Bringing Geekcologist to Mastodon. #Ecology, #R, #Modelling
Posts by @[email protected], Bruno Silva, and @fmestre.
https://geekcologist.wordpress.com/
Why Common Species Matter: Rethinking Conservation Through Food Webs
Conservation efforts have traditionally been focused on saving the rarest, most threatened species, and for good reason. But what if our singular focus on endangered species is causing us to overlook something crucial? I've been involved in two studies stressing this point. The first, published back in 2024 in Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation and led by Pamela González-del-Pliego…
Happy birthday, Charles…
A baby was born 217 years ago in Shrewsbury. This child, Charles, would grow into a reluctant revolutionary. At 22, he set out on a voyage that would change both his life and the course of science. Later, he laid out his ideas in a book. Books have a remarkable power: they let their authors whisper their ideas directly into our minds, and they may revolutionise the way we think.
https://geekcologist.wordpress.com/2026/02/14/happy-birthday-charles/
Beautiful Models, Ugly Policies
Ecology in 2025 talked big about transformation, but mostly just optimised business‑as‑usual conservation. Knowledge moved faster, models got smarter (AI moved from experimental applications to widespread use in ecological research), and our figures became painfully beautiful (I love that!), yet the underlying conservation machinery barely flinched. We celebrated marginal gains in our models' performance and ever‑finer global forecasts,…
https://geekcologist.wordpress.com/2026/01/12/beautiful-models-ugly-policies/
Diversity and Extinction Risk of Amphibians in the Colombian Andes
The Andean mountain range in South America is characterized by a remarkable topological diversity, with steep altitudinal gradients occurring over a relatively small spatial extent. This rapid shift in elevation creates a wide range of environments, microclimates and habitats, fostering high levels of species diversity and endemism. As a result, this "compressed" vertical landscape contributes to high…
Shipping sustains global trade but poses escalating threats to marine biodiversity, with wildlife-vessel collisions, noise, and pollution endangering species such as cetaceans (whales and dolphins), sea turtles, pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and walruses), and seabirds. Our study provides a global ma
Scientific Dialogues
This list focuses on (what I'm calling) scientific dialogues—in which researchers respond to each other’s work using published papers as messengers. Often, a paper sparks a reply, which may, in itself, prompt a response, creating a back-and-forth between research teams. What emerges is a public conversation carried out in the pages of scientific journals. It is important to clarify that this list reflects my personal scientific perspective and…
https://geekcologist.wordpress.com/2025/10/15/scientific-dialogues/
Climate Change Impacts on the Biodiversity of the Brazilian Cerrado: A Synthesis
The Brazilian Cerrado is a vast tropical savanna and one of the most important biodiversity hotspots on the planet. Spanning nearly 2 million km² (Fig. 1), it encompasses a dynamic mosaic of landscapes that sustains thousands of plant and invertebrate species, along with hundreds of amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals (Fig. 2)—many found nowhere else in the world—with some estimates…
Climate Change Impacts on the Biodiversity of the Brazilian Cerrado: A Synthesis
The Brazilian Cerrado is a vast tropical savanna and one of the most important biodiversity hotspots on the planet. Spanning nearly 2 million km² (Fig. 1), it encompasses a dynamic mosaic of landscapes that sustains thousands of plant and invertebrate species, along with hundreds of amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals (Fig. 2)—many found nowhere else in the world—with some estimates…
Scaling traits and functions: How habitat area shapes the multidimensional nature of functional diversity
For over a hundred years, the Species–Area Relationship (SAR) has served as a fundamental concept for understanding changes in species diversity across spatial scales. Often described as the closest thing to a “law” in ecology, SAR captures the pervasive pattern that larger islands, or habitat patches, support more species than smaller ones. This principle has…
For over a hundred years, the Species–Area Relationship (SAR) has served as a fundamental concept for understanding changes in species diversity across spatial scales. Often described as the closes…
Frederico Mestre
