Graeme Cumming
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gscumming.bsky.social
Graeme Cumming
@gscumming.bsky.social

Ecologist of the frontiers... Prof at University of Western Australia & posting on ecology, conservation, academic life.

Environmental science 60%
Geography 15%

The Stirling Ranges are home to many fantastic and unusual plants and animals…

Top of Bluff Knoll today (highest point in Western Australia!)
COP30 TEXT ANALYSIS: One way to read dense COP text is to focus on the verbs. These are helpfully italicised – and for good reason.

MOSTLY INACTIVE: Carbon Brief analysis of the “global mutirão” text finds 69 inactive verbs, requiring no action, against 32 active verbs.
1/4
new publication:
Ecosystem accounting through first nations’ lenses: Integrating the SEEA-EA and Indigenous knowledge systems

open access link: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Ecosystem accounting through first nations’ lenses: Integrating the SEEA-EA and Indigenous knowledge systems - Ambio
The UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting-Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA-EA) provides a framework for integrating information about the environment and the economy, organising information about e...
link.springer.com
There are no remote regions in a globalized world. The Antarctic region (ice-free peninsula, coastal waters, & surrounding islands) has been invaded by ~200 species of plants, animals, & microbes. Antarctica is connected to the world by global ship traffic. #bioinvasions
www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....
🐦🌊When species are lost but functions persist: a trait-based perspective on Wadden Sea bird diversity dynamics

vist.ly/4d2fu

#BiodiversityLags #ColonisationExtinctionImbalance #DiffusionMaps #ExtinctionDebt #LongtermMonitoring #WaddenSea

Reposted by Tuomas Mattila

Note from an irritated editor: AI is starting to infiltrate peer review, or at least it looks a lot like it. If you’re planning to use an LLM to review someone else’s work for a journal, rather just don’t accept the review invitation. It’s easy.
a penguin holding a brain with the words hey you dropped this
ALT: a penguin holding a brain with the words hey you dropped this
media.tenor.com
New publication:
The gendered costs of human–wildlife conflict: A global systematic review

Open access link: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
The gendered costs of human–wildlife conflict: A global systematic review - Ambio
Human–wildlife conflict is a pressing worldwide issue with consequences that are experienced differently across groups of people. Societal expectations and gender norms ensure that the consequences of...
link.springer.com

Adventurous dragonflies!
🌐Geographic isolation doesn’t limit #dragonflies and damselflies in the #Alps. Local #habitat, not distance, shapes communities, suggesting odonates disperse freely across mountain landscapes. ⛰️

🔗 doi.org/10.1111/ddi....
🌐Geographic isolation doesn’t limit #dragonflies and damselflies in the #Alps. Local #habitat, not distance, shapes communities, suggesting odonates disperse freely across mountain landscapes. ⛰️

🔗 doi.org/10.1111/ddi....
Granger et al. Multispecies sensory networks and social foraging strategies: Implications for population decline in procellariiform seabirds www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... #ornithology #seabirds
Multispecies sensory networks and social foraging strategies: Implications for population decline in procellariiform seabirds | PNAS
Multispecies sensory networks, where different species prioritize different sensory modalities and then use heterospecific information in a likely ...
www.pnas.org

Reposted by Graeme S. Cumming

GUYS! IT'S FINALLY HERE! My first dissertation chapter has been published in Climatic Change!!! We read 194 papers on environmental justice on the coast and our findings are free for the public 🌊🌎🧪

link.springer.com/article/10.1...
No coastal justice without environmental justice: a systematic literature review of climate and coasts - Climatic Change
As the ocean warms, sea levels rise, and coastlines change, there has been a growing interest in environmental justice and climate justice on the coast. Here we conduct a systematic literature review ...
link.springer.com

Yes! And I assume also some selectivity by discipline

I’ve been wondering what the drop in funding and expertise in the US will mean for journals and citation numbers/rates. Am guessing a global decline in citations, IFs, (etc) due to reduced publications, possibly some shifts based on location (e.g., British society-run journals more robust than US?).
Some charts for those who don't know the extent of the US public (and private) investment in research (particularly in biomedical research) compared to other countries and institutions. The destruction of the US' scientific institutions has global implications.

