Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Keller Kopf

@kellerfish.bsky.social

2.3K followers 1K following 78 posts

Ecology - Conservation - Rivers - Fish and Fisheries Senior Lecturer Charles Darwin University

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Keller Kopf @kellerfish.bsky.social · Nov 24

First post here.
I’ll unpack our new paper @science.org highlighting the loss of old animals and calling for ‘longevity conservation’

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Loss of Earth’s old, wise, and large animals

Earth’s old animals are in decline. Despite this, emerging research is revealing the vital contributions of older individuals to cultural transmission, population dynamics, and ecosystem processes and...

www.science.org

8 84 210

Keller Kopf @kellerfish.bsky.social · 2d

Dexter and Casper snoozing

Keller Kopf @kellerfish.bsky.social · 2d

Little surprise saltwater crocodile swimming off local Darwin beach; I did let the surf lifeguards and swimmers know!

Keller Kopf @kellerfish.bsky.social · 2d

A BIG congratulations to Dr Tegan Dedman for completing her PhD @charlesdarwinuni.bsky.social. Effects of sea level rise on the tropical freshwater wetland communities

Reposted by Keller Kopf

Herbert Nickel @herbertnickel.bsky.social · 2d

Bison inhibits tree growth in Great Plains. We should give wisent a better chance to do the same in German national parks.
esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Native megafauna (Bison bison) act as a surprising inhibitor of cedar tree expansion in a Great Plains grassland

In the Central Great Plains of North America, fire suppression is causing transitions from grasslands to shrublands and woodlands. This woody encroachment alters plant community composition, decrease...

esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

3 7 18

Reposted by Keller Kopf

Daniel Bolnick @danielbolnick.bsky.social · 2d

@sse-evolution.bsky.social just announced the following:

Call for Proposals: Research Synthesis Working Groups
The Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE) invites proposals for sponsored Research Synthesis Working Groups at the 2026 Evolution meeting (up to two in-person and one virtual). ...

1 10 17

Reposted by Keller Kopf

Frank Pennekamp @pennekampster.bsky.social · 5d

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

2 17 43

Reposted by Keller Kopf

Brian J. Enquist @bjenquist.bsky.social · 10d

Classic macroecological laws-long held as signatures of biological systems-also emerge in economic and geological systems. The real signal lies not in the static universal patterns, but in how those patterns shift with scale 🌐🧪 #scaling #macroecology journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Separating Macroecological Pattern and Process: Comparing Ecological, Economic, and Geological Systems

Theories of biodiversity rest on several macroecological patterns describing the relationship between species abundance and diversity. A central problem is that all theories make similar predictions f...

journals.plos.org

4 18 38

Reposted by Keller Kopf

Brian J. Enquist @bjenquist.bsky.social · 22d

Cool... a global focus on three core traits of ectotherms: metabolic rate, development time and fecundity. ShareTrait: Towards interoperable and reusable individual trait-based data in ectotherms #OpenTraits #FunctionalTraits besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1... 🧪🌐

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

1 5 22

Reposted by Keller Kopf

William (Bill) Sutherland @billsutherland.bsky.social · Aug 8

The Society of Wildlife Art have a wonderful project at Massingham Heath rewilding project, Norfolk. Here Amie Haslam and Brin Edwards explain the project. youtu.be/hiCQiSHuaG4?...

The Power of Art in Conservation

YouTube video by Bill Sutherland's Conservation Concepts

youtu.be

3 9

Keller Kopf @kellerfish.bsky.social · Aug 6

Nice photo; I grew up near there and spent many summer days as a kid floating old tractor tire intertubes downstream in the Platte

Reposted by Keller Kopf

Magdalena Skipper @magdalenaskipper.bsky.social · Aug 2

This is fascinating - the brain fires up immune cells when sick people are nearby
🧪

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The brain fires up immune cells when sick people are nearby

When people viewed virtual avatars with coughs or rashes, their brains triggered an immune response.

www.nature.com

8 30 120

Reposted by Keller Kopf

Jens-Christian Svenning @jcsvenning.bsky.social · Aug 2

Why did some #megafauna survive? 🦣🦘🦌
Our new study shows #extinction risk was higher for larger, flat-footed, island species— and lower for those closely related to tropical African/Asian fauna, likely filtered by earlier human impacts 👣🍖
📄 doi.org/10.1111/geb....
#hominid #hunting #evolution

20 83

Reposted by Keller Kopf

Julian Hoffman @julianhoffman.bsky.social · Jul 31

Like the old-growth coastal redwoods that host whole other ecosystems in their spires, these extraordinary Australian stick insects reveal not only the richness and mystery of mature forest canopies but how vital their protection is for countless forms of life.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Supersized stick insect discovered in high-altitude trees in Australia

The 40cm-long insect, named Acrophylla alta, weighs slightly less than a golf ball and may be the heaviest insect in Australia

www.theguardian.com

1 14 28

Reposted by Keller Kopf

Journal of Applied Ecology @jappliedecology.bsky.social · Jul 31

Albatrosses make distinct flight hops when following fishing vessels 🎣

In this blog post, Jonathan Rutter discusses a new behaviour-based method to detect previously hidden interactions between seabirds and fishing vessels 🛰️🌏🧪

👇
appliedecologistsblog.com/2025/07/31/a...

