iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dan MacNulty @danmacnulty.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

Thirty years after wolf reintroduction, has Yellowstone’s celebrated “trophic cascade” — popularized by How Wolves Change Rivers — delivered what many claim? BBC Wildlife Magazine (March 2026) revisits the debate. Access here (free sign-in required): 🧪 www.ziniounlimited.com/article/bbc-...

Grey wolf standing in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley beside a coyote, with sagebrush grassland and large boulders in the foreground; image from BBC Wildlife Magazine March 2026 feature on wolf reintroduction.

072

Dan MacNulty @danmacnulty.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

A new exchange in @esajournals.bsky.social highlights a common omission in the Yellowstone trophic cascade story: >100 beavers were reintroduced, spanning years before and after wolf reintroduction. 🧪 Beschta et al (comment): doi.org/10.1002/ecm.... Hobbs et al (reply): doi.org/10.1002/ecm....

040

Dan MacNulty @danmacnulty.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

New critique prompts correction of high-profile Yellowstone aspen study. Correction fixes a math error, but lack of young aspen across >50% of sampled sites complicates story of “widespread” aspen recovery after wolf reintroduction. 🧪 www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

140

Dan MacNulty @danmacnulty.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

There is a reasonably large body of evidence that implicates elk browsing as the principle reasons for the gap. Much of this evidence comes from exclosure studies. For example: Fig 2B in Kauffman et al. 2010; doi.org/10.1890/09-1...

100

Dan MacNulty @danmacnulty.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

Painter et al.’s reply fixes the math but sidesteps the bigger problem: mean-based effect sizes from zero-inflated, non-equilibrium data are misleading indicators of trophic cascade strength. The claim of a strong & ecologically significant aspen cascade remains overstated. 🧪 doi.org/10.1016/j.fo...

071

Dan MacNulty @danmacnulty.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

Our critique is now published in Forest Ecology & Management. We show why the corrected 17.5× increase in average sapling density still overstates aspen recovery: mean-based metrics are driven by a small minority of plots, while most showed little or no change. 🧪 authors.elsevier.com/a/1mMLU1L%7E...

0123

Dan MacNulty @danmacnulty.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

Painter et al. have issued a corrigendum conceding that the headline 152× increase in aspen sapling density was an error (now 17.5×), consistent with our critique. But the revised result still relies on averages that mask how most aspen stands showed little or no change. 🧪 doi.org/10.1016/j.fo...

1146

Dan MacNulty @danmacnulty.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

The story of Wolf 1329M provides a textbook example of the source-sink dynamic that limits the spread of Yellowstone wolves beyond the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. 🧪 wyofile.com/what-happens...

060

Dan MacNulty @danmacnulty.bsky.social · 02/11/2025

Even 17.5× is inflated—it reflects average sapling density driven by a minority of plots. Most aspen plots (green = median) stayed flat—half had no saplings, and only a small fraction (purple, pink) increased. doi.org/10.32942/X2W...

Line chart showing Yellowstone aspen sapling density from 2007–2021. Median and 75th-percentile lines stay near zero, while only the upper percentiles (90th and 95th) rise sharply—indicating gains in just a few plots.

0182

Dan MacNulty @danmacnulty.bsky.social · 02/11/2025

🧪About that “152×” Yellowstone aspen claim (see WaPo headline). In a new preprint we show it’s a math error that inflated the effect by 768%. Corrected: 17.5×. Preprint: doi.org/10.32942/X2W...

12781135

Dan MacNulty @danmacnulty.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

🧪You may have heard that large-carnivore recovery in Yellowstone National Park triggered one of the world’s strongest trophic cascades. Our new open-access article explains why that story doesn’t hold up: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

0216

Dan MacNulty @danmacnulty.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

New open access paper by John Benson & colleagues explores the drivers of group cohesion in social canids. Cohesion varies widely, shaped by life history, prey, group size, and humans. In wolves, it declines as pack size grows or human disturbance increases. 🧪 doi.org/10.1002/ecy....

171

Dan MacNulty @danmacnulty.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

One pack in our study grew to over 20 wolves, including 11 pups—an impressive size for such an extreme environment. In this photo, it numbered at least 27, underscoring the remarkable productivity of this polar desert ecosystem.

062