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Jacob Levine

@jacoblevine.bsky.social
903 followers 431 following 31 posts

Wilkes Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy @UniversityofUtah. Incoming assistant professor at @DukeBiology. I use theory, experiments and stats to study biodiversity, fire, and forests.

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Jacob Levine @jacoblevine.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
🔥🔬🌲 Postdoc Opportunity at Duke! to study the drivers and impacts of post-fire forest loss in the western U.S. Position is part of the inaugural SCALES fellowship, an exciting program funding interdisciplinary research addressing key climate challenges. academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/31549
academicjobsonline.org
Duke University, Biology
Job #AJO31549, Postdoctoral Associate, Biology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, US
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Brian J. Enquist @bjenquist.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
New postdoctoral fellowship opportunity! Please pass along. Excited to announce the launch of the Tom Lovejoy Fellowship Program at the University of Arizona for innovative research to protect species, sustain ecosystems, and promote a thriving planet lovejoycenter.arizona.edu/lovejoy-fell... 🧪🌐🌾
Application Process

Image
Woman behind a podium presenting.
Jessie Golding, BBCS postdoc, presenting at ICCB 2025.

Apply to become a Lovejoy Fellow by submitting your resume, cover letter, and contact information for three references through the University of Arizona Talent Portal (link upcoming) by the first review date of January 30, 2026.

Your cover letter should: 

Identify 1-2 Lovejoy BBCS faculty you would be interested in working with and explain the primary research directions you would want to pursue in collaboration with this faculty member. You are strongly encouraged to reach out to faculty before submitting your application.
Describe your experience with or interest in inter- or transdisciplinary research.
Explain how this experience will positively impact your career trajectory.
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Jacob Levine @jacoblevine.bsky.social · 24/09/2025
I am advertising a postdoctoral position in my new lab at Duke, to start as early as August 2026. If you are interested in how plant communities respond to climate change, please consider applying! academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30614
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Berkeley Rausser College of Natural Resources @natureatcal.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
A new study led by alum @jacoblevine.bsky.social, BS '18 Forestry and EEP, and co-authored by Professor Scott Stephens and research scientist Brandon Collins explores why forests planted for logging purposes fuel devastating wildfires more often than untouched land. www.latimes.com/environment/...
latimes.com
Private land used for logging is more prone to severe fire than public lands. A new study shows why
New research explains why forests planted for logging purposes fuel devastating wildfires more often than untouched land.
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Jacob Levine @jacoblevine.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
Great to see our work in my hometown paper! Its not logging itself thats the issue, its what happens after -- dense plantations are responsible for elevated fire severity in industrial forests. Excellent story by @nohaggerty.bsky.social. www.latimes.com/environment/...
latimes.com
Private land used for logging is more prone to severe fire than public lands. A new study shows why
New research explains why forests planted for logging purposes fuel devastating wildfires more often than untouched land.
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Jacob Levine @jacoblevine.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
Had a great time chatting with Jericka Duncan on @cbsnews.com.web.brid.gy last night about our new study on increased fire severity in industrial forest plantations. You can watch it here! www.cbsnews.com/video/megafi...
cbsnews.com
Megafires more likely to occur on private land than public forests, study finds
More than 44,000 fires have burned nearly 4 million acres across the U.S. so far in 2025, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, but only a handful have been megafires. A new study found t...
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Emily Carter @emilycurates.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
🧵1/7 🔥 Want to know why megafires are growing bigger? A new study shows industrial private forests are 1.5× more likely to burn in high-severity wildfires than public forests. Mismanaged fuel beds help fires spread.
phys.org
Industry managed forests more likely to fuel megafires, study finds
The odds of high-severity wildfire were nearly one-and-a-half times higher on industrial private land than on publicly owned forests, a new study found. Forests managed by timber companies were more l...
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David Sacerdote @davidsacerdote.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
Industrial logging is not the kind of selective thinning that lowers the risk of intense wildfires www.sfchronicle.com/california-w... The open-access paper, not linked in the news coverage, is here onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
sfchronicle.com
Does logging reduce wildfire danger? New California study finds key exception
Private timberlands in Northern California are more likely to see high-severity wildfire than areas in and around public forests, a new study found.
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Jacob Levine @jacoblevine.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
Excited to see our work on 🔥 in industrial forests featured in the @sfchronicle.com this morning. Article by @kurtisalexander.bsky.social: www.sfchronicle.com/california-w...
sfchronicle.com
Does logging reduce wildfire danger? New California study finds key exception
Private timberlands in Northern California are more likely to see high-severity wildfire than areas in and around public forests, a new study found.
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Jacob Levine @jacoblevine.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
🔥🔥🔥 Why are wildfires more severe in private industrial forests? Our new paper in @globalchangebio.bsky.social has the answers: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... 🧵 Thread below
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Extreme Weather Magnifies the Effects of Forest Structure on Wildfire, Driving Increased Severity in Industrial Forests
Wildfires are consistently more severe in private industrial forests than public ones. In this paper, we identify the drivers of this pattern. Namely, we show that fire severity is elevated in dense,...
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Jacob Levine @jacoblevine.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
Thrilled to announce that next year I will be joining @DukeBiology as an assistant professor! I am excited to recruit postdocs and PhD students to start as early as Fall 2026. If you are interested in plant community dynamics, global change, and/or wildfire, please see details below.
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Jacob Levine @jacoblevine.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
Excited to share our new paper out now in Ecological Monographs! "Trait diversity in plant communities maintained by competition for water and light" @ecologicalsociety.bsky.social esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Trait diversity in plant communities maintained by competition for water and light
Ecological communities frequently exhibit remarkable taxonomic and trait diversity, and this diversity is consistently shown to regulate ecosystem function and resilience. However, ecologists lack a ...
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Jacob Levine @jacoblevine.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
Had a great time chatting with Ross Chambless on Talking Climate last week! The episode is out now -- we talk about my work on biodiversity, climate change, and wildfire. @wilkescenter.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
podcasts.apple.com
29: How Are Plant Ecosystems Adapting to the Shifting Climate?
Podcast Episode · Talking Climate · 02/25/2025 · 44m
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Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
Here's a schematic I published in this 2021 piece to illustrate how even a modest delay in onset of rainy season in Southern California can dramatically amplify wildfire risk by lengthening seasonal overlap between dry vegetation and strong offshore winds during Oct-Jan. #CAfire
Schematic from Swain 2021 depicting how even a modest (1-month) delay in the Southern California rainy season can greatly amplify wildfire risk by increasing the temporal/seasonal overlap between critically dry vegetation and the occurrence of strong, dry offshore (downsloping) winds.
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Jacob Levine @jacoblevine.bsky.social · 16/12/2024
As part of my migration to bluesky, I'm excited to share a recent article published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution where we explain ecologists' struggles to predict coexistence from species' functional traits: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Why ecologists struggle to predict coexistence from functional traits
The rationale behind trait-based ecology is that shifting focus from species’ taxonomic names to their measurable characteristics (‘functional traits’…
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