Pieter Vantieghem

A boy plays football inside a church property-turned shelter for displaced people in Beirut yesterday. More than half a million people are now displaced by war across Lebanon, according to authorities. Almost 400 have been killed, including 83 children. Report soon, @irishtimes.com

Ik sta vandaag op de website van Knack met de stelling da we amnestie behoren te verlenen aan alle mensen in irregulier verblijf. Een. draadje met argumenten Sharing is caring enzo.

(Kijk vooral hoe rechts *niet* gaat ingaan op de argumentatie. ;)) / 1

Be our allies, there is so much to fight for in this era of eroding rights #IWD2026

After the extremly hot and dry summer of 2018 numbers of the Dark green fritillary (S aglaja, grote parelmoer) on Dutch Butterfly Monitoring transects crashed and has not recovered. I fear it could get extinct in NL soon, what is amazing for a species that can live in so many different habitats.

The asymmetry of the value placed on human life is so striking. Israel has a goal to recover 40-year-old remains; to do so, it invades a sovereign country, and the lives of 26 Lebanese are an afterthought. Their names not even worth printing in the New York Times.

Only for some 30 aggregates, ranging from 2 to 7 species.

Humanity heating planet faster than ever before, study finds Researchers identify sharp rise to about 0.35C every decade, after excluding natural fluctuations such as El Niño

It doesn’t matter whether the rate of global warming is increasing. It’ll never cease to amaze me that people don’t care that it’s happening at all. It should be the most alarming thing ever.

So this arrived today, I don't think that micromoths of the low countries have ever before been compiled in one (2 volume) guide before in such a clear and accessible way, with life cycle info. Anyone with interest in micromoths of NW Europe should buy this! knnvuitgeverij.nl/artikel/hand...

The effect of different grazing managements on butterfly abundance, diversity and composition at a calcareous upland site Research from an upland calcareous site in the Yorkshire Dales finds light cattle grazing supports 4.9× as many butterflies and 1.7× as many butterfly species as light sheep grazing, while ungrazed a...

Here is the full paper
#conservationevidence
@richardfoxbc.bsky.social @djhbutterflies.bsky.social @martinswarren.bsky.social @ukbutterflies.bsky.social @savebutterflies.bsky.social @chrisvanswaay.bsky.social @pietervantieghem.bsky.social

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

📣 New paper 🎉 Proud to have helped with this nice study by @wlangdon12.bsky.social showing a trade-off between nutritional quality & microclimate of host plants for Small Copper (Lycaena phlaeas). Here in England, they choose warmth over nutrition resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Bird nests support a diverse, dynamic and distinctive macroarthropod community on the forest floor Nests built by vertebrates, such as birds and mammals, constitute diverse microhabitats that are inhabited by many arthropod taxa and represent important hubs of local biodiversity. Compared to leaf...

New paper! Bird nests (Wood Warblers) are hubs of invertebrate biodiversity on forest floor, hosting more species/individuals than leaf litter. Probably due to heat & food detritus. Losing Wood Warblers = ecological networks lost. #ornithology
resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Toekomst voor onze Akkervogels (1/2): Kunnen overeenkomsten met boeren de achteruitgang in akkersoorten tegen houden - Johannes Jansen

In de Paaiplaats #podcast ga ik met Karl dieper in over de toekomst van #akkervogels en ons onderzoek bij @inbo.be Voor de geïnteresseerden die een klein anderhalf uur daarvoor over hebben: open.spotify.com/episode/3da7...

Een minister die beslist dat rechtbanken er niet toe doen omdat haar beleid ‘effect heeft’: waar eindigt die redenering precies?

Stavros Kelepouris is journalist. Rechtbanken negeren is stilaan een hobby van N-VA-minister van Asiel en Migratie Anneleen Van Bossuyt, schrijft hij. ‘Ook voor een minister gelden wetten en regels.’

Learn about European butterflies! Epic Butterfly presents: MASTERCLASS: Erebia of the European Alps: Speakers: Cristiana Cerrato, Paolo Palmi and Simona Bonelli. 5th March at 15h CET Webinar Zoom link: us06web.zoom.us/j/81384322849 Webinar ID 813 8432 2849

Dat Vlaanderen ooit één groot, dicht en donker bos was, is een misverstand. Het landschap was veel gevarieerder.

Dense, dark forests in Europe are a modern phenomenon A new, comprehensive study shows that Europe’s landscapes over the past more than 20 million years have predominantly been a mosaic of grasslands, scrub and woodlands of varying density. A light...

