Tim Bonebrake
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bonebraking.bsky.social
Tim Bonebrake
@bonebraking.bsky.social
Professor at HKU - Director of the School of Biol Sci - Ecologist. Conservation Biologist. Environmental Scientist.
enjoying #entsoc2025
November 10, 2025 at 8:00 PM
New paper led by Chester out today in Sci of Nature link.springer.com/article/10.1... counter to our predictions, experimental light in forest did not affect spider growth over time... but light did increase herbivory rates
October 14, 2025 at 11:17 PM
New paper out in Evolutionary Ecology by Michel Dongmo - habitat and plasticity of thermal tolerance in tropical Bicyclus butterflies - thrilled to see it out, a lot of interesting results packed into this one

link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Habitat effects on local adaptation and plasticity of thermal tolerance across life stages in tropical Bicyclus butterflies - Evolutionary Ecology
Climate change impacts on ectotherms will be a consequence of an interplay between species-specific evolutionary effects, population-level local adaptation, and developmental or plastic effects in individuals. While variation in thermal tolerance resulting from species physiological differences and local adaptation are well researched, how variation in plasticity across habitats might impact vulnerability to climate change remains poorly understood. We studied microhabitat (understory vs. open) distributions and the plasticity in thermal tolerance of four Bicyclus butterfly species across forest and ecotone (savanna-forest transition zone) habitats in Cameroon. For each species, we performed common garden experiments at two stable temperature regimes (20 and 30 °C) and quantified larval and adult thermal tolerance. We found clear differences in distributions across species such that two species were more associated with open microhabitats (B. dorothea and B. vulgaris) while two others were more understory associated (B. sanaos and B. sandace), with variation across seasons and habitats (forest vs. ecotone). Three species exhibited higher plasticity in critical thermal maximum (CTmax) in the ecotone relative to the forest indicating the importance of the interaction between habitat and developmental temperatures in influencing thermal tolerance. Microhabitat distributions were also consistent with trends in thermal tolerance; the most understory-associated species had both the lowest average CTmax and lowest plasticity in CTmax in the ecotone. Our findings suggest that microclimate and thermal adaptation shape plastic responses to thermal tolerance, and these factors will likely result in heterogenous responses to climatic change for tropical insects.
link.springer.com
October 13, 2025 at 9:14 AM
A mini review/perspective (with Eugene) on Guilbault et al. 2025 in @animalecology.bsky.social - Quantifying drivers of biodiversity change through increasing data availability and improved analytical frameworks besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Quantifying drivers of biodiversity change through increasing data availability and improved analytical frameworks
This research highlight introduces the analytical framework developed by Guilbault et al. (2025). Their framework employs a joint species distribution model to project species' distributions, followe...
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
September 11, 2025 at 10:40 PM
Reposted by Tim Bonebrake
VIDEO: Bird call contest seeks to boost conservation awareness in Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong Bird Watching Society holds its first-ever bird call contest with people taking to the stage to mimic the calls of birds including the koel, brown fish owl, and Asian barred owlet
August 25, 2025 at 5:36 AM
Reposted by Tim Bonebrake
New article out today in Nature - intensified El Niño events under climate change appear to be chipping away at tropical forest arthropod diversity.

This is already leading to substantial losses in arthropod function in primary forests across the tropics.

