Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Jon Went

WSL Biodiversity Center @wslbiodiversity.bsky.social · Sep 5

🍂 Fall is here, and so is the WSL Biodiversity Seminar Series! From genetics to social-ecological systems, this semester we’ll have 7 fascinating talks on biodiversity research.
Everyone is welcome, in person or online!
biodiversitycenter.wsl.ch/en/events/
@wslresearch.bsky.social

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IWC 2025 @int-wildcongress.bsky.social · Sep 1

The IWC2025 officially started 🥳 and it’s even better seeing so many familiar and new faces ☺️

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IWC 2025 @int-wildcongress.bsky.social · Aug 31

Who’s ready for the IWC2025 edition? 🤩 Your volunteer team is busy out here preparing the check-in! 😁

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Science News @sciencenews.bsky.social · Aug 27

“We might just be scratching the surface of the social complexity in this species.”

These giant carnivorous bats hug, cuddle — and even share dinner

Infrared cameras in Costa Rica revealed that the world’s largest carnivorous bat maintains close social bonds through wing wraps and prey sharing.

buff.ly

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Jon Went @jonfwent.bsky.social · Aug 22

In Zurich they already left on August 4th/5th, always marks the beginning of fall 🍂 for me when the only swifts left are the alpine ones

RSPB @rspb.bsky.social · Aug 22

It's a farewell #FlyDay to the wonderful Swifts... already headed on their epic journeys south!

Safe travels, friends, we’ll be waiting for you next summer. 🌍

A single Swift soars gracefully against a clear blue sky, wings arched like a crescent. Its brown plumage catches the light as it glides. A fleeting summer visitor, already on its long journey south.

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WILDLABS Community @wildlabs.bsky.social · Jun 26

What do the WILDLABS Awards 2025 submissions tell us about what #conservation challenges our community is tackling and what #technology they're using to do so?

Explore the full data here to explore changing trends in #conservationtech awards applications: wildlabs.net/discussion/w...

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Lisanne Petracca @lisannepetracca.bsky.social · May 27

🐺🐺🐺 NEW PAPER! 🐺🐺🐺

Recovering wolves in WA tolerate threats except high harvest, high lethal removals, and lack of immigration

With @labgardner.bsky.social, Sarah Converse, & Ben Maletzke

zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Forecasting Dynamics of a Recolonizing Wolf Population Under Different Management Strategies

We use a novel spatially explicit projection model to evaluate how different management strategies and system uncertainties affect the recolonization dynamics of wolves. We found that scenarios relat....

zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Alan McElligott @amcell.bsky.social · Jun 27

2025. #DEI - "Where is the best place to hold a scientific conference right now?" [Thailand, Indonesia, Hungary?]. PLEASE - before deciding on a conference location, check if the LGBTQ+ community can be legally themselves! "I" stands for INCLUSIVE! www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Where is the best place to hold a scientific conference right now?

An immigration crackdown makes the United States less attractive. These locations could steal its crown and make conferences more globally inclusive.

www.nature.com

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Nature Reviews Biodiversity @natrevbiodiv.nature.com · Jun 18

June issue: A Review led by Gianalberto Losapio on the impacts and consequences of glacier retreat for biodiversity in these ecosystems.
Weblink: go.nature.com/446nolE
Readcube: rdcu.be/erx1y

Impacts of deglaciation on biodiversity and ecosystem function - Nature Reviews Biodiversity

Glaciers are retreating with global climate warming, which threatens glacier specialists and the functions and stability of glaciers and glacially influenced ecosystems. This Review describes the impa...

go.nature.com

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Tobias Kuemmerle @tkuemmerle.bsky.social · Jun 7

Come join us at the Conservation Biogeography Lab @biogeoberlin.bsky.social @humboldtuni.bsky.social and carry out work on megafauna in Europe

pages.cms.hu-berlin.de/biogeo/websi...

New PhD position on large mammals and land-use change in Europe | Conservation Biogeography Lab

We are excited to invite applications for a new PhD position on large mammals and land-use change in Europe. Join us at the Conservation and Biogeography Lab at Humboldt University Berlin!

pages.cms.hu-berlin.de

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Wouter Vansteelant @wmgvs.bsky.social · Jun 18

Very cool PhD opportunity with a fab team of caring and inspiring supervisors at a great institution, and building on a fantastic study system! Recommended! #ornithology

Eldar Rakhimberdiev @eldarrak.bsky.social · Jun 13

New PhD position in our group! Join us to study gull foraging ecology at sea using GPS and accelerometry data! You will be working here Amsterdam Movement Ecology group under supervision of @judyshamounb.bsky.social, @rooskentie.bsky.social and me. Apply here werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies...

Vacancy — PhD Position Gull Foraging Ecology in the North Sea - NO-REGRETS Project

Are you passionate about animal movement ecology? Interested in studying gull foraging ecology at sea? Apply for this unique PhD opportunity at the Department of Theoretical and Computational Ecology ...

werkenbij.uva.nl

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Bat Conservation Trust @batconservation.bsky.social · Jun 1

🦇 June is here!

Female bats usually give birth to a single baby, called a pup, which they feed on their milk. Young bats are very small (less than an inch) and pink with little to no fur. They will soon grow a thin, slightly grey fur.

