Australia should have a more vibrant ecological culture
I’ve always had the gut feeling that Australia punched above its weight when it comes to ecology and conservation. For years I’ve been confidently bragging to whomever might listen (mostly at...
View ArticleGive some flair to your scientific presentation
— As the desert spring came to the great Centre Red, Scores of sandalled folk from tin birds descend-ed. Alice Town had been invaded, Bearded alike and unshorn-legged. They sat and stared at words...
View ArticleAn Open Letter to Environmentalists on Nuclear Energy
Professor Barry W. Brook, Chair of Environmental Sustainability, University of Tasmania, Australia. barry.brook@utas.edu.au Professor Corey J.A. Bradshaw, Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change,...
View ArticleIt’s time for environmentalists to give nuclear a fair go
This is an article by Barry Brook and me, published today in The Conversation. I’m republishing it here. — Should nuclear energy be part of Australia’s (and many other countries’) future energy mix? We...
View ArticleHow things have (not) changed
The other night I had the pleasure of dining with the former Australian Democrats leader and senator, Dr John Coulter, at the home of Dr Paul Willis (Director of the Royal Institution of Australia). It...
View ArticleWhat makes all that biodiversity possible?
Predators. You can either stop reading now because that’s the answer to the question, or you can continue and find out a little more detail. I’ve just had an extremely pleasant experience reading John...
View ArticleNo evidence climate change is to blame for Australian megafauna extinctions
Last July I wrote about a Science paper of ours demonstrating that there was a climate-change signal in the overall extinction pattern of megafauna across the Northern Hemisphere between about 50,000...
View ArticleHeat tolerance highly variable among populations and species
Many ecological studies have examined the tolerance of terrestrial wildlife to high and low air temperatures over global scales (e.g., 1, 2, 3). This topic has been boosted in the last two decades by...
View ArticleAncient bones — how old?
Radiocarbon (14C) dating was developed by Nobel-Prize winning chemist Willard Libby, and has become the predominant method to build chronologies of ancient populations and species using the Quaternary...
View ArticleJob: Research Associate in Mammalian Morphology-Environment Interactions
This might be a little outside the realms of ‘conservation’ per se, but put has a lot of ecology-evolution components, with spin-off applications to modern conservation. Please spread the word. The...
View Article… some (models) are useful
As someone who writes a lot of models — many for applied questions in conservation management (e.g., harvest quotas, eradication targets, minimum viable population sizes, etc.), and supervises people...
View ArticleExtinct megafauna prone to ancient hunger games
Different combinations of human hunting and climate change caused Australia’s famed ‘giant’ species to go extinct, and now it turns out that for some species, changing food availability made things worse.
View ArticleInfluential conservation papers of 2021
Following my annual tradition, I present the retrospective list of the ‘top’ 20 influential papers of 2021 as assessed by experts in Faculty Opinions (formerly known as F1000). These are in no...
View ArticleThe integrity battlefield: where science meets policy
Professor Ross Thompson, University of Canberra On the whole, I am inclined to conclude that my experience of academia and publishing my work has been largely benign. Despite having published 120-odd...
View ArticleCan we resurrect the thylacine? Maybe, but it won’t help the global...
(published first on The Conversation) Last week, researchers at the University of Melbourne announced that thylacines or Tasmanian tigers, the Australian marsupial predators extinct since the 1930s,...
View ArticleCartoon guide to biodiversity loss LXXI
Now that the Australian election has been called for next month, here are a few cartoon reminders of the state of environmental politics in this country (hint: they’re abysmal). I’ve surpassed my...
View ArticleShould we bring back the thylacine? We asked 5 experts
Signe Dean, The Conversation In a newly announced partnership with Texas biotech company Colossal Biosciences, Australian researchers are hoping their dream to bring back the extinct thylacine is a...
View ArticleChildren born today will see literally thousands of animals disappear in...
Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Flinders University and Giovanni Strona, University of Helsinki Climate change is one of the main drivers of species loss globally. We know more plants and animals will die as...
View ArticleInterrupted flows in the Murray River endanger frogs
Flooding in the Murray-Darling Basin is creating ideal breeding conditions for many native species that have evolved to take advantage of temporary flood conditions. Led by PhD candidate Rupert...
View ArticleWhat we know we don’t know about animal tolerances to high temperatures
Each organism has a limit of tolerance to cold and hot temperatures. So, the closer it lives to those limits, the higher the chances of experiencing thermal stress and potentially dying. In our recent...
View Article