Ben C. Sheldon | Lightnews

Ben Sheldon

@sheldonbirds.bsky.social

3.5K followers 430 following 4.2K posts

Ornithologist and Evolutionary Ecologist at the University of Oxford - natural history, science, cycling

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Ben C. Sheldon is the Luc Hoffmann Chair in Field Ornithology and Director of the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology of the University of Oxford's Department of Zoology. He was Head of the Department of Zoology between 2016 and 2021. .. more

Biology 32%

Environmental science 30%

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · Oct 20

Interested in a PhD in ornithology? Funding available for projects at the interface of ecology, behaviour & evolution from Oct '26 working on long-term population studies of tits at Wytham, based in @biology.ox.ac.uk in the new Life & Mind Building in Oxford
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Celebrating a successful field season with great food & good company - May 2025

Front view of the Life & Mind Building, which opened in Oct 2025: The new home of Biology at Oxford

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 1d

A fabulous read

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 1d

Ah! Thanks...

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 1d

Superb 'in landscape' pictures there!

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 1d

It is possible I don't understand the rules of pointless!

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 1d

Spotted amethyst & Weekend house

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 1d

I think that the pre 2016 trends are a little tricky to read because all data normalised to that point, but by some measures a decline already in place & others some recovery was nipped in the bud..

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 1d

Well, this makes cheerful reading: assessing the economic cost of Brexit. In their almost understated conclusion: "In the case of Brexit, there was a substantial economic impact
on the United Kingdom"

siepr.stanford.edu/publications...

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 3d

I think the drake is the left-hand most bird?

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 3d

Bloody idiots... Is there a female RN Duck in the flock as well (3rd from the left?)

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 5d

Wait till they've both batted! A chink of light....

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 5d

This looks great - amazing work. Excellent video as well:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWCM...

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 5d

It's pretty good on the song (Firecrest rises in pitch and is simpler, Goldcrest level/falling and more complex) but I'd be a little bit more sceptical on the calls - FC is sharper and more penetrating to me. Firecrests often like Holly in my experience!

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 7d

Get back on the plane!

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 8d

Jeez…. So sorry to see this. Your brilliance just throws their inadequacy into even sharper relief.

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 8d

This week's @egioxford.bsky.social seminar is by @mmoiron.bsky.social at 3.30 on Friday. Still a highlight of the week getting people together and hearing about new science

Edward Grey Institute @egioxford.bsky.social · 9d

This week's EGI seminar is being given by Dr Maria Moiron @mmoiron.bsky.social of the University of Bielefeld at 3.30pm on Friday 21 Nov in LT1 in the Life & Mind Building @biology.ox.ac.uk. See below for online joining details - all welcome!

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 8d

Couldn’t resist this - suitably hefty feeling for a long & transformative life in science

Reposted by Ben C. Sheldon

Edward Grey Institute @egioxford.bsky.social · 9d

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 9d

Ever had a big catch of Water Veneer? 500 in a small back garden Skinner no trouble!

Reposted by Ben C. Sheldon, Francis Martin, Jesse R. Lasky

Chris Thorogood @christhorogood.bsky.social · 9d

Deep in the Sumatran jungle today we found the extraordinary flowers of Rhizanthes pushing their fangs through the forest floor. A sap-sucking, leafless parasite, this is one of the world's weirdest plants.

Reposted by Ben C. Sheldon, Peter Thorne, Jesse M. Shapiro , and 2 more Ben C. Sheldon, Peter Thorne, Jesse M. Shapiro, Stacie B. Dusetzina, Anne Hilborn

Jeremy B. Yoder 🧬📊🌿🏳️‍🌈🖖🏻 @jbyoder.org · 11d

This has gotten surprisingly little attention — it's not even on the front page of @science.org right now — but it's really hard to describe what the SAFE Research Act would do to US science and scientists without sounding insane

www.science.org/content/arti...