Dense, dark forests in Europe are a modern phenomenon - Europe’s landscapes for 23 Myr were mostly tree- & flower-rich mosaics shaped by large herbivores, not dense #forests, see our new synthesis www.eurekalert.org/news-release... #forests #woodlands #paleoecology #nature #trees #refiorestation

Revisiting Europe's temperate forests: Palaeoecological evidence for an herbivory-driven woodland-grassland mosaic biome Understanding the pre-Homo sapiens baseline of the temperate forest biome is crucial for interpreting present-day biodiversity patterns, ecosystem fun…

This new paper on the palaeoecology of Europe's woods is worth a read and helps explain why so many butterflies, and other insects, are associated with open areas in woods, or 'wood edge' habitats. An important message for conservation www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

‪Tell me the truth...I'm ready.

New IPBES report finds that $220 billion were directed to conservation & restoration of biodiversity in 2023...

yet $7.3 trillion flowed toward subsidies that directly harm nature.

IPBES Business & Biodiversity Assessment www.ipbes.net/business-imp...
@ipbes.net

Ding-dong! The Dutch Fish Doorbell needs you to help migrating fish A Dutch lock is closed for the spring, and its employees want you to tell them when migrating fish come knocking by ringing a digital doorbell

Well, in more pleasant news, the Fish Doorbell is back... 🧪

Researchers from the University of Exeter have found that moths move 85% less on average under street lighting conditions than in natural nighttime conditions.

‘The plane flew and started spraying’: Israel accused of poisoning Syrian farmland with chemicals Villagers report dying fields, damaged livestock and fears for their livelihoods

The difference is striking: one side green, the other brown. It is the result of what local residents in Quneitra say was the spraying of chemicals by Israeli planes inside Syria in late January, destroying grazing areas and farmland.
@sallyhayd.bsky.social
www.irishtimes.com/world/middle...

Homogenization of Northern Belgian landscapes through centuries of reclamation, agricultural transition, and urbanization Nature Communications - Digitizing land-use from historical maps with GeoAI, this paper exposes the homogenization of landscapes in Northern Belgium 1774-2022, through reclamation of natural areas,...

Flemish landscapes are becoming increasingly similar: a comparison by Luc De Keersmaeker using AI in @natcomms.nature.com of three sets of maps over the years shows us that the unique characteristics of historical landscapes in Flanders are fading and we can speak of homogenisation. rdcu.be/e4U8A

Degradation of fish food webs in the Anthropocene The decrease in body size driven by the selective species turnover is widely altering fish food web topology and function.

New paper out examining fish food web degradation in the Anthropocene. We show the structure of aquatic food webs are changing-- even when species richness doesn’t. These signals are strongly associated with decreases in body size within fish communities. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🌐🐠🐡🦈🐟

It's only February but I think I might be able to call this my top paper of 2026 already.

Number of butterfly species per 5x5km square in Netherlands in 2025. The richest sites are on the Veluwe (centre) and South Limburg (southeast). The open polders in N Holland, Friesland, Groningen and Flevoland have the least number of species.

Recent research on the Phyllocnistis saligna complex in the Netherlands has shown that saligna is not present there!
Most mines are P.asiatica with P triandricola found in almond willow or rarely on purple willow.
We have both asiatica and triandricola in the UK. Barcoding is going on here.

Record 129 press members killed in 2025; Israel responsible for 2/3 of deaths - Committee to Protect Journalists Key findings Introduction At a time when armed conflict has reached historic levels around the world, journalist killings also reached an all-time high primarily due to the actions of one government: ...

"Record 129 press members killed in 2025; Israel responsible for 2/3 of deaths" - CPJ cpj.org/special-repo...

Evolution, genomics and conservation of butterflies and moths - Nature Reviews Biodiversity Butterflies and moths are key indicators of functioning and healthy ecosystems around the world. This Review describes the evolutionary history of the order Lepidoptera and tracks shifts in researcher...

Now online! In this review, we cover four major topics on butterflies and moths: their evolutionary history and diversification dynamics, genomics, global diversity patterns, and conservation 🦋🌏 (1/8) @natrevbiodiv.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Climatic variability drives greater thermal tolerance breadth and enables larger range size in butterflies Abstract. Although climatic variability has been proposed to shape physiological tolerances, and in turn, species distributions, relatively few studies hav

We found support for the Rapoport effect in butterflies 🦋 species that live in more variable climates have broader thermal tolerances and larger range sizes. A collaboration with Aaron Yilmaz and @sarahdiamond.bsky.social 🔬

academic.oup.com/biolinnean/a...