Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Dave Armitage @darmitage.bsky.social · 7d

Major congrats to our lab’s first PhD recipient, Nonno Hasegawa. Her work on the population genetics of Darlingtonia will help us better manage and protect the objectively coolest plant on earth

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Dave Armitage @darmitage.bsky.social · 9d

Full article: Leaf litter capture in the carnivorous pitcher plant, Sarracenia purpurea: a preliminary study www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Leaf litter capture in the carnivorous pitcher plant, Sarracenia purpurea: a preliminary study

Diet breadth is a key life-history trait influencing range size, evolutionary trajectories, and ecosystem functioning. While diet breadth studies have traditionally been confined to animals, carniv...

www.tandfonline.com

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Dave Armitage @darmitage.bsky.social · 14d

Linking Individual Performance to Density‐Dependent Population Dynamics to Understand Temperature‐Mediated Genotype Coexistence - Bruijning - 2025 - Ecology Letters - Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Linking Individual Performance to Density‐Dependent Population Dynamics to Understand Temperature‐Mediated Genotype Coexistence

We use a demographic model to explicitly connect individual performance to population-level dynamics, parameterised using experimental data on competing Daphnia genotypes from two latitudes. We show ....

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Reposted by Dave Armitage

PopBio on the Dark Side @pop-bio.bsky.social · 16d

I-Ching Chen will present the next PopBio seminar:

Revisiting the Vulnerability of Mountain Biota under Rapid Warming

Join us online, Thursday Sep 25 1pm AEST. These seminars are open to all so please share widely.

Sign up to our mailing list to receive the zoom link: forms.gle/kb6aHitUsL5f...

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Dave Armitage @darmitage.bsky.social · 22d

Please consider applying to our open faculty position call that includes Ecology!

apply.interfolio.com/172075

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

apply.interfolio.com

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Reposted by Dave Armitage

bioRxiv Ecology @biorxiv-ecology.bsky.social · Aug 24

Dynamic connectivities of plant metacommunities at a millennial time-scale: the Beringia testbed https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.19.671027v1

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Reposted by Dave Armitage

Journal of Ecology @journalofecology.bsky.social · Aug 20

⏰Time is running out to submit your proposal for our cross-journal Special Feature Novel communities in response to global change! 🌏

Proposal submissions close 31 August👉 buff.ly/2av5bBh

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Reposted by Dave Armitage

OIST (Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology) @oistedu.bsky.social · Aug 18

Understanding plant-microbe symbiosis is essential in tackling global challenges like food security and ecosystem restoration. In ISME Journal, OIST researchers describe the unique symbiosis between T. azollae cyanobacteria and Azolla ferns: www.oist.jp/news-center/...

Fern leaf pockets hide secrets of plant-microbe symbiosis

Comparison of symbiotic bacteria to free-living relatives shows the genomic effects of host adaptation.

www.oist.jp

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Reposted by Dave Armitage

Ecological Research @ecologicalresearch.bsky.social · Aug 18

#OpenAccess #SuzukiAward
Temporal beta-diversity patterns are highly dependent on fundamental parameters of neutral dynamics

Ryosuke Nakadai, the recipient of the 9th Young Scholar Award of The Ecological Society of Japan

doi.org/10.1111/1440...

community composition/ demography

Temporal beta diversity describes changes in community composition over time, yet its fundamental properties under neutral dynamics remain unclear. Using simulations, we demonstrate that temporal distance-decay patterns exhibit upper limits and are strongly influenced by four key parameters: the fundamental biodiversity number, local community size, mortality rate, and immigration rate. These findings highlight key differences between temporal and spatial beta diversity, emphasizing the need to account for species pool properties in macroecological studies.

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Dave Armitage @darmitage.bsky.social · Aug 17

Pleasantly surprised how my first attempt at scanning pitcher plant leaves turned out. Considering 3D printing it to wear as a bonnet

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Reposted by Dave Armitage

Filip Husnik @filiphusnik.bsky.social · Aug 12

New visiting programs at OIST for experimentalists and domestic visitors! Application deadline: Sep 15, 2025.
www.oist.jp/visiting-pro...

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Dave Armitage @darmitage.bsky.social · Aug 8

👏👏👏

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Dave Armitage @darmitage.bsky.social · Jul 31

Imagine chilling inside this comfy leaf on a pillow of heterocysts

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Dave Armitage @darmitage.bsky.social · Jul 31

Our paper on the Azolla leaf pocket microbiome is out!