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 11d

🙌

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 12d

The first paragraph states that annual spending stabilised at $20-25Bn, but the axis labels of figure 1 suggest that this should read $20-25M...

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 12d

Perfection! Such nuggets alone are worth the cover price of the book @matthewcobb.bsky.social

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 13d

Brings back fond memories of ringing at Wicken Fen in the late 80s when at University nearby, and carrying out a summer project on the distribution of ectoparasites on Reed Warblers. Don't remember catching any Turtle Doves, but Willow Tits were still frequent. Here's to Chris's memory

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 13d

Wait till you discover Pallas's Warbler...

Reposted by Ben C. Sheldon, Neil Lee

Oxford Clarion @oxfordclarion.bsky.social · 14d

Are Oxford‘s poorest areas sharing in its prosperity? As billionaires pour more money into the city’s AI and biotech industries, we take a deep dive into gentrification in Oxford and the city’s housing crisis. (With maps and data!) oxfordclarion.uk/gentrifying-...

Gentrifying Oxford vs the left-behinds

Oxford’s poorest areas are not sharing equally in the city’s increased prosperity, new figures suggest. Parts of Minchery Farm, Rose Hill, and Wood Farm are now suffering more deprivation compared to...

oxfordclarion.uk

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 14d

"Sniper Tourism" - just beggars belief

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Milan prosecutors investigate alleged ‘sniper tourism’ during Bosnian war

Groups from Italy and elsewhere alleged to have paid Serb soldiers to shoot Sarajevo residents during siege

www.theguardian.com

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 14d

Great read! Love a bird race - you might enjoy this account of a bike-powered one with @tombedford.bsky.social & @tmbirding.bsky.social - a day that will live long in our collective memories for the narrative arc from misery to triumph

www.outofthebluesky.co/2024/04/29/a...

A new Oxfordshire Big Day record – and set by bike!

Good weather to find migrating birds inland, is not good weather. The wind must swing around to the compass’s cooler side, ideally the east or north-east. The clouds need to roll in and frequ…

www.outofthebluesky.co

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 14d

Simply too many interesting papers to read at the moment...

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, Colin F. Camerer, Ben C. Sheldon , and 35 more Dorothy Bishop, Colin F. Camerer, Ben C. Sheldon, Juli G. Pausas, Dan Brockington, David M. Schultz, Sam Harper, Robert Böhm, Brendan Nyhan, Garry Peterson, Ross Woods, Euan G. Ritchie, Alistair Munro, Howard I. Browman, Rebecca Sear, Paul E. Johnson, Benjamin Braun, Ian Hussey, Jonathan Hopkin, Paolo Crosetto, Veli‐Matti Karhulahti, Jean Bonnet, Jacob T. Levy, Margot C. Finn, Étienne Ollion, Matt N Williams, Alberto Corsín Jiménez, Patrick Präg, Urška Demšar, Rense Corten, Juanjo Medina, Julie Novkov, Matti Vuorre, Tom Louwerse, Frédéric Delsuc, José Pina-Sánchez, Catherine M. Hulshof, Alba Anadon‐Rosell

Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 14d

We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...

A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below.

1. The four-fold drain
1.1 Money
Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for
whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who
created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis,
which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024
alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit
margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher
(Elsevier) always over 37%.
Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most
consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial
difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor &
Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American
researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The
Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3
billion in that year.

A figure detailing the drain on researcher time.

1. The four-fold drain

1.2 Time
The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce,
with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure
1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material
has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs,
grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for
profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time.
The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million
unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of
peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting
widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the
authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many
review demands.
Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of
scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in
‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow
progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to
volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier,
local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with
limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging
with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks
intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision.

A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below:

1. The four-fold drain
1.1 Money
Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for
whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who
created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis,
which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024
alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit
margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher
(Elsevier) always over 37%.
Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most
consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial
difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor &
Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American
researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The
Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3
billion in that year.

The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised
scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers
first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour
resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.

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