2 3

Reposted by Keller Kopf

Rachel A.S. Forbes @rachelasforbes.bsky.social · Jul 31

There's so much life in the deep ocean, and there's still so much to discover! #deepocean #marinescience 🧪
www.bbc.com/news/article...

'Communities' of strange, extreme life seen for first time in deep ocean

A Chinese-led research team captures pictures of life at depths of more than 9km in the northwest Pacific Ocean.

www.bbc.com

2 7

Reposted by Keller Kopf

Journal of Applied Ecology @jappliedecology.bsky.social · Jul 29

To fill or not to fill: Comparing imputation methods for improved riverine long-term biodiversity monitoring 💭🌎

Suggests gap filling in biodiversity data can distort trends as more missing years mean easier fits but higher uncertainty 📊🧪

🔗 doi.org/10.1111/1365...

3 15

Keller Kopf @kellerfish.bsky.social · Jul 12

1500 km2 of tropical savanna dotted with crystal clear water holes. Camping off the beaten track in Litchfield National Park is pretty special

Reposted by Keller Kopf

Prosanta Chakrabarty @prosanta.bsky.social · Jul 5

An ecological trait matrix of Neotropical freshwater fishes

@gymnotus.bsky.social et al. 2025 Scientific Data

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

An ecological trait matrix of Neotropical freshwater fishes - Scientific Data

Scientific Data - An ecological trait matrix of Neotropical freshwater fishes

www.nature.com

2 2 6

Keller Kopf @kellerfish.bsky.social · Jun 26

Title of the year.

a gold trophy with a laurel wreath around it and the words well done on a gold ribbon

ALT: a gold trophy with a laurel wreath around it and the words well done on a gold ribbon

media.tenor.com

1 4

Reposted by Keller Kopf

Prosanta Chakrabarty @prosanta.bsky.social · Jun 22

Novel complete mitochondrial genomes of eight riverine Lamprologus species (Actinopterygii, Cichlidae) suggest in-situ speciation of the blind cichlid L. lethops in the lower Congo River

Jimenez et al. 2025

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Figure 3. Maximum-likelihood (IQ-TREE 2) phylogeny based on all mitochondrial protein-coding genes of riverine Lamprologus species analyzed in this study (in bold) along with additional lamprologine species with available partial mitogenomes

Specimen of Lamprologus lethops (c. 70 mm long) on a hand. Photograph by the American Museum of Natural History, used with permission and courtesy of Melanie L. J. Stiassny.

4 15

Reposted by Keller Kopf

Brian J. Enquist @bjenquist.bsky.social · Jun 17

Please pass along - postdoc position! with our working group on #FunctionalTraits and rarity. This is part of the FREE (Functional Rarity in Ecology and Evolution) working group led by Cyrille Violle in Montpellier France 🧪🌐🌾 emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U...

Portail Emploi CNRS - Offre d'emploi - Offre de post-doctorat en écologie (H/F)

emploi.cnrs.fr

2 87 72

Reposted by Keller Kopf

Miguel Clavero @chikichanka.bsky.social · Jun 11

Amazing paper by He Zang and colleagues showing the (truly!) long-term decline of tigers in Eastern Asia
Chinese difangzhi, and other historical documents, are used to describe range loss since the 16th century with an increadible spatial precision
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

2 7

Reposted by Keller Kopf

Save Our Seas Foundation @saveourseas.bsky.social · Jun 10

Silky sharks - sleek oceanic predators that were once one of the most abundant shark species in our oceans - are now considered vulnerable on the IUCN Red List due to their decreasing population. They are threatened by overfishing, and are the second most commonly caught shark in global fisheries.

1 7 12

Keller Kopf @kellerfish.bsky.social · Jun 9

Happy to see our new paper published exploring size-based trophic dynamics in Australia’s largest river system

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Intraspecific body size determines isotopic trophic structure of a large river fish community

The body size of individuals within species plays an important role in determining trophic structure, yet many ecological models and tests of theory assign species-level values to define trophic posi....

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

1 2 10

Reposted by Keller Kopf

Brian J. Enquist @bjenquist.bsky.social · May 28

Simple, Universal Rules Predict Trophic Interaction Strengths #scaling #allometry #bodysize 🧪🌐https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ele.70126?campaign=woletoc

Simple, Universal Rules Predict Trophic Interaction Strengths

Two simple, universal rules derived from energetic arguments predict the parameters of predator functional responses that underlie the strengths of trophic interactions. Furthermore, theory developed...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

1 11 31