A very fun project to work on that I hope helps us understand the evolution of nitrogen fixation mutualisms by looking at one of the most extreme examples

academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

Adaptive pangenomic remodeling in the Azolla cyanobiont amid a transient microbiome

Abstract. Plants fix nitrogen in concert with diverse microbial symbionts, often recruiting them from the surrounding environment each generation. Vertical

academic.oup.com

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Dave Armitage @darmitage.bsky.social · Jul 28

There is also the question of where the hundreds of negative google reviews disappeared to…

Reposted by Dave Armitage

bes-quantitativegroup @bes-quantitative.bsky.social · Jul 16

📆 Workshop Opportunity 📆

The ANdinA workshop aims to bridge the gap between modelling and applied ecology to advance ecological predictions in real-world systems.

Nerín, Spain 8-12 June 2026

More info: andinaspain2026.com

Improving predictions in ecology

Can complex problems get away with simple solutions?

andinaspain2026.com

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Reposted by Dave Armitage

PopBio on the Dark Side @pop-bio.bsky.social · Jul 14

Save the dates!

We have an excellent line up of speakers for the next three months (last Thursday of each month). These online seminars are open to all and the time of day is set for attendees in the Asia-Pacific.

Sign up to this google form to receive announcements: forms.gle/2vn885K3uLC1...

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Reposted by Dave Armitage

Journal of Ecology @journalofecology.bsky.social · Jul 14

🌳 Terrestrial laser scanning was used to show that lianas reduce tree individual height, which negatively affect tree carbon stocks and biomass growth 🌲👉 buff.ly/PWqgwvy

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Reposted by Dave Armitage

Journal of Ecology @journalofecology.bsky.social · Jul 11

Epiphytic moss coexistence links to macroclimatic niches at forest scales, shifting to species relatedness at moss pad levels. Positive interactions dominate across scales, especially at moss pads, suggesting they may be more crucial for bryophyte coexistence than competition. 👉 buff.ly/D8JD1ex

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Dave Armitage @darmitage.bsky.social · Jul 11

Good time to remind my fellow scientists that Nature Communications has increased their APC to USD$7000 for a projected annual siphoning off the shrinking global scientific budget of around $55000000.

Please consider submitting your work to almost any other journal.

Elizabeth Warren @warren.senate.gov · Jul 11

Donald Trump is ripping away America’s role as a world leader in science and innovation.

Cuts to health care breakthroughs.
Cuts to tech development.
Cuts to energy research.

How is this America first?

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Reposted by Dave Armitage

Journal of Ecology @journalofecology.bsky.social · Jul 8

🔍 How do common & uncommon plants coexist? This study extends the Equilibrium Theory of Island Biogeography, showing island area & isolation shape trait strategies. Common species thrive via high ITV; uncommon ones face extinction risks. 🏝️ 👉 buff.ly/VHC5tQ5

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Reposted by Dave Armitage

British Ecological Society @britishecologicalsociety.org · Jul 8

Which of these forests do you think has the highest level of biodiversity?

Research published today in @peopleandnature.bsky.social finds that people’s intuitive perception of biodiversity through visual and audio cues is remarkably accurate.

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Reposted by Dave Armitage

American Naturaliﬆ / ASN 🐌 @asn-amnat.bsky.social · Jun 23

Ong et al. explore how landscapes of fear emerge from consumer-resource interactions in patchy landscapes, producing dynamic landscape-scale halo patterns than may signal critical transitions to alternative stable states. Now open access ahead of print!
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Seeing Halos: Spatial and Consumer-Resource Constraints to Landscapes of Fear | The American Naturalist: Vol 205, No 6

Abstract Vegetation-free space, or “halos,” surrounding habitat patches are visually striking spatial phenomena observed in various ecosystems. These halos are linked to the landscape of fear hypothes...

www.journals.uchicago.edu

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Reposted by Dave Armitage

ESA Journals @esajournals.bsky.social · Jun 27

In our journal "Ecology"!👇

Critical Zone News @cznews.bsky.social · Jun 27

Inside the tiny world of a pitcher plant, mosquito larvae shift the balance. Their predation trims rare bacterial lineages and reshapes both what’s there and how it’s related—showing that understanding diversity means looking beyond just who’s present. 🌐🧪

Top‐Down Processes Drive Taxonomic and Phylogenetic Diversity in a Model Aquatic Microbial Community

While the relative importance of bottom-up and top-down processes in structuring patterns of aquatic taxonomic diversity has been widely explored for many taxa, the response of aquatic microbial comm....

esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Reposted by Dave Armitage

Michael (Misha) Stemkovski @mishastemkovski.bsky.social · Jun 26

I’m very excited to share a paper from an incredible team of evolutionary biologists, community ecologists, paleoecologists, social scientists, and biogeochemists. “Ecological acclimation” unites processes that take minutes to centuries: besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Ecological acclimation: A framework to integrate fast and slow responses to climate change

Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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