RHEV Helsinki strains clustered together with strains from South Korea and Spain, but polytomous phylogenetic trees and large branch lengths suggest lack of sampling. Our genotype RHEV-C1 has been reported to cause mild liver dysfunction with human case reports from Hong Kong, Spain, and France.

The research might be "eclectic disciplinary perspectives", but as Riikka aptly summarizes: "Urban stigmatisation and marginalisation are multispecies processes that emerge with place-making and have consequences for all the multispecies cohabitants of the city."
(5/5)

Waste, humans, rats - junk food, shopping centers, drunk people. "Well, this just happens to be a place where people randomly poop around, business as usual."

Belonging and place-making are multispecies phenomena, and urban is not only human, but more-than-human.
(4/5)

With this invisible rat presence, we examined urban stigmatisation and belonging as examples of societal phenomena which can be rethought as multispecies. They are very territorial in scope, and place-making emerged as a fruitful concept to understand how multispecies urban is formed.
(3/5)

We (as in the ragtag bunch of researchers in CitiRats project) went out to look for rats with lower secondary-school students and we did not see any rats, but we did felt their hidden presence. They were present in stories, stereotypes, memories, and athmospheres.
(2/5)

Things that I learn while doing research: Instagram is just as cut-throat to street plants as to humans.

We had a discussion why pavement plants might be underwhelming in authentic context. Nienke mentioned that it is difficult to take a good photo of pavement plant as you need to pick out the cigarette butts and other trash, figure out the light, find the least scrappy individual and so on.

The finding that I found most intriguing: Those people who did not contribute data and just followed Stoepplantjes on social media perceived pavement plants more positively than those who contributed data.

So, I guess, seeing plants in the wild is less exciting than seeing them in Instagram!

Anna is doing her PhD on the process of how biodiversity research is translated into public understanding and this is a crucial first piece - next stop is to figure out how journalists do decisions on writing about biodiversity.
(5/5)

I was surprised there is so little research on biodiversity-related science communication. While there are many studies on individual cases/species (looking at you, wolves!), the big picture lacks. Especially considering the sheer importance of the sixth mass extinction.
(4/5)

Previous research suggests that this emphasis on causes of biodiversity loss and framing of external over internal solutions could make biodiversity loss less relevant for the readers.
(3/5)

Biodiversity loss is framed in the media through causes, especially economic, whereas the effects are less often presented. There is more emphasis on external solutions, such as economic or political, whereas internal solutions, such as societal solutions are rarer.
(2/5)