A photo of two Scottish highland cattle
Thank you to Knauf for their support of the project, and allowing us to use two of their renaturated quarries as study sites. Also shoutout to the curious highland cattle that oversaw our work
Three people with a Bee Friendly Insector remote sensing insect monitoring system in a renaturated quarry.
Two people setting up a Bee Friendly Insector remote sensing insect monitoring system in a renaturated quarry.
Today we set up two insect monitoring stations in the glorious sunshine as part of a Masters thesis project. We will be comparing this with traditional monitoring to improve our understanding of the role of AI to supplement and enhance insect monitoring 🐝🪰🦋💚 @globalchangeeco.bsky.social
I was delighted to receive a best poster award at the closing ceremony yesterday! Had a great time at #TIBS2026 and look forward to seeing all the wonderful biogeographers again in the future 🌍🌎🌏 @biogeography.bsky.social
The @globalchangeeco.bsky.social team (@christianhof.bsky.social, @esme-ashe.bsky.social, @nicolas-willems.bsky.social, @christianzehner.bsky.social & Lars Landgraf) at #TIBS2026 - we really enjoyed great #biogeography science & the exchange with wonderful colleagues from all over the world.
Already the last day of #TIBS2026, starting with the fascinating links between biogeography, culture, and language @biogeography.bsky.social
How has landscape heterogeneity changed and how did this influence biodiversity trends? Our MSc student Lars Landgraf presented first results on his poster at #TIBS2026.
I had the opportunity to present the first results of my Master’s thesis at #TIBS2026
My work focuses on grasshopper colouration along an elevational gradient. Great discussions and valuable feedback! Thanks to everyone who stopped by! 🦗⛰️
A photo of Esme standing with her poster
Thank you to those who spoke with me at my poster yesterday! The poster is still up for the rest of the #TIBS2026 conference so please come find me or email me if you want to chat
Amazing talk at #TIBS2026 by @katschiff.bsky.social from @zurelllab.bsky.social on the drivers of bird occupancy trends in North America. Climate change appears to be more important than land-use change, at least for the last 30years.
Wonderful opening to the #TIBS2026, including an inspiring talk from Mark Lomolino who shared his thoughts on the future of biogeography 🌍🌎🌏 @biogeography.bsky.social
Very excited to be sharing my recent paper on microclimate performance during heatwaves at #TIBS2026 today! Come along to poster 2023 to find out more about how insects experience extreme heat 🦋🐜🪲🔥☀️ @biogeography.bsky.social
New paper alert! Microclimate temperatures are more extreme than we previously thought! Near-ground temperatures are amplified in hot weather, cool refugia is lost and replaced with heat traps ☀️🔥🥵 escape from heat will be very hard for small ground-dwelling organisms
doi.org/10.21425/fob...
Job Offer: PhD Position Project bAImo: artificial intelligence for insect monitoring 3 years (initially) 65% TV-L Background: photo of a brown butterfly (Pyronia tithonus) on a purple flower
Come work with us! 🪲For our new project bAImo we are searching for a PhD researcher combining modelling 💻 with ecological expertise, aiming to improve interdisciplinary approaches to insect monitoring 🔎🐝 please visit tinyurl.com/bAImo-PhDoffer for more details. Looking forward to your application 🦗😊
A photo of a female winter moth (Operophtera brumata) on a finger.
A photo of a male winter moth (Operophtera brumata) in a pot.
Cool critter of the day! 🧐 These are the same moth species, one male one female! There are quite a few amazing moth species active around this time of year where the females don’t bother growing wings (why waste the energy?) and look like completely different insects!! 🤩
My latest paper is now published in an issue! We showcased the incredible scientific contributions that local and amateur naturalists make for research on long term change! 💚🌍
doi.org/10.1111/icad...
The Global Change Ecology crowd listening to Rasmus Jensen introducing his PhD research.
A field path and some trees in the foreground with a mountain range in the background
At our @globalchangeeco.bsky.social retreat to Austria, we are both taking in the beautiful surrounding landscape and discussing the latest research advancements of the team members. Here, Rasmus Dam Jensen presents our #MultiCrossBEF project as part of @bexplo.bsky.social
@uni-wuerzburg.de
GCERetreat2025: Our MSc student Katrin Fuest presented ideas and first fieldwork reports from her thesis. She studies thermoregulation of forest #butterflies in relation to habitat structure and microclimate. Well done Katrin!
Yesterday at our GCERetreat2025 our postdoc @esme-ashe.bsky.social presented her impressive data collection as well as first models and findings on butterfly thermoregulation and thermal tolerance. Many more cool results coming up!
A photo of a name badge
I’ve had a wonderful week infiltrating the ranks of meteorologists! I’m always excited to share my own research, and I’ve learnt a lot about climatology, a subject with so much collaborative potential with ecology 🌦️🌱🦋🌍
Essential to functioning ecosystems, insects are declining at alarming rates--even in remote areas. A 20-year study in CO found an average annual decline of 6.6% in insect abundance, amounting to a 72.4% drop over the 20-year period. The steep decline was associated with rising summer temperatures.
A photo of the EMS Annual Meeting welcome sign
I’m very excited to be sharing some of my work on quantifying microclimates and their performance during heatwaves at this years European Meteorological Society conference! I’m very much outside my comfort zone and looking forward to learning lots about climatology across scales 🕵️♀️🌍🔍
A pleasure to be (co-)supervising these young folks @globalchangeeco.bsky.social, together with @esme-ashe.bsky.social and @christianzehner.bsky.social
With collecting a declining hobby, and many written records discarded instead of being deposited in museums, it is increasingly important to preserve this knowledge and make it accessible for researchers 👩💻👨💻
Can we harness the knowledge of local or amateur entomologists to investigate long-term change? 🤔 I’ll be demonstrating how observations of the natural world can be translated into meaningful data and trends at @gfoesoc.bsky.social Thurs 12:15pm 0.001 📚🏫
A photo of a water ringlet (Erebia pronoe) on a hand
One of the stars of the last few weeks has been the lovely water ringlet (Erebia pronoe), who have stunning markings and vivid colours when fresh. 🤩 They’re quite friendly really, if you don’t mind the tickling!
A photo of a mountain with trees below
And that’s a wrap! Today I finished my butterfly sampling in the Alps, with a final visit to my highest elevation site (and probably my favourite). I caught my 606th butterfly of the month, and it’s time to head home 🦋🗻
A photo of a swallowtail butterfly (Papilio machaon) with wings open on a flower
Today’s catch of the day was also the catch of the week, a stunning swallowtail (Papilio machaon)! 🤩 A beautiful species, and very obliging to let me take some photos while it nectared 🌸🦋☀️
A photo of a mountain with a lake below
After a few days of rain, we managed to get two dry days to complete our site surveys! Today was a beautiful bright day with a cold wind, air temperatures have dropped 10C in a week! It seems the summer field season is coming to a close, and we were just in time! 🦋🗻
After a rainy few days we’re been back in the field! After a slobbery encounter with some cows, we had a good day sampling. The encounter of the day was this stunning spurge hawk-moth larva (Hyles euphorbiae) 🐛 it was huge, the size of a finger!!
Another scorching day in the mountains! Today’s site was overflowing with Scotch argus (Erebia aethiops), even watched a few laying their eggs carefully on grass stems. Few other species around, but at least this one is flourishing here