Reposted by Graeme S. Cumming

Western Indian subantarctic phytoplankton blooms fertilized by iron-enriched Agulhas water 🌊

rdcu.be/eMTV2?utm_ca...
Western Indian subantarctic phytoplankton blooms fertilized by iron-enriched Agulhas water
Nature Geoscience - Recurrent phytoplankton blooms in the western Indian Subantarctic Zone are largely supported by iron-rich water transported into the region by the Agulhas Current, according to...
rdcu.be
Some charts for those who don't know the extent of the US public (and private) investment in research (particularly in biomedical research) compared to other countries and institutions. The destruction of the US' scientific institutions has global implications.
Biodiversity Council's 2024-25 Biodiversity Concerns Survey of >3,500 Australians found that a majority
😟 are very/extremely concerned about biodiversity issues
☹️ think gov performance at Federal & State/Territory level is terrible/poor/average
💪 want action (96%)
💪 support pro-biodiversity policies

Reposted by Garry Peterson

Ecology faces an accumulation of models but not an accumulation of confidence. Our new paper w/ Jonathan Levine www.nature.com/articles/s41... in @natecoevo.nature.com introduces a rigorous test rooted in queueing theory to falsify inadequate models and build confidence in useful ones.
Rigorous validation of ecological models against empirical time series - Nature Ecology & Evolution
Validating theoretical models against empirical data presents challenges. Here the authors present an assumption-light method to validate ecological models against time series data, along with a dedic...
www.nature.com

Reposted by Graeme S. Cumming

🧪 🌊 🦑 🌎 #geogsky
Yes, solutions for nature are also solutions for health!

This new analysis finds urban greening is "associated with a wide range of positive health outcomes including improved physical and mental health, increased physical activity, improved childhood development, and reduced exposure to harms."
Will biodiversity actions yield healthy places? A systematic review of human health outcomes associated with biodiversity‐focused urban greening
Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Reposted by Graeme S. Cumming

🌿 When trees die and rot, they release stored carbon. Australia’s rainforests now emit more CO2 than they absorb. A sign of rising heat & drought stress. Once sinks, now turning into sources. Similar patterns appear in parts of the Amazon 🌎

#Climate
#Forests
#TropicalRainforests
#Australia
#Amazon
Australian Rainforests Become the First to Emit More Carbon Than They Absorb
A new analysis finds tropical forests in Australia are not taking in enough carbon dioxide to keep up with the emissions from their decaying trunks, holding possible implications for global ecosystems
share.google
This is an INCREDIBLE advance in our understanding of coral diversification. 🪸🎉 Fantastic new work led by @claudiavaga.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A global coral phylogeny reveals resilience and vulnerability through deep time - Nature
The most recent common ancestor of the stony coral Scleractinia dates to about 460 million years ago and was probably a solitary, heterotrophic and free-living organism.
www.nature.com
Widespread #MountainEcosystem loss (2000-2020) is driven by human expansion ( #agriculture approx. 89% and #NaturalDisasters approx 11%)

Over half (approx 56%) occurred in #ProtectedAreas or #biodiversity hotspots, demanding urgent #conservation action 🌍

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Global loss of mountain vegetated landscapes and its impact on biodiversity conservation - Nature Communications
This study reports widespread loss of mountain vegetation worldwide from 2000 to 2020, with ∼89% attributable to human expansion, primarily agriculture. Over half of this loss occurred within protecte...
www.nature.com

What a ridiculously un-nuanced statement from a former colonial power. Do you know, for example, that King Shaka created a protected area at Hluhluwe-Imfolosi *before* British colonisation? Do your homework on South Africa's Biodiversity Economy and then take a long look in the mirror.

But you work where you live, right? If you were still in RSA you wouldn’t be doing projects on the US NE coast, or only tangentially as a collaborator.

I think there’s also a strong element of colonialism, and colonial legacy. Also resources of course. But hypothetically even if I had loads of funding, Americans would find it strange if I showed up in LA to work on urban cougars, or in Minnesota to catch and track ducks.
"Declining ocean greenness and phytoplankton blooms in low to mid-latitudes under a warming climate" | Our (Hong et al) new article in @aaas.org #ScienceAdvances: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Declining ocean greenness and phytoplankton blooms in low to mid-latitudes under a warming climate
Chlorophyll a is declining in low- to mid-latitude oceans, indicating reduced ocean productivity and fewer phytoplankton blooms.
www.science.org
Interesting. This says in words some stuff that has bothered me for a long time - like why European and American scientists get to parachute in to research the African fauna that I literally grew up with, but it would seem really odd if I started a project on moose or reindeer.
🦒Biologists are often drawn to charismatic species but they do not always have the opportunity to study them. This study reveals some fierce competition in certain academic fields, and illustrates unequal social distribution of research opportunities➡️https://buff.ly/kjYUIBg

Reposted by Graeme S. Cumming

Reposted by Graeme S. Cumming

🦒Biologists are often drawn to charismatic species but they do not always have the opportunity to study them. This study reveals some fierce competition in certain academic fields, and illustrates unequal social distribution of research opportunities➡️https://buff.ly/kjYUIBg