Hot off the presses 🔥🦇! In a new paper, we describe a new migratory strategy (pell-mell migration) in which hoary and eastern red bats migrate north in the autumn— sometimes long distances— before turning around and migrating south. 1/n

More bad news for butterflies. Our new paper led by Wendy Leuenberger shows common species are declining even more rapidly than rare ones. @ZipkinLab

Three decades of declines restructure butterfly communities in the Midwestern United States | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2501340122

New from my colleagues at the University of Illinois: a dataset of vascular plant species presence for 353 prairie remnants across the Midwestern United States (doi.org/10.3375/2162...)

The bottom line with the proposed cuts to NSF is to cut the number of working scientists and disappear opportunities to train new scientists.

This is a PROPOSED budget to Congress. Call your reps.

Our article is now available open access! Come learn what we learned about the last 50 years of invertebrate conservation under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

doi.org/10.3389/fcos...

🪶🌎🧪 Learn more about it and read the @mikesmothmodels.bsky.social 's paper here: birdpop.org/pages/blogPo...

Populations of butterflies across the United States are declining. In addition to dramatic declines for individual species, the study concluded that total abundance of butterflies has declined by 22% from 2000 to 2020. This work was supported by the #USFWS and #USGS

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Our paper is out, and it is distressing.

Rapid butterfly declines across the United States during the 21st century | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Had a fun time writing this perspective with colleagues making a case for assemblage-level conservation to address the biodiversity crisis! www.nature.com/articles/s44...

A Perspective from Belitz et al. suggests that focusing conservation and management actions at the assemblage level has multiple benefits relatively to purely species-focused or ecosystem-focused actions. go.nature.com/40F5MNa

The last chapter of my dissertation is now published! We tested how the timing of forest moths was influenced by urbanization. We found the timing of moths are influenced by canopy cover, which also interacts with temperature niche and body size. esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

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

US Fish & Wildlife has just announced their proposal to list the monarch as Threatened! ESA protections can allow us to tackle the systemic issues monarchs are facing: pesticide overuse, diseases, & habitat loss, especially at their overwintering locations.
🦋 Learn more: xerces.org/press/monarc...

What is the status of insects in North America? In 2025, the @nationalacademies.org will launch a study to find out. Experts are sought in entomology, ecology, technology, and more. Apply or nominate by December 31: https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/status-of-insects-in-north-america

Re-posting b/c 1) applications are due in 2 days AND 2) I've doubled my followers since I last posted

NPR article about upcoming monarch butterfly listing decision: www.opb.org/article/2024...

📣Michigan State is hiring an Assistant/Associate Professor & Curator of Vertebrate Collections! Neat opportunity for anyone who does collection-based research on vertebrates. Please repost so this can reach beyond my 30 Bsky followers :) careers.msu.edu/en-us/job/52...

Hi folks, first post! I'm an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow working with mentors at Michigan State University and the University of British Columbia. My research focuses on developing quantitative workflows that bring together diverse ecological data to tackle complex environmental questions.