It’s time to reclaim space for natural history and basic science.
It’s time to invest money, resources, and attention in them

🧡 Our thanks go to the field naturalists, collectors, taxonomists, and behind-the-scenes experts who make this work possible — often with little recognition

These studies show what we’re missing.

🕷️ Spiders shape invertebrate communities as top predators.
🦟 Flies act as vectors, ectoparasites, prey, or pollinators.

Without knowing what’s there, where it lives, or how common it is, our ecological understanding has major blind spots.

In a world of global change, biodiversity loss, and shifting ecosystems, ecological and natural history studies are essential.

Take conservation, for example:
🛑 You can’t protect what you don’t know exists.

Science has advanced enormously, yet gaps in some taxa and regions remain astonishing.

One major problem in today’s scientific system is that it increasingly rewards highly elaborate experimental studies — especially those with immediate applications.

This trend sidelines basic science, especially natural history.

👉 But we need basic science as the foundation for it all.

Our study highlights:

🔹 The physiological (growth and oxidative stress) costs of immunity

🔹 The importance of individual condition (nestling body mass within brood)

🔹 The need to track growth dynamics, not just end points

💥 Results:

➡️ LPS chicks showed no growth in the first 6h

➡️ Then showed rapid catch-up growth between 6–24h

➡️ LPS increased oxidative damage (ROMs) and antioxidant activity (OXY) 48h after.

➡️ However, by day 14, only smaller, LPS chicks had lower body mass and survival proabilities.