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alex-ecology.bsky.social
Alex Milcu
@alex-ecology.bsky.social
410 followers 100 following 12 posts
Ecologist studying the impact of global changes on ecosystems. Views are my own.
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Reposted by Alex Milcu
ecotron-cnrs.bsky.social
🚨 #Ozone & bumblebees: what's the impact?
The #Mesocosms platform we are currently exploring how #airpollution shapes #pollinator physiology & behavior 🐝🌿Part of the collaborative #ANR #PolluCom project led by @magproffit.bsky.social @cnrsoccitanieest.bsky.social @anaeefrance.bsky.social #ecotron
July 28, 2025 at 8:10 AM
Reposted by Alex Milcu
ecotron-cnrs.bsky.social
🔬 New #Ecotron article just published in SBB! Nesting #microcosms inside #mesocosms reveal how #FunctionalDiversity of macrodetritivores affects litter mass loss. 🍂🪱 Spoiler: it matters!
👉 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

@cnrsecologie.bsky.social & the #Ecotron team!

#Biodiversity
July 21, 2025 at 8:03 AM
Reposted by Alex Milcu
ecotron-cnrs.bsky.social
#Microcosms and #Mesocosms experimental platforms completely taken over by the #ANR Pollucom project (@magproffit.bsky.social and her team from CNRS CEFE) studying #ozone effects on plant–pollinator interactions 🌼🐝 They’ve hijacked our meeting room too! Must be the AC 😅 @ecotron-cnrs.bsky.social
July 4, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Reposted by Alex Milcu
ecotron-cnrs.bsky.social
Major milestone @ecotron-cnrs.bsky.social: #lysimeters installed in the Macrocosms experimental platform for the upcoming #biochar & #basalt for #ERW. Huge thanks to the team for the massive effort!

Interested in collaborating? Get in touch! @anaeeeric.bsky.social @anaeefrance.bsky.social
July 2, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Reposted by Alex Milcu
ecotron-cnrs.bsky.social
Excited to share the first article from the #Ecotron 's #Mesocosms platform! 🎉 Based on a 4+ year experiment manipulating soil macrofauna diversity in large #lysimeters under #drought. #Macrofauna matters!

Huge thanks to @UFZ_de & @CEFE_CNRS. More coming soon!

🔗 www.frontiersin.org/journals/mic...
June 24, 2025 at 8:51 AM
Reposted by Alex Milcu
anaeeeric.bsky.social
Curious about how we can boost your climate change-research? 💪
Never heard of Research Infrastructures and want to know more? 🌎
Want to know how to apply through our open call? (DL October 2025) 🗓️
Then don't miss our webinar on exactly this, friday the 13th!

Register here: lnkd.in/e86K89bD
June 10, 2025 at 8:42 AM
alex-ecology.bsky.social
Had a great time at the Enhanced Rock Weathering conference in Antwerp #ERW25! Industry interest is accelerating faster than the science. Our latest study shows promising results: doi.org/10.1016/j.ap... – And soon a new experiment in the #Ecotron #macrocosms, even better suited for this challenge.
June 6, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Reposted by Alex Milcu
smartenwinter.bsky.social
There are great Global Ecology Starter Packs go.bsky.app/F86HYqj organised by @nmouquet.bsky.social

You can DM @global-ecology.bsky.social to join the Vol_3 of the starter pack
May 28, 2025 at 3:00 PM
alex-ecology.bsky.social
For the sake of being able to do our jobs as researchers, can we please stop adding more admin burden on researchers! A ‪@france.theconversation.com piece about the need for time to actually....think.

