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Michael Kearney

@ecophys.bsky.social

1.3K followers 570 following 21 posts

Professor in Ecology and Evolution and ARC Laureate Fellow @unimelb interested in what limits life | Mechanistic Niche Models | Functional Traits | Metabolic Theory | Microclimate | Climate Change | Dynamic Energy Budget Theory | Life History | NicheMapR

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Michael Kearney @ecophys.bsky.social · Dec 14

I'm happy to use my first #Bluesky post to announce that there's now a shiny app for the endotherm model of the #NicheMapR package bioforecasts.science.unimelb.edu.au/app_direct/e...

Michael Kearney @ecophys.bsky.social · Aug 12

A must read if you care about the arid zone: cosmosmagazine.com/australia/bu...

Can we keep our grass and control it too?

Buffel grass is one of rangeland Australia’s most wicked and unresolved challenges – a plant that is valued in some areas and despised in others.

cosmosmagazine.com

Michael Kearney @ecophys.bsky.social · Jun 18

You can choose from any of the ~6000 species with DEB parameters in the AmP collection www.bio.vu.nl/thb/deb/debl...

Michael Kearney @ecophys.bsky.social · Jun 18

Here are some new Shiny apps that allow hindcasts of animal life histories using the microclimate, ectotherm and DEB models of NicheMapR:

bioforecasts.science.unimelb.edu.au/app_direct/e...
bioforecasts.science.unimelb.edu.au/app_direct/e...
bioforecasts.science.unimelb.edu.au/app_direct/e...

screen grab of the global ectotherm life history hindcaster

Reposted by Michael Kearney

BHL Australia @bhl-au.bsky.social · Apr 29

New to BHL this week: more "Herpetofauna". Filled with observations, husbandry & traits data, this publication is hard to find both online & in libraries. We're hoping to have all volumes freely accessible on @biodivlibrary.bsky.social soon. #herpetology www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography...

The front cover of a journal (Herpetofauna), featuring a brown and black snake (a Pygmy Python) on a red rock.

The front cover of a journal (Herpetofauna), featuring a brown gecko (a rainforest gecko) on a mossy rock.

Reposted by Michael Kearney

BHL Australia @bhl-au.bsky.social · Apr 23

📢 Big news from the Biodiversity Heritage Library: The Smithsonian will no longer host BHL’s central operations from Jan 2026. After 20 years, we’re entering a new chapter – seeking new funding and support to sustain our global staff and infrastructure. Please share. 🌱
#ILoveBHL #OpenAccess

Biodiversity Heritage Library @biodivlibrary.bsky.social · Apr 22

Change is in the air for BHL! In 2026, BHL hosting will transition away from the Smithsonian, opening doors to reimagine our future. Rest assured, our 63 million pages of biodiversity knowledge remain secure and accessible.
Learn what's next for BHL ➡️

A New Future for the Biodiversity Heritage Library

The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world’s largest open access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives. A global consortium of over 660 contributors, BHL has made more …

blog.biodiversitylibrary.org

Reposted by Michael Kearney

Biodiversity Heritage Library @biodivlibrary.bsky.social · Apr 16

Hi Bluesky, the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world’s largest #OpenAccess digital library of biodiversity literature and archives. We're a global consortium of 660 contributors who've made 63 million pages of biodiversity knowledge freely accessible online. www.biodiversitylibrary.org

Michael Kearney @ecophys.bsky.social · Apr 8

But the pastoral industry loves it and thinks it deserves an Order of Australia www.beefcentral.com/news/buffel-.... If you love Central Australia, help pressure the Federal Government to declare it a national weed and invest in the development of biological controls.

Buffel grass put on the Federal election agenda - Beef Central

Farming groups and politicians have come together to put buffel grass on the agenda ahead of the Federal election, with the Labor Government expected to call an election in the coming days...Read More

www.beefcentral.com

Michael Kearney @ecophys.bsky.social · Apr 8

The devil grass is not only an ecological disaster - it's a social one for the First Nations people of the arid zone, including the Anangu www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...

Michael Kearney @ecophys.bsky.social · Apr 8

It changes fire regimes to be more intense and burns the country to a monoculture. It is the light green in the photo, spreading up into the hills replacing Triodia. Efforts to control it by spraying or weeding are now like trying to hold back the tide and the only real hope is biological control.

The light green in the middle ground is buffel, spreading across the flats and up onto the hills. It is spreading into this gorge and replacing the Triodia (spinifex)

Michael Kearney @ecophys.bsky.social · Apr 8

I was with John Read who has watched it spread over the 25 years of regular visits. It's spreading by wind, humans, cars and mammals. It's killing river red gums, figs, mulga woodlands, and smothering flower-filled native grasslands and spinifex-covered sand dunes and plains.

Michael Kearney @ecophys.bsky.social · Apr 8

This is a Len Beadell marker I photographed last weekend on the Gunbarrel Hwy in South Australia, surrounded by an ecological and social disaster called Buffel Grass. Anangu call it tjanpi mamu which means "devil grass" in Pitjantjatjara. It's steadily eroding the flora and fauna of our deserts.

