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Tom Rhys Bishop

@tbish.bsky.social
901 followers 615 following 14 posts

Ant biologist, trait biogeographer based at Cardiff Uni. ⛰️🐜🔬 www.BishopTraitsLab.com

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Reposted by Tom Rhys Bishop
Alayna Mead @alaynamead.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Very happy to see our article comparing the responses of hybrid poplars in 17 common gardens, out now in @newphyt.bsky.social! We estimated reaction norms to predict how warming winters could change where different ancestries are favored. nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Variation in predicted reaction norms in response to mean coldest month temperature (MCMT) across admixed Populus genotypes. The reaction norm of each genotype is shown as a separate line colored by species ancestry, with green indicating Populus trichocarpa and blue indicating Populus balsamifera. Predictions for the overall model (a, d) incorporate both yearly growth increment in centimeters (cm) and the probability of mortality; predictions for the conditional model (b, e) only predict growth, ignoring the probability of zeros arising from other processes including mortality; and predictions for the zero-inflated model (c, f) predict the probability of zeros arising from mortality. (a–c) Responses across the range of MCMT values at garden and home climates. Actual values of home climates (|) and garden climates (circle) used for model training are shown on the x-axis. (d, e) Responses based on distance from climate of origin (garden–home MCMT); positive values indicate a warmer climate and negative values indicate a colder climate. If genotypes perform best in environments similar to their home environment, growth should be highest and mortality should be lowest when the transfer distance is 0.Maps showing the predicted shift in species ancestry in the Populus hybrid zone, based on genotype-specific responses to mean coldest month temperature (MCMT). In (a, b), the color of the base layer shows the species ancestry of the studied genotype which is predicted to have the highest fitness (as measured by growth and mortality) in that location under historic (a) and future climates (b). (c) The change in optimal species ancestry between future (b) and historic (a) climates, indicating regions where increased Populus trichocarpa ancestry is expected to be beneficial in green, and regions with no change in gray. As MCMT increases, we predict that genotypes with higher P. trichocarpa ancestry may be able to outcompete genotypes with higher Populus balsamifera ancestry in some portions of the P. balsamifera range, favoring a northeastern shift of the P. trichocarpa range and the hybrid zone and into historically colder, more continental regions. Regions with MCMT values outside of the range measured in the common gardens (−13.05°C to 10.85°C) are masked and colored white. Actual ancestry of collected genotypes is shown as circles. Species ranges are shown as dark blue and green outlines (Little, 1971). The same predictions are mapped across North America, including the common garden sites (Supporting Information Fig. S15).
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Rebecca Senior @rebeccasenior.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
🚨Fun PhD! 🚨 Fieldwork in UK botanical hotspot - Upper Teesdale - cool tech (telemetry, drones, LiDAR) & microclimate modelling to understand land-use*climate interactions. With me & Sean Twiss @durham.ac.uk, Sarah Greenwood @stir.ac.uk & CASE partner @naturalengland.bsky.social Link: rb.gy/vex2tm
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Organisms and Environment @one-cardiffuni.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
Two great PhDs on invertebrates being advertised here is OnE!
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Tom Rhys Bishop @tbish.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
TWO PhDs in my lab at Cardiff Uni being advertised! Co-supervision from @drlucyalford.bsky.social. 1. Physiological Entomology: www.bit.ly/PhysioAntsPhD / www.bit.ly/PhysioAntsApply. 2. Ecological Entomology: www.bit.ly/MountAntsPhD. Get in touch for more details! 😀🐜⛰️🔬❄️🔥
Advert for a PhD project in physiological entomology. Please go to www.bit.ly/PhysioAntsPhD for more info, and www.bit.ly/PhysioAntsApply to apply!Advert for a PhD project in ecological entomology. Please go to www.bit.ly/MountAntsPhD for more info and application details.
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Tom Rhys Bishop @tbish.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
This is going to be a really cool project! Thermal tolerance, hoverflies, nutrition, pollination. Lots to love! Please apply!