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Federico Riva @riva-ecology.bsky.social · May 22

Check our new review on niche truncation and how to avoid it with N-SDMs

Ecospat Group @ecospat-ch.bsky.social · May 21

🆕 New paper: Spatially nested SDMs to overcome niche truncation, by Guisan et al.!

doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Spatially nested species distribution models (N‐SDM): An effective tool to overcome niche truncation for more robust inference and projections

N-SDMs are key tools to develop untruncated regional climate change forecasts of species distributions at fine resolution over restricted extents. While several N-SDM approaches were proposed, there ...

doi.org

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Fiona Mathews @fionamathews.bsky.social · May 15

Babies on board! See the twin bumps in this roundleaf bat's tummy. Although her babies will be almost 1/3 of her body weight at birth, she is increadibly agile and only slows her flight a little. (Photo captured in Kasanka National Park, Zambia last week). 📷🌍🦇😍 #nature #bats #wildlife #photography

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Bat Research Team @bat-cesco.bsky.social · May 14

🦇 Greater sac-winged bat pups acquire their vocal repertoire through a conspicuous vocal practice behavior reminiscent of babbling in human infants. Pups spend about 30% of their daily activity time babbling – and it turns out that mothers influence this behavior.

elifesciences.org/articles/99474

Maternal behavior influences vocal practice and learning processes in the greater sac-winged bat

Non-tutorial feedback shapes song acquisition in a mammalian vocal learner.

elifesciences.org

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Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · May 11

Thanks to everybody who chimed in!

I arrived at the conclusion that (1) there's a lot of interesting stuff about interactions and (2) the figure I was looking for does not exist.

So, I made it myself! Here's a simple illustration of how to control for confounding in interactions:>

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Özden Terli @terliwetter.bsky.social · May 14

Es ist DAS Thema

www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft...

(S+) Sommer 2025: Hitze und Trockenheit – droht ein neuer Katastrophensommer?

Den Flüssen fehlt Wasser, der Boden ist außergewöhnlich trocken, Waldstücke brennen – Fachleute zeigen sich beunruhigt über die anhaltende Dürre. Für die kommenden Monate deutet sich zudem eine bedroh...

www.spiegel.de

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BTO | British Trust for Ornithology @btobirds.bsky.social · May 15

The @bbs-birds.bsky.social 2024 report is out now and shows drastic declines in many breeding bird populations. Huge thanks to volunteers who provided vital data for this report as it’s with your help we can monitor bird populations and help protect them. 🌍 🌐 See the report ➡️ www.bto.org/bbs-results

Breeding Bird Surveys (BBS) @bbs-birds.bsky.social · May 15

Falling finch numbers, fading farmland birds, declining Dippers and vanishing Cuckoo calls in England are worrying findings from the 2024 Breeding Bird Survey report out now! Read the report ➡️ www.bto.org/bbs-results

@btobirds.bsky.social @jncc.bsky.social @rspbscience.bsky.social #Ornithology

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Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf @rahmstorf.bsky.social · May 13

What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic. It affects us all.
The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) has released their Summary Arctic Climate Change Update. Read it: www.amap.no/documents/do...
Nobody can later say they weren't warned, again and again.

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Andreas Nord @cyanistesnord.bsky.social · May 13

Birds shrink under climate change - an observation assumed to carry thermoregulatory benefit. Creating temperature-dependent 🐥🐣 morphotypes in the lab and measuring their heat- and cold-tolerance through development, we show shape-shifting carries at most minuscule benefit 👇 @biologylu.bsky.social

Communications Biology @commsbio.nature.com · May 8

Shrinking and shape-shifting do not inherently provide thermoregulatory benefits in a warming world. Neutral plasticity or relaxed selection on small body size may better explain why birds are adjusting form under climate change. @cyanistesnord.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Limited evidence that body size shrinking and shape-shifting alleviate thermoregulatory pressures in a warmer world - Communications Biology

Shrinking and shape-shifting do not inherently provide thermoregulatory benefits in a warming world. Neutral plasticity or relaxed selection on small body size may better explain why birds are adjusti...

www.nature.com

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Ecography @ecography.bsky.social · May 14

Disentangling the effect of the spatial scale and species spatial pattern on the abundance–suitability relationship vist.ly/3n4asev #Birds #SpeciesAbundance #Modelling

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Wildlife Biology @wildlifebiology.bsky.social · May 14

Hunter-engaged monitoring of the Eurasian lynx during the reinforcement process vist.ly/3n4avn4 #CameraTrapping #CitizenScience

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Fridolin Zimmermann @zifridolin.bsky.social · May 11

Which animal left its tracks?

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Jon Went @jonfwent.bsky.social · May 12

Looking forward 🤩 I'm presenting the results of the project on ungulate browsing intensity I'm working on in a speedy talk

IWC 2025 @int-wildcongress.bsky.social · Apr 29

𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗗𝗨𝗖𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗦𝗣𝗘𝗘𝗗 𝗧𝗔𝗟𝗞𝗦 𝗔𝗧 𝗜𝗪𝗖𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱!

We added a new 5-min format alongside talks & posters to spotlight key research highlights. No Q&A, but each session ends with an informal discussion.

Perfect for early results, bold ideas & big questions! 💡

Acceptances by April 30 📅

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Karen R. Lips @karenrlips.bsky.social · May 5

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

North American bird declines are greatest where species are most abundant

Efforts to address declines of North American birds have been constrained by limited availability of fine-scale information about population change. By using participatory science data from eBird, we ...

www.science.org

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