Reposted by Michael Kearney

Patrice Pottier @patricepottier.bsky.social · Mar 6

How vulnerable are #amphibians to extreme heat? 🐸🌡️

Our paper in @nature.com shows that many amphibians are already overheating, and many more species will be impacted by climate warming globally.

See the thread below for a digest 🧵

Link to the paper: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

#Nature

Photo credit: Peter soltys. Image created by Nicholas Wu.

Michael Kearney @ecophys.bsky.social · Mar 6

New book out on invasions by the brilliant @benflips.bsky.social academic.oup.com/book/59515

The Ecology and Evolution of Invasive Populations

Abstract. Why do populations spread through space, and how do they change as they do so? In answering these questions, this book shows that phenomena as di

academic.oup.com

Michael Kearney @ecophys.bsky.social · Mar 6

A great summary by @nicholaswu.bsky.social on a paper applying #NicheMapR to model climate change impacts on heat stress in frogs globally, led by @patricepottier.bsky.social. Note how different the +2 and +4 warming scenarios. Climate warming impacts on biology are very nonlinear. #UniMelb #ARC

Nicholas Wu @nicholaswu.bsky.social · Mar 6

New paper in @nature.com led by @patricepottier.bsky.social! We demonstrated global vulnerability of amphibians to warming, threatening 10% of >5,000 species examined. How did we do it? See thread🧵

Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Michael Kearney @ecophys.bsky.social · Feb 23

I’ll take these mating grasshoppers back to the Uni of Melbourne where we will raise their offspring to see what their problem is!

Michael Kearney @ecophys.bsky.social · Feb 23

The parthenogenetic species meets the sexual ones (from which it evolved by hybridisation) on the outskirts of Kalgoorlie where this hybrid mating happens naturally. They form “hybrid zones” where triploid offspring have very low fitness meaning they can’t coexist.

Michael Kearney @ecophys.bsky.social · Feb 23

I’ve collected males from nearby sexual populations and set them up with the parthenogenetic females (who haven’t had sex for a couple of hundred thousand years). What should happen is that the males’ sperm fertilises the cloned eggs so that their offspring will have three sets of chromosomes.

Michael Kearney @ecophys.bsky.social · Feb 23

I’m in the Western Australian mining town of Kalgoorlie where I’ve set up a makeshift grasshopper brothel in a cabin at a caravan park. In this historically male-dominate town of humans one of the grasshoppers - Warramaba virgo - is all female …

Michael Kearney @ecophys.bsky.social · Feb 4

DEB theory is on bluesky

Dynamic Energy Budget @debtheory.bsky.social · Feb 4

Hello world! Are you interested in the world of metabolic theory? Follow us for more!

Michael Kearney @ecophys.bsky.social · Jan 16

The late Eric Pianka made thousands of observations of desert lizard body temperature and activity. We used them to test biophysical models of their cost of living and projected the models to past and future climates in Africa and Australia #unimelb #ARC @science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Climate change and the cost-of-living squeeze in desert lizards

Climate warming can induce a cost-of-living “squeeze” in ectotherms by increasing energetic expenditures while reducing foraging gains. We used biophysical models (validated by 2685 field observations...

www.science.org

Michael Kearney @ecophys.bsky.social · Jan 15

Please circulate: Postdoc position on responses of Australian mammal pests to climate change. Part of my ARC Laureate Fellowship research. Lots of hands-on fieldwork. Learn about biophysical models. Remote locations. Collaboration with #EcologicalHorizons and #AWC jobs.unimelb.edu.au/en/job/91880...

Details : Research Fellow in Mammalian Movement Ecology and Energetics : The University of Melbourne

Careers at The University of Melbourne

jobs.unimelb.edu.au

Reposted by Michael Kearney

Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · Jan 12

This week I assisted with the annual pitfall trapping at Secret Rocks on the Eyre Peninsula. This beautiful place is a living arc for so many species of endangered wildlife, including Numbats, Malleefowl, Red-tailed Phascogales and the Sandhill Dunnart. 1/2

A sunrise above the mallee. Trees and scrub on red sand. Two people walking through the bush.

A scene of mallee scrub, trees, small shrubs and red sand.

Reposted by Michael Kearney

Methods in Ecology and Evolution @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social · Dec 23

📖Published📖

Our latest review article presents 10 practical guidelines for ground-based research of terrestrial microclimates, covering methods and best practices from initial conceptualisation of the study to data analyses 🌎 🧪 Read more here 👇

https://buff.ly/41BKn8o

Reposted by Michael Kearney

Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · Dec 20

RIP Michael Leunig. Thank you for your reflections on our lives. Your mirror was whimsical, beautiful, wise & sometimes very uncomfortable. You made us love ducks, gaze at clouds & look deep within ourselves. www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12...

Michael Kearney @ecophys.bsky.social · Dec 18

Can you add me please Dan?