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Lucy Alford @drlucyalford.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
Looking for a PhD project supporting beneficial insects in a changing climate? 🪰🐝🌱 Then join us at @bristolbiosci.bsky.social with @tbish.bsky.social of Cardiff University, and industrial partner Olombria. DEADLINE 03 December More information here 👉 bit.ly/4p9Pcyk Apply here 👉 swbio.ac.uk
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Mark Wong @markklwong.bsky.social · 29/09/2025
Do you like functional traits, competition, mesocosm experiments, ants and rigorous fieldwork in unusual tropical systems? Then you might like this new paper - the last from my DPhil at Oxford- in Functional Ecology: besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Functional trait dissimilarity drives arboreal ant community assembly while competitive trait hierarchies shape colony performance in experimental mesocosms
Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
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John Alroy @johnalroy.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
Shannon's H, Simpson's D, and Pielou's J are useless in ecology. Fitting data with a compound abundance distribution based on the geometric series is a better way to quantify variation – and to estimate species richness. New paper in Ecology Letters. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
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Brian J. Enquist @bjenquist.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
We need more provocative papers like this …
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Journal of Animal Ecology @animalecology.bsky.social · 01/09/2025
🦠 New Research - The gut microbiome shapes latitudinal differences in host immunity and pathogen load in a damselfly ➡️ buff.ly/0f99mq4
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Bob Muscarella @bobmuscarella.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
🚨New paper out in PNAS🚨 Soil eDNA reflects regionally dominant species rather than local composition of tropical tree communities 🧬🌿🌳🌺🧬 We asked about the spatial scale of biodiversity captured by samples of DNA from tropical soils #Luquillo #eDNA. A short 🧵.... www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
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Ruth Dunn @ruthedunn.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
"Commuting in crosswinds and foraging in fast winds: the foraging ecology of a flying fish specialist" 💨🐦🐟 New @iomarinescience.bsky.social research out now in @royalsocietypublishing.org: doi.org/10.1098/rspb... 📸 @robinfreeman.bsky.social 🧪🌍🪶
Composite image of the Proceedings B journal title, the manuscript title and the author list, alongside an image of a red-footed booby flying amongst palm trees. Some text reads: "Winds shape the behavioural decisions of red-footed boobies, impacting their foraging commutes and feeding behaviour".
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Margaret Evans @mekevans.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
New paper out on the dangers of using patterns across spatial climate gradients to predict what will happen with changing climate. That includes species distribution modeling. Space-for-time substitution can be misleading in sign, not just the magnitude of effects. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Reconsidering space-for-time substitution in climate change ecology - Nature Climate Change
Ecologists often leverage patterns observed across spatial climate gradients to predict the impacts of climate change (space-for-time substitution). We highlight evidence that this can be misleading n...
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Stephanie L King @stephanielking.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
Excited to share that we have just been awarded a NERC Pushing the Frontiers grant to work on between-group cooperation in the Shark Bay dolphins. We will soon advertise a 3 year post-doc to join the team - drop me an email if you might be interested! Pls share widely 🙏🏻
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James Bullock @jmbecologist.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Really disappointing new policy from NERC banning resubmissions of grant applications Many of us, including me, have won grants on resubmission, using the reviews to improve the application This is is neither fair nor productive www.ukri.org/councils/ner...
ukri.org
NERC policy on resubmissions
This policy only applies to research grant applications.
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Tom Rhys Bishop @tbish.bsky.social · 18/07/2025
Awesome to see our paper exploring competing hypotheses in macro/metabolic ecology out in PNAS. Led by the all star @lilyleahy.bsky.social with a range of amazing folks including @funkyant.bsky.social @natejsanders.bsky.social @ianjwright.bsky.social. Check it out! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
Metabolic traits are shaped by phylogenetic conservatism and environment, not just body size | PNAS
Metabolic rate dictates life’s tempo, yet how ecological and environmental factors integrate to shape metabolic traits remains contentious. Conside...
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Francois Keck @francoiskeck.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Phylosignal celebrates its 500 citations! 📦🎉 I've written a short blog post to celebrate and reflect on this 10-year old #rstats project. 👨‍💻 www.pieceofk.fr/phylosignal-...
pieceofk.fr
Phylosignal, 500 citations later
My first R package, phylosignal, that I started more than a decade ago, has just passed its 500th citation. So I decided to take a little time to celebrate (we definitely don’t celebrate enough). I…
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Simon J. Brandl @gobyone.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
Heard of "Darwin's paradox"? It refers to Charles Darwin's observation that coral reefs are wildly productive despite occurring in nutrient-poor tropical oceans. Reefs are, so the story goes, oases in marine deserts 🏝️... Turns out that 2/3 of these assertions are very wrong... 🌐 🦑🧪 🧵⬇️
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Andreas Nord @cyanistesnord.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
I am looking for a postdoc wanting to use functional genomics to understand why birds 🐦 struggle with climate warming in @erc.europa.eu project #HotLife. Ideal candidate is a molecular evolutionarybiologist. Join us at @biologylu.bsky.social. Details 👇 shorturl.at/wijEq Would appreciate a re-post!
lu.varbi.com
Post-doctoral fellow in functional genomics and ecophysiology
Subject description The goal of the project is to uncover the mechanisms explaining why global warming and heatwaves reduce reproductive success and cause excess mortality in wild and domesticated war
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Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
It's the last day to apply for #BESMacro2025 ! Come join us in beautiful York for two days of awesome macro-scale science (plus an optional pre-conference workshop on scientific storytelling) www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bes-macro-...
eventbrite.co.uk
BES Macro 2025
A British Ecological Society specialist group conference for researchers in macroecology and/or macroevolution at any academic career stage.