Des enseignants-chercheurs à la recherche du temps perdu: theconversation.com/des-enseigna...
Des enseignants-chercheurs à la recherche du temps perdu : regard sur le malaise universitaire
Comment les enseignants-chercheurs vivent-ils leur métier aujourd’hui ? Extraits d’une grande enquête sur le malaise universitaire.
theconversation.com
May 27, 2025 at 11:08 AM
Reposted by Alex Milcu
ecotron-cnrs.bsky.social
🎉🎉🎉Congrats to the Montpellier #ecotron @ecotron-cnrs.bsky.social (@clementpiel.bsky.social, Joana Sauze, Sébastien Devidal & @alex-ecology.bsky.social) and @lsce-ipsl.bsky.social for this new article describing how to measure oxygen fractionation in close systems.

gi.copernicus.org/articles/14/...
A multiplexing system for quantifying oxygen fractionation factors in closed chambers
Abstract. The study of isotopic ratios of atmospheric oxygen in fossilized air trapped in ice core bubbles provides information on variations in the hydrological cycle at low latitudes and productivit...
gi.copernicus.org
May 9, 2025 at 3:12 PM
alex-ecology.bsky.social
#egu25 lunch break. Looking forward to the #ecotron and #lysimeter poster session this afternoon meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU25/sessio...
April 28, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Reposted by Alex Milcu
ftmaestre.bsky.social
A new 🌎 synthesis by Li. et al. shows that plant diversity and carbon storage are positively linked, but the relationship is often weak—stronger in grasslands and shaped by climate factors onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
The Universal but Weak Positive Correlation Between Plant Diversity and Carbon Storage: Evidence From a Global Synthetic Analysis
Research has yielded conflicting quantitative conclusions regarding the relationship between plant diversity and carbon storage, leaving the nature of this correlation at the global scale unresolved....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
April 27, 2025 at 8:42 AM
alex-ecology.bsky.social
A few more days to apply for this #postdoc opportunity @ecotron-cnrs.bsky.social.
April 5, 2025 at 7:50 AM
Reposted by Alex Milcu
mebconf.bsky.social
We are very happy to announce that the next Microclimate Ecology & Biogeography (MEB) conference will happen in Montpellier (FRANCE), 1 - 5 June 2026 ☀️
meb-network.com/meb-2026/
Microclimate scientists: save the date in your agenda!!
March 28, 2025 at 2:13 PM
Reposted by Alex Milcu
ecotron-cnrs.bsky.social
📢 #Postdoc Opportunity! 🌱🔬
Join an #Ecotron project on soil #carbon sequestration @ecotron-cnrs.bsky.social

🔗 Apply here: emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U...

📍 Work with @alex-ecology.bsky.social & @cbiogeo.bsky.social

📢 Please share!

#Soil #Biochar #Weathering #AcademicJobs #JobOffer #CarbonScience
March 18, 2025 at 2:55 PM
alex-ecology.bsky.social
Intriguing debate between classical predictive and structural causal modelling. Always thought the later is a wee bit overrated. Without strong a priori hypotheses, both can lead us straight into the land of spurious correlations BS.
frodsan.bsky.social Francisco Rodriguez-Sanchez @frodsan.bsky.social · Mar 13
New #statistics #ecopubs @esajournals.bsky.social:

Predictive models are indeed useful for causal inference doi.org/10.1002/ecy....

Sounds like a response to 'Predictive models aren't for causal inference' doi.org/10.1111/ele....
The subject of investigating causation in ecology has been widely discussed in recent years, especially by advocates of a structural causal model (SCM) approach. Some of these advocates have criticized the use of predictive models and model selection for drawing inferences about causation. We argue that the comparison of model-based predictions with observations is a key step in hypothetico-deductive (H-D) science and remains a valid approach for assessing causation. We draw a distinction between two approaches to inference based on predictive modeling. The first approach is not guided by causal hypotheses and focuses on the relationship between a (typically) single response variable and a potentially large number of covariates. We agree that this approach does not yield useful inferences about causation and is primarily useful for hypothesis generation. The second approach follows a H-D framework and is guided by specific hypotheses about causal relationships. We believe that this has been, and continues to be, a useful approach to causal inference. Here, we first define different kinds of causation, arguing that a “probability-raisers-of-processes” definition is especially appropriate for many ecological systems. We outline different scientific “designs” for generating the observations used to investigate causation. We briefly outline some relevant components of the SCM and H-D approaches to investigating causation, emphasizing a H-D approach that focuses on modeling causal effects on vital rate (e.g., rates of survival, recruitment, local extinction, colonization) parameters underlying system dynamics. We consider criticisms of predictive modeling leveled by some SCM proponents and provide two example analyses of ecological systems that use predictive modeling and avoid these criticisms. We conclude that predictive models have been, and can continue to be, useful for providing inferences about causation.
March 14, 2025 at 11:42 AM
alex-ecology.bsky.social
Happy to help cover pioneering research for the French journal @pourlascience.bsky.social (www.pourlascience.fr) ! P. B. Reich et al.'s 24-year #Nature study (2024) shows high #CO₂ first dampens then amplifies N-induced #biodiversity loss — alarming findings!

