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mwhitman-phd.bsky.social
Melissa Whitman
@mwhitman-phd.bsky.social
240 followers 650 following 48 posts
Ecology, tropical plants, pollination networks, macroecology, edaphic specialization, island biogeography, Rhododendron, orchids.

I am an independent researcher w/ a PhD and I like to ponder plants. I am currently based out of Portland, OR. She/her.
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mwhitman-phd.bsky.social
Melissa Whitman @mwhitman-phd.bsky.social · Oct 4
If you are in the Portland (OR) area, I will be giving a talk this week at PSU on the tropical-temperate forest ecotone in Bhutan. Thursday 10/9, 3:30-4:25, Cramer Hall room 53. Open to the public. #Bhutan #biogeography #Rhododendron #ecotone #forest #ecology #Himalayas #PDX #mountains
mwhitman-phd.bsky.social
If you are in the Portland (OR) area, I will be giving a talk this week at PSU on the tropical-temperate forest ecotone in Bhutan. Thursday 10/9, 3:30-4:25, Cramer Hall room 53. Open to the public. #Bhutan #biogeography #Rhododendron #ecotone #forest #ecology #Himalayas #PDX #mountains
October 4, 2025 at 3:34 AM
mwhitman-phd.bsky.social
Been busy writing, apologies for my hermit-like tendencies as of late.
October 2, 2025 at 10:14 PM
Reposted by Melissa Whitman
kateplantphys.bsky.social
Showing off our figure of global conifer leaf-widths & leaf silhouettes highlighting that conifers can be broad-leaved & angiosperms can be narrow/ needle-leaved! 🍃

Our paper: tinyurl.com/mss2me7v
@newphyt.bsky.social

@vallicrosah.bsky.social @botanykat.bsky.social & Matilda Brown
June 6, 2025 at 10:27 AM
Reposted by Melissa Whitman
petergleick.bsky.social
There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.
Graphs showing 25 years of budgets for the National Institute of Health, NASA, and the NSF. In all cases, the proposed budget for next year is far, far below any year of the previous quarter century.
May 31, 2025 at 4:43 AM
Reposted by Melissa Whitman
ichnologist.bsky.social
Oldest known fossil evidence of lepidopterans (butterflies & moths), from the Triassic (~236 mya) of Argentina! Scales from the wings of these insects were preserved in dicynodont coprolites, & were likely on plants eaten by the dicynodonts. www.science.org/content/arti... #PoopScience 🧪💩🪨🦋
Ancient poop yields world’s oldest butterfly fossils
Tiny wing scales suggest the proboscis evolved 100 million years before flowers
www.science.org
June 2, 2025 at 11:37 PM
Reposted by Melissa Whitman
audhalbritter.bsky.social
Interested in #OpenScience, #reproducibility, #FAIRdata, #GBIF, #biodiversity data, and #AI? In November, we are organizing a course for early career ecologists in the home of the reindeer! 🌱🏔️🐑🦌🦋🦇🐞🌾💻
www.uib.no/en/rg/EECRG/...
Open, Reproducible and Transparent Science in Ecology
Course on reproducible workflows to manage, produce, use, and reuse FAIR data
www.uib.no
June 2, 2025 at 7:36 AM
Reposted by Melissa Whitman
mikemelton.bsky.social
I was sitting quietly in the forest this morning, watching a Royal Flycatcher nest when this wonderful Keel-billed Motmot perched near me for a few minutes. These are one of the toughest motmots. They're quiet, small, and love the dark forest. At @tapirvalley.bsky.social

#costarica #birds #nature
A colorful bird with green and brown plumage perches on a branch, its long tail ending in two racket-shaped feathers. The background is a soft blur of green foliage.
June 2, 2025 at 11:35 PM
mwhitman-phd.bsky.social
Any tips for writing in the summer? Nice days outside, yet computer time awaits. I miss the rain.
June 3, 2025 at 6:17 AM
Reposted by Melissa Whitman
heyrhododendron.bsky.social
Rhododendron Research Network
Virtual International Convention
May 29-30 2025

Rockin' Around the Clock
Visit the world's major Rhododendron biodiversity regions

Physiology, horticulture, ecology, evolution, conservation

For a general audience

Registration
medeiroslab.com/2025-virtual...
🧪🍁🌺🌱🌏🌐🌿
Convention Logo for "Rhododendron Research Network Rockin' Around the Clock May 29th-30th, 2025". The image shows a black and white clock with colorful Rhododendron flowers at 12, 3, 6 and 9 representing the major clades of Rhododendron. At twelve we see a large elepidote truss with 8 hot pink flowers and dark red flare, at 3 we see a vireya truss, four yellow tubular flowers with a flared orange throat. At 6 we have a pentanthera, or deciduous azalea truss, two large star-shaped red-orange flowers, behind them are the unopened flowers which are shaped like a claw pointing toward the sky. Last at 9 is the Rhododendron clade, or Lepidotes. Five large Star shaped flowers with lavender petals and hot pink sitgma and stamen
May 15, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Reposted by Melissa Whitman
heyrhododendron.bsky.social
2025 Rhododendron Virtual Convention
NORTH AMERICA SESSION ​
May 29th 9am-3:30pm EDT​
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Dr. Melissa Whitman​
Investigation of flower characteristics and pollinator guilds across elevational and longitudinal gradients​
#PlantBiology 🌏🧪🌱🍁🌺🌐
Register at medeiroslab.com/2025-virtual...
A woman with brown hair wearing glasses smiles in front of a wall of purple rhododendron blooms Rhododendron versteegii, a tropical epiphytic Rhododendron of Section Schistanthe, also known as Vireyas. Two small flowers are photographed at close range, they are pendent bell shaped flowers, with long red throats and a flare at the bottom accented by patches of bright yellow
April 18, 2025 at 12:30 PM
mwhitman-phd.bsky.social
Thus far I do not like the 2025 bingo card of stupid events.
April 5, 2025 at 8:33 AM
Reposted by Melissa Whitman
gezam.bsky.social
@iite-ecotheory.bsky.social

📆Join us next Tuesday for our next free online seminar: Uli Brose (iDiv) will present:

⭐The internet of nature: integrating food webs with information flow⭐

Zoom link: iite.info/seminar/
Global Times: www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/f...