rdcu.be/ezAxP
Stronger El Niños reduce tropical forest arthropod diversity and function
Nature - Time-series data from tropical forests tracking weather and declines in arthropod diversity and function show that fluctuations in species were largely dependent on their El Niño...
rdcu.be
August 6, 2025 at 6:06 PM
New in @jappliedecology.bsky.social A multi-source remote sensing approach to identify and predict delayed succession in human-dominated tropical landscapes doi.org/10.1111/1365...
A multi‐source remote sensing approach to identify and predict delayed succession in human‐dominated tropical landscapes
Our study challenges the view that fire prevention alone is sufficient for restoring degraded landscapes. We show successful natural regeneration hinges on nearby remnant woodlands acting as crucial ....
doi.org
July 12, 2025 at 2:09 AM
New in Scientific Data - Spatial occurrence records and distributions of tropical Asian butterflies www.nature.com/articles/s41... collab w/ many great colleagues, led by Eugene and Emily… optimistic that the data will lead to concrete conservation actions for Asian butterflies
Spatial occurrence records and distributions of tropical Asian butterflies - Scientific Data
Scientific Data - Spatial occurrence records and distributions of tropical Asian butterflies
www.nature.com
June 14, 2025 at 12:48 AM
Reposted by Tim Bonebrake
Really happy to announce that the updated version of BioTIME is out!!🚨 This is the largest #database of #biodiversity #timeseries - now with 708 studies and >56 thousand species from across the planet!🦊🐀🐦🐊🐟🐙🦋🐞🌲🍀
& over 400 co-authors sharing their data🤩🤩
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
BioTIME 2.0: Expanding and Improving a Database of Biodiversity Time Series
Motivation Here, we make available a second version of the BioTIME database, which compiles records of abundance estimates for species in sample events of ecological assemblages through time. The up...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
May 15, 2025 at 12:16 PM
New in @animalecology.bsky.social - Butterflies respond to habitat disturbance in tropical forests through activity shifts - happy to see this one out, wonderful work led by Shuang and Wenda besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Butterflies respond to habitat disturbance in tropical forests through activity shifts
This study reveals how tropical butterflies exhibit activity shifts in response to habitat disturbance, adjusting flight activity patterns to buffer against temperature changes, but not higher illumi....
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
May 10, 2025 at 2:41 AM
As a native Angeleno, these fires are so tragic (though I’m fortunate not to have been impacted directly yet). Been reflecting on Los Angeles Against the Mountains by John McPhee (written 35 years ago) www.newyorker.com/magazine/198...
Los Angeles Against the Mountains
John McPhee’s 1988 report about life in the San Gabriel Mountains, in northern Los Angeles County, which were disintegrating into rock porridge at a rate that was among the fastest in the world.
www.newyorker.com
January 12, 2025 at 12:11 AM
Reposted by Tim Bonebrake
The insanity of being a fire ecologist in the epicenter of a major fire event, bags packed and ready to evacuate, watching active fire from my window, while taking media requests and explaining to the public, for the 100,000th time how climate change is largely responsible for this
January 8, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Reposted by Tim Bonebrake
Land-use change reduces bee diversity at local scales, but the impacts of agriculture and urbanisation differ at regional scales. Agriculture has more negative effects overall. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... 🧪 🌏 🌐
January 6, 2025 at 10:25 AM
Some excitement at the end of the year here in our Hong Kong butterfly work. We (Fung!) managed to capture a tagged Parantica sita that had flown over 3000 km (in more than 120 days) from Japan. A new record for the impressive species hku.hk/press/news_d...
January 2, 2025 at 11:55 AM
good songs to mop to when the lab floods - Flood (Jars of Clay), You Part the Waters (Cake), Texas Flood (Stevie Ray Vaughan), When the Levee Breaks (Led Zeppelin), Black Water (Doobie Brothers)
December 31, 2024 at 1:59 AM
now out in Biological Reviews - Wildlife trade investigations benefit from multivariate stable isotope analyses - a comprehensive guide led by Tracey… happy to see this out! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Wildlife trade investigations benefit from multivariate stable isotope analyses
The investigation of wildlife trade and crime has benefitted from advances in technology and scientific development in a variety of fields. Stable isotope analysis (SIA) represents one rapidly develo...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
December 27, 2024 at 11:06 PM
Here’s my annual lab in review for 2024 featuring papers in BMC Biology, Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, Remote Sensing in Eco & Cons tropicalconslab.com/team/2024
2024 — Global Change and Tropical Conservation
(and review)
tropicalconslab.com
December 26, 2024 at 5:22 AM
strange creature from the New Territories…
December 4, 2024 at 12:10 AM
good week for wildlife on the HKU campus
November 28, 2024 at 11:03 PM
new paper - Serological evidence of sarbecovirus exposure along Sunda pangolin trafficking pathways link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Serological evidence of sarbecovirus exposure along Sunda pangolin trafficking pathways - BMC Biology
Background Early in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, Sunda pangolins (Manis javanica) involved in the illegal wildlife trade in mainland China were identified as hosts of severe acute...
link.springer.com
November 26, 2024 at 10:39 PM
woke up searching my phone for photos of the cobra I saw and photographed during my dream… couldn’t find them
November 22, 2024 at 11:23 PM
winter has arrived in HK! (finally) here’s HKU main bldg (plus a yellow crested cockatoo flying in front of it) on this fine cool day
November 19, 2024 at 9:57 AM
Spent the day chasing butterflies (on Lantau, in Hong Kong). It was brilliant.
November 12, 2024 at 11:49 AM