedirect.com

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 22d

Indeed. We should write a paper ;)

Reposted by Pablo García‐Díaz

Bruce Webber @drbrucewebber.bsky.social · 22d

Introduced foxes and cats have had a devastating impact on Australia's mammals. This threat to biodiversity has been widely recognised, documented and acted upon by scientists, policy makers and land managers. Here we refute recent assertions to the contrary.

Read more (OA): doi.org/10.1093/bios...

Timing of extirpation of a native mammal population from a location relative to the time of arrival of feral cats at that location. Data are taken directly from Supplement 1 in Wallach and Lundgren (2025), using the last record of the native species, and the earliest arrival date from the range of arrival dates of cats to that location. Based on this information, extirpation of a native mammal occurs before cats arrive in only two cases, and these are where Wallach and Lundgren (2025) arbitrarily give the last record dates of 1788 and 1789 (i.e., time of European colonization, in 1788) for undated subfossil material. Of the 178 cases given in the Supplement, eight are omitted from this graph because: they were repeats of another row (n=4), there is no date for the last record of the species (n=1), the species is still present at the location (n=2), or the species never occurred at the location (n=1).

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 22d

Yeah, there are many trade offs and decisions to navigate depending on your goal. The comment referred to intentionally choosing a biased model just because it is simpler.

I also acknowledge that there are several "modelling camps" with different perspectives.

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 22d

It made me think about choices and assumptions, and the fact that my undergrad training emphasised that uncertainty is bad. The bias-variance tradeoff is quite important and often neglected

Reposted by Benjamin Larue

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 22d

Reading this paper on causal inference and attribution (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... 🌎🌐), I came across this discussion. I used to favour simple models, even if I thought they could be biased, until my PhD cosupervisor (a math person) asked me "why would you choose a biased model?"

A screenshoot with the highlighted text reading "Researchers might gravitate toward simple models because they are often easier to interpret, reduce concerns of overfitting, and can lead to greater statistical power (e.g., by trimming explanatory variables) (Aho et al. 2014). Favouring simplicity, however, is not always beneficial for causal inference (Coelho et al. 2019). An imprecise but unbiased estimate (i.e., the expected value of the estimate is equal to the true value of the relationship being estimated (Dee et al. 2023; Simler-Williamson and Germino 2022)) is often preferred to a precise yet potentially biased estimate from a simple model."

Reposted by Nicolas Gross

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 28d

Meta-analysis reveals negative but highly variable impacts of invasive alien species across terrestrial insect orders 🌎🌐🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Meta-analysis reveals negative but highly variable impacts of invasive alien species across terrestrial insect orders - Nature Communications

Insects are crucial for ecosystem functioning but face multiple threats, including invasive alien species. Here the authors quantify impacts of invasive alien species on four insect orders, with effec...

www.nature.com

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 28d

I know that vegetation has been altered significantly. I am wondering what you mean by 'dysfunction'- I have never heard it before. Is it that the communities are impoverished relative to some baseline? Missing some important functional traits? Reduced ability to perform key ecosystem functions?

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 28d

Thanks. Managing for game species seems to be prevalent in many areas of Scotland. Maybe it is useful to showcase and pilot alternative approaches to land and ecosystem management to better elicit societal preferences?

Reposted by Brian J. Enquist

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 29d

Can hierarchical modelling of co-occurrence data provide accurate inference into species interactions? 🌎🌐🧪 besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 29d

Don't do guerrilla rewilding or don't do rewilding altogether? Plenty of benefits from rewilding, and I have the impression that conservation policies could be updated/adapted to this new reality. Not sure how, though. From your bio, it seems that you are/were a policymaker, what do you think?

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · 29d

It depends on how you define 'benefit' - it seems clear that some single species reintroductions result in substantial changes to ecosystems (eg, beavers). Not sure what 'dysfunctional vegetation structures' means, though. Surely combining reintroductions and active restoration can help with that.

Reposted by Pablo García‐Díaz, Pieter Vantieghem

Stelios Katsanevakis @skatsanevakis.bsky.social · Jan 13

#AI is transforming #ecology — but at what cost? A new #Nature piece warns that as models, drones & remote sensing boom, many scientists are spending less time outdoors (“I rarely get outside”). Are we losing essential natural-history insight? 🌿🤖
🧪🌍🌐
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · Jan 13

I have submitted two editorial recommendations and three reviews since Saturday. I think I have done enough for 2026 - time for a beer 🌐🧪

Pablo Garcia-Diaz @pablo-ecology.bsky.social · Jan 13

Can we learn from the UK’s guerrilla rewilding movement? 🌎🌐🧪 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Can we learn from the UK’s guerrilla rewilding movement? | Oryx | Cambridge Core

Can we learn from the UK’s guerrilla rewilding movement?

www.cambridge.org

Reposted by Pablo García‐Díaz, Joan Dudney

Dylan Craven @dylancraven.bsky.social · Jan 12

wonderful collab lead by @zurelllab.bsky.social on the context dependency of climatic niche conservatism of non-native plants: www.nature.com/articles/s41... #UniversidadMayor #DataObservatory

Reposted by Pablo García‐Díaz

James Bullock @jmbecologist.bsky.social · Jan 12

An early view of our accessible introduction to the state of the art for Causal Machine Learning methods to understand & predict land use change

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

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