See you there!
🧪,🌍,#ecoevo
Theoretical Ecology Webinar • International Initiative for Theoretical Ecology
We operate an international seminar series on Theoretical Ecology via Zoom since September, 2020. With some exceptions, the hour-long events are held on every other Tuesday at 9 a.m. Pacific […]
iite.info
March 29, 2025 at 4:58 AM
Reposted by Melissa Whitman
gbif.org
🎥 Better than the original: New SQL-based service enables download of occurrence data cube

GBIF has enabled an easy-to-use service for creating and downloading species occurrence cubes based on GBIF-mediated data.

Collaborators: @b-cubed.eu led by @inbo.be

gbif.link/data-cubes
green graphic with various biological drawings
March 26, 2025 at 9:00 AM
mwhitman-phd.bsky.social
Another hOUwie pondering @omearabrian.bsky.social... when choosing factors, does it matter if there is strong vs weak phylogenetic signal (Pagel's lambda or Blomberg's k)? My continuous factor has a lambda close to zero, would this cause problems? The signal for the discrete character is unknown/TBD
March 26, 2025 at 10:58 PM
Reposted by Melissa Whitman
plantpollinator.bsky.social
Really excited to say that my lab's paper on color transitions in Mimulus sect. Erythranthe is out! We found that some traits demonstrate evolutionary convergence in phenotype & genotype, while others are divergent, & that - as Bob Vickery found - bees prefer yellow!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Within-species floral evolution reveals convergence in adaptive walks during incipient pollinator shift - Nature Communications
During evolution, how adaptive walks cross fitness valleys remains unclear. This integrative study on monkeyflowers reveals that convergence in large steps (floral color and gene expression) drives a ...
www.nature.com
March 20, 2025 at 7:33 AM
Reposted by Melissa Whitman
natplants.nature.com
The March issue is now fully online:
www.nature.com/nplants/volu...
An orchid on the cover of the March issue of Nature Plants.
March 24, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Reposted by Melissa Whitman
botsocamerica.bsky.social
Global patterns in community-scale #leaf mass per area distributions of extant woody non-monocot #angiosperms and their utility in the #fossil record

New #AJB research by Alexander Lowe, Dana Royer, Daniel Wieczynski et al.

doi.org/10.1002/ajb2... @stromberglab.bsky.social #botany #plantscience
Four-part graphic showing leaf dry mass per area (LMA) central moments among differing climate types.
March 24, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by Melissa Whitman
forestplots.bsky.social
The botanist Al Gentry changed tropical ecology and helped create the global science of today.

This new article celebrates Gentry's unique innovations, achievements and lasting influence, more than 30 years after his untimely death.
rainfor.org/wp-content/u...
annals.mobot.org/index.php/an...
March 24, 2025 at 2:14 PM
mwhitman-phd.bsky.social
Yet another #hOUwie question @omearabrian.bsky.social does the program work via changing or reconstructing the branching of the tree (but keeping discrete tips constant) or is it the other way around (keep the tree constant but shuffle the discrete tips)?
March 24, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Reposted by Melissa Whitman
easterncoyote.bsky.social
Werifesteria Old English (v.) to wander longingly through the forest in search of mystery
March 24, 2025 at 3:16 AM
Reposted by Melissa Whitman
wildwoods.bsky.social
Old-growth, fire-resistant Douglas-firs marked for logging as part of the Paul's Payoff timber sale, on the BLM's Medford District (sw Oregon). Square this w/the agency's official statement that "they don't log old-growth"...?
March 16, 2025 at 5:46 AM
Reposted by Melissa Whitman
dlnarango.bsky.social
Spring is here!
(Well some places not quite VT)

We’re getting 2025 observations for our Pollinator Interactions on Plants project!

We know much more about herbaceous flowers than we do tree flowers but trees are incredible floral resources! Watch your trees and submit data to help us learn more!
Honey bee on red maple flowers
March 15, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Reposted by Melissa Whitman
davidho.bsky.social
The people who produce this Mauna Loa atmospheric CO₂ record have a lab in Hilo, Hawaiʻi, about 50 miles (80 km) from the observatory. By closing the lab, it'll be really difficult to maintain the CO₂ observations.
A line graph showing atmospheric CO2 levels at Mauna Loa Observatory from 1955 to 2025. The y-axis represents CO2 mole fraction in parts per million (ppm), ranging from 320 to 420 ppm, while the x-axis is years.
March 14, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Reposted by Melissa Whitman
seanmichaletz.bsky.social
Fully funded PhD in Plant Ecophysiology at UBC in Vancouver 🍁! Possible topics include leaf physiology, thermal ecology, microclimates, scaling, tree physiology, forest ecology & more. Start Jan/May/Sept 2026. michaletzlab.org
Please share!
#PlantEcoPhys #Ecology #Botany #PhDposition #GradSchool
March 13, 2025 at 9:04 PM
mwhitman-phd.bsky.social
I am wrapping my head around how hOUwie works, is it essentially Pagel's test for cor. evolution but with three traits (two discrete traits plus one continuous one)? Does it also differ based on added bells and whistles (e.g. allowing for differences in rate of evolution)? @omearabrian.bsky.social
March 13, 2025 at 10:09 PM