www.pourlascience.fr/sd/environne...
La hausse du dioxyde de carbone et de l’azote fait baisser la biodiversité végétale
L’augmentation du CO2 favorise certaines plantes au détriment d’autres, réduisant la diversité des prairies et la résilience des écosystèmes.
www.pourlascience.fr
March 11, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Reposted by Alex Milcu
ecotron-cnrs.bsky.social
#Montpellier #Ecotron staff stood up for #science!

#StandUpForScience
guillaumebo6.bsky.social Guillaume Bossis @guillaumebo6.bsky.social · Mar 7
#StandUpForScience Montpellier, France @standupforscifr.bsky.social @standupforscience.bsky.social
March 7, 2025 at 2:27 PM
Reposted by Alex Milcu
guillaumebo6.bsky.social
#StandUpForScience Montpellier, France @standupforscifr.bsky.social @standupforscience.bsky.social
March 7, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Reposted by Alex Milcu
ecotron-cnrs.bsky.social
📣Exciting news! The Visiting Fellowship Program at the University of Montpellier is now open. Ready for a 3-6‑month academic adventure at the Ecotron🌱? DM us to learn more and apply! #VisitingFellow #UMontpellier #Ecotron

makit.edu.umontpellier.fr/en/calls-for...
March 7, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Reposted by Alex Milcu
adamkinzinger.substack.com
March 1, 2025 at 2:43 AM
alex-ecology.bsky.social
Our #Biodiversa -funded #SoilForEurope preprint is now available—showing how trees shape the soil food web & #multifunctionality. 🌱🌳

Huge congrats to Ludovic Henneron for his incredible effort! Currently under consideration in...we’ll keep that a secret for now. 😉

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Resource economics of tree communities control soil food web multifunctionality in European forests
Plants affect terrestrial ecosystem functioning by performing the primary production that energetically sustains heterotrophic organisms, and by shaping the microenvironment. However, the influence of...
www.biorxiv.org
February 26, 2025 at 11:57 AM
Reposted by Alex Milcu
manusaunders.bsky.social
*New paper* Denialism campaigns are growing in attempts to discredit science, scientists, and the scientific process generally. Biodiversity loss denial is a new phenomenon that needs our attention.
-With @alexanderlees.bsky.social + Eliza Grames!
#CommSky 🧪🌏 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Figure 2. Measuring changes in insect biodiversity (centre column 'Metrics' and 'Trends') can be achieved by focusing on drivers that directly or indirectly impact insect biodiversity metrics and trends (left column 'Drivers of Change'). Where data on insect populations specifically are unavailable, data from other species and ecological processes can provide inferential support for changes in insect biodiversity (right column 'Indicators of Change').
February 16, 2025 at 10:10 AM
Reposted by Alex Milcu
ecotron-cnrs.bsky.social
📣Teaming up with @cbiogeo.bsky.social for a #Macrocosms experiment on algae-based #biochar & #basalt for enhanced weathering in a realistic #controlled-environment setup. #ecotron @anaeefrance.bsky.social @cnrsoccitanieest.bsky.social

Lysimeters ready!

Reach out if you have ideas to collaborate!
February 10, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Reposted by Alex Milcu
remybeugnon.bsky.social
*Ten practical guidelines for microclimate research in terrestrial ecosystems*

I am so glad to share our latest paper in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social led by @pieterdefrenne.bsky.social and the @mebnetwork.bsky.social.

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Ten practical guidelines for microclimate research in terrestrial ecosystems
Most biodiversity dynamics and ecosystem processes on land take place in microclimates that are decoupled from the climate as measured by standardised weather stations in open, unshaded locations....
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
December 17, 2024 at 8:57 AM