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Reposted by Sara Gamboa

Laura Comellas @lauracomellas.bsky.social · 3d

Naixement d'eruga de Charaxes jasius. 30 minuts comprimits a menys de 2

Reposted by Sara Gamboa

Frames @oxinabox.bsky.social · 4d

as a girl with a PhD in natural language processing and machine learning it's actually offensive to me when you say "we don't know how LLMs work so they might be conscious"

I didn't spend 10 years in mines of academia to be told ignorance is morally equal knowledge.

We know exactly how LLMs work.

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Sara Gamboa @paleobicha.bsky.social · 5d

Thrilled that our paper “The division of food space among mammalian species on biomes” has been selected as October’s Editor’s Choice in @ecography.bsky.social ! 📰✨👇 sl1nk.com/AG7BC

Huge thanks to Rafa Barrientos for the pic (I mean, Rafa is the photographer, not the stunning monkey 🐒)

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Reposted by Sara Gamboa

Roberto Rozzi @robertorozzi.bsky.social · 6d

Thrilled to welcome @paleobicha.bsky.social to the ZNS @unihalle.bsky.social! Excited for our collaboration 🦋🏝

Sara Gamboa @paleobicha.bsky.social · 6d

Excited to announce that I’m joining the Halle (Saale) [email protected], where I’ll be working on butterfly ecology and evolution with the brilliant @robertorozzi.bsky.social, thanks to a @fundacionareces.bsky.social fellowship!

Already covered in gifts on my first day 🎁🦋

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Sara Gamboa @paleobicha.bsky.social · 6d

Excited to announce that I’m joining the Halle (Saale) [email protected], where I’ll be working on butterfly ecology and evolution with the brilliant @robertorozzi.bsky.social, thanks to a @fundacionareces.bsky.social fellowship!

Already covered in gifts on my first day 🎁🦋

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Reposted by Sara Gamboa

Ecography @ecography.bsky.social · 21d

The division of food space among mammalian species on biomes vist.ly/4746f #Macroecology #Specialista #Diet

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Reposted by Sara Gamboa

Luis Collantes @luiscollantes.bsky.social · Jul 14

Peng et al. - Descending from trees: a Cretaceous winged ice-crawler illuminates the ecological shift and origin of Grylloblattidae

doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

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Sara Gamboa @paleobicha.bsky.social · Jul 10

Read the full paper here, open access:
🔗 doi.org/10.1002/ecog...
By Sara Gamboa, Sofía Galván, @marsobral.bsky.social
@hdezfdez.bsky.social & @saravarela.bsky.social

📊 Over 3600 mammal species
🌍 10 global biomes
🍽️ A global buffet.

#Macroecology #FunctionalEcology #Mammals #TrophicEcology

The division of food space among mammalian species on biomes

Understanding how species' ecological partitioning functions across biomes is fundamental to macroecology and conservation biology. Here, we examine the global distribution of dietary strategies in t...

doi.org

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Sara Gamboa @paleobicha.bsky.social · Jul 10

If we care about conserving function, not just species, we need to know:

📌Who’s irreplaceable?
⛓️Who’s holding the structure together?
🧩And what happens when environments shift faster than species can move?
This is what functional ecology must answer.

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Sara Gamboa @paleobicha.bsky.social · Jul 10

In the end, our study shows this:

Species don’t just divide the world by where they live.
They divide it by what they eat, and how they access that food over time and space.

Ecological roles aren’t just about traits.
They’re about context.

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Sara Gamboa @paleobicha.bsky.social · Jul 10

Extreme generalists, species found in more than 4 biomes, often had narrower, carnivorous or insectivorous diets

It's not broad omnivory. It’s mobile predation.
A different kind of generalism. 🕷️🐭

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Sara Gamboa @paleobicha.bsky.social · Jul 10

Our results show that many specialists are vulnerable, but also somewhat replaceable.
Meanwhile, moderate generalists are the real keystones.

They fill the space, link ecosystems, and stabilize food webs.
They’re not flashy, but they hold the fort.

a cartoon character with horns and a makeagif.com url

ALT: a cartoon character with horns and a makeagif.com url

media.tenor.com

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Sara Gamboa @paleobicha.bsky.social · Jul 10

🧩 Functional redundancy matters.
If many species do similar things, ecosystems are buffered. If one is lost, another can take its place.