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Tommaso Jucker @tommaso-jucker.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
So excited to finally share our new paper charting the global spectrum of tree crown architecture, out today at @natcomms.nature.com ‬🧪🌐 Paper link 🔗: www.nature.com/articles/s41... A brief thread of what we found 🧵
Schematic diagram showing the major axes of tree crown architecture
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Kate Parr @funkyant.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
Closing tomorrow! Last chance to apply for postdoc to explore the role of animals in savanna ecosystem productivity & nutrient cycling! Link to job: tinyurl.com/53dy4584 #savanna #termites #largemammals
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Dr. Mariana García Criado @nanitundra.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
🌸Plant diversity dynamics over space and time in a warming Arctic 🌸 Our new study @nature.com analysed plant diversity change in >2000 tundra plots over 4 decades. We found that plants changed unevenly, mostly driven by warming and biotic interactions. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵 (1/7) 🌐🧪🌱🌍
Illustration of a Greenlandic landscape, showing in the foreground Rhododendron lapponicum on a cliff, with sea ice and icebergs in the background. Illustration by Alberto S. Ballesteros (@asbillustration.bsky.social)
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Oxford Ecosystems @oxfordecosystems.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
In February, Yadvinder & Eleanor traveled to South Africa to collect trait data at collaborator, Kate Parr’s @funkyant.bsky.social field site for her new ‘The Green Stuff’ Project. @naturerecovery.bsky.social We cover this visit in a visual way on our blog www.oxfordecosystems.org/post/explori...
oxfordecosystems.org
Exploring Nutrient Cycling in the Waterberg, South Africa
Ecosystems researchers travel to the Waterberg in South Africa to collect baseline trait data with collaborators from Liverpool University and University of Pretoria
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Rose Marks @roseamarks.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
our perspective on desiccation tolerance research is out in @naturecomms.bsky.social. with nearly forty authors from around the world spanning diverse career stages and disciplines, this work represents a shared vision for the field. let us know what you think! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Life on the dry side: a roadmap to understanding desiccation tolerance and accelerating translational applications - Nature Communications
Desiccation tolerance is an extreme adaptation to water limitation. Here the authors envisage a roadmap to advance desiccation tolerance research, highlight key knowledge gaps, call for standardizatio...
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Tom Rhys Bishop @tbish.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
Excited to have kicked off our @hfspo.bsky.social project MicroMaze with Andrew Davies, Charlene janion-Scheepers and @rebeccasenior.bsky.social in the Cederberg mountains. News update and pics on my website here: www.bishoptraitslab.com/news.html
bishoptraitslab.com
News
A very busy month in the Traits Lab! Tom and Phil were establishing the new MicroMaze  project in the Cederberg mountains of South Africa and figuring out our new physiological experiments in...
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Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Registration is OPEN for #BESMacro2025, the best conference in town. This year we're in York: 10-11 July main conference, 9 July pre-conference scicomm workshop. If you do macroecology or macroevolution, please join us! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bes-macro-...
eventbrite.co.uk
BES Macro 2025
A British Ecological Society specialist group conference for researchers in macroecology and/or macroevolution at any academic career stage.
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Ecol. Solutions & Evidence | Applied Ecol. Resources @aer-ese-bes.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Rochelmeyer et al. investigate the use of drone-based surveys to count and assess tree hollow accessibility in a tropical savanna south of Darwin, Australia 🌳📈 Check out their findings 👇 buff.ly/3WCSvT0 🌎🧪
buff.ly
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Ian Vaughan @ian-vaughan.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
How do urban rivers recover from historical pollution and what could be applying the brakes to ongoing biological recovery? #PhD opportunity at Cardiff Uni with Steve Ormerod and me, plus UKCEH and other partners 🌍🧪 www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
findaphd.com
NERC RED-ALERT CDT: Linking the changing chemical environment to biological recovery across formerly industrial rivers. at Cardiff University on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - NERC RED-ALERT CDT: Linking the changing chemical environment to biological recovery across formerly industrial rivers. at Cardiff University, listed on FindAPhD.com
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Lucy Alford @drlucyalford.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
Fully-funded PhD with @seanrands.bsky.social, Emma McKinley, Rupert Perkins and myself on saltmarsh management and ecosystem service provision 🐝 Apply here 👉 www.nercgw4plus.ac.uk
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red-termite.bsky.social @red-termite.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
I'm afraid it was the US election and Elon Musk's role in it that finally made me leave Twitter
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Casey terHorst @ecoevolab.bsky.social · 12/11/2024
Holy wow, I just learned about Rainbow Parentheses in R! Paired parens appear as same colors! Never count your close parentheses again Tools->Global Options->Code->Display Tab->Click Rainbow Parentheses
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Tom Rhys Bishop @tbish.bsky.social · 12/11/2024
This DOES feel like early days on Twitter! Hey Science/Ecology BluSkyers!
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Tom Rhys Bishop @tbish.bsky.social · 08/11/2024
Reached inbox zero! Wahhoo! 🤪
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Markus Eichhorn @markuseichhorn.bsky.social · 21/10/2024
We're into the season when conservation projects try to recruit students on campus for summer field trips. Some of them are scams. Here's my short guide to students before they hand over any money. 1/n
Three giraffes walking in Tanzania. Photo by Hugo Sykes, free to use via Pexels.
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