That redundancy is a kind of ecological insurance.
🛟🛠️

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Sara Gamboa @paleobicha.bsky.social · Jul 10

In productive biomes like rainforests, there’s space for everyone. Specialists and generalists alike, all coexisting in dense, redundant networks.

But in harsher biomes, the story changes.
Specialists shrink. Generalists step in.
And trophic diversity becomes fragile.

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Sara Gamboa @paleobicha.bsky.social · Jul 10

Specialists?
They often occupy dietary roles already covered by generalists.

Yes, a few have truly unique diets—ecological “weirdos” with no substitutes.

But most specialists are nested within generalist space.
Their diets are rarer, but not necessarily novel.

a blue beetle is crawling on a tree branch .

ALT: a blue beetle is crawling on a tree branch .

media.tenor.com

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Sara Gamboa @paleobicha.bsky.social · Jul 10

The answer: generalists dominate.
Especially moderate generalists.
They take up most of the trophic space in every biome, even in extreme environments like tundra or taiga. ❄️
They're the flexible backbone of global mammal communities.

alice from alice in wonderland is reaching for a box that says " eat me "

ALT: alice from alice in wonderland is reaching for a box that says " eat me "

media.tenor.com

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Sara Gamboa @paleobicha.bsky.social · Jul 10

We built a multivariate map of diet space—what we call the “trophic niche”—for all these species.
Then we projected it across ten global biomes:
from lush tropical forests to frozen tundra.
How full is the dietary space in each biome?
And who’s filling it?

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Sara Gamboa @paleobicha.bsky.social · Jul 10

A biome specialist must find everything it needs in one type of ecosystem.
Rain or drought. Summer or winter☀️🌩️❄️.
If resources run out, there’s nowhere else to go.
Generalists, by contrast, can follow the seasons or shift habitats.
More options, more resilience. 🌍

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Sara Gamboa @paleobicha.bsky.social · Jul 10

So we grouped mammals based on biome specialization:
🔴 Specialists – live in only one biome
🟡 Moderate generalists – live in 2–4 biomes
🔵 Extreme generalists – 5 or more
This isn’t about dietary generalism.
A species can have a narrow diet and still thrive in many environments

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Sara Gamboa @paleobicha.bsky.social · Jul 10

Because eating fruit in a rainforest🌿🌺 is not the same as eating fruit in a desert 🌵, especially when your environment only offers food part of the year 🥝🍇.

a monkey is standing next to a bowl of fruit .

ALT: a monkey is standing next to a bowl of fruit .

media.tenor.com

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Sara Gamboa @paleobicha.bsky.social · Jul 10

We looked at ~3,600 terrestrial mammals 🐒🦫🦒.
And we didn’t classify them by what they eat.
We first asked: how many biomes does each species live in?

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Sara Gamboa @paleobicha.bsky.social · Jul 10

In our new paper, we asked:

Who eats what — and where — across the world’s biomes?
How does being a specialist or a generalist affect that?
And what that means for biodiversity?
🔍🦓🌍

nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

The division of food space among mammalian species on biomes

Understanding how species' ecological partitioning functions across biomes is fundamental to macroecology and conservation biology. Here, we examine the global distribution of dietary strategies in t...

nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Sara Gamboa @paleobicha.bsky.social · Jul 10

ince then, macroecology has mapped thousands of global patterns:
🌿 species richness
🐋 body size
🌡️ climate tolerance

But one question has remained surprisingly underexplored:

How do mammals divide up the global buffet?

a cartoon rat is holding a sandwich and a piece of fruit

ALT: a cartoon rat is holding a sandwich and a piece of fruit

media.tenor.com

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Sara Gamboa @paleobicha.bsky.social · Jul 10

🌍 What structures life on Earth?
In the 1980s, Brown and Maurer laid the foundations of macroecology with a simple, powerful idea:
space, time… and FOOD.

Where food is, how it's distributed, and who gets access to it.

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Reposted by Sara Gamboa

Manuel Hernández Fernández @hdezfdez.bsky.social · Jul 10

The division of food space among mammalian species on biomes
nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
by @paleobicha.bsky.social‬ ‪et al.

The division of food space among mammalian species on biomes

Understanding how species' ecological partitioning functions across biomes is fundamental to macroecology and conservation biology. Here, we examine the global distribution of dietary strategies in t...

nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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