Michael Kearney

Michael Kearney

@ecophys.bsky.social

Professor in Ecology and Evolution and ARC Laureate Fellow @unimelb interested in what limits life | Mechanistic Niche Models | Functional Traits | Metabolic Theory | Microclimate | Climate Change | Dynamic Energy Budget Theory | Life History | NicheMapR

1.3K followers569 following26 posts

Michael Kearney
@ecophys.bsky.social

I'm looking for a postdoc to work on an Australian Research Council Laureate Project on climate change responses, applying a Julia implementation of the NicheMapR package. The work could go in control theory, DEB theory or population process directions unimelb.wd105.myworkdayjobs.com/UoM_External...

unimelb.wd105.myworkdayjobs.comResearch Fellow in Biophysical EcologyRole type: Full Time (1.0 FTE); Fixed term for 2 years Faculty: Faculty of Science Department/ School: School of BioSciences Salary: Level A: $87,266 - $118,416 p.a. plus 17% super ARC-funded climate ...
Michael Kearney
@ecophys.bsky.social

You can now model human heat exchange in R (and via a Shiny app). I started work on this with Shane Maloney (Uni of WA) way back in 2014, with Duncan Mitchell (Uni of the Witwatersrand) joining us along the way onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1... @globalchangebio.bsky.social @unimelb.edu.au

onlinelibrary.wiley.comHomoTherm: An Open‐Source Approach to Modelling Heat Exchange in Humans and Other Hominins in Diverse EnvironmentsWe present ‘HomoTherm’, a human heat budget model for simulating humans and related species with diverse traits in diverse environments. It is part of the NicheMapR package for biophysical modelling ...
Michael Kearney
@ecophys.bsky.social

Help put pressure on the govt to fight the curse of buffel by declaring it a weed of national significance. Buffel is transforming our beautiful desert ecosystems through its dominance and alteration of fire regimes. It is arguably our worst invasive species invasives.org.au/how-to-help/...

invasives.org.auLet the Desert Breathe: Demand National Buffel Grass ActionAcross the heart of our continent, a dull straw-green tide is taking over. Buffel grass, Tjanpi kura (bad grass), Mama Tjunpi (devil grass) is transforming our deserts into dangerous monocultures that...

Michael Kearney reposted

BHL Australia
@bhl-au.bsky.social

📢 Big news from the Biodiversity Heritage Library: The Smithsonian will no longer host BHL’s central operations from Jan 2026. After 20 years, we’re entering a new chapter – seeking new funding and support to sustain our global staff and infrastructure. Please share. 🌱 #ILoveBHL #OpenAccess

Biodiversity Heritage Library@biodivlibrary.bsky.social

Change is in the air for BHL! In 2026, BHL hosting will transition away from the Smithsonian, opening doors to reimagine our future. Rest assured, our 63 million pages of biodiversity knowledge remain secure and accessible. Learn what's next for BHL ➡️

blog.biodiversitylibrary.orgA New Future for the Biodiversity Heritage LibraryThe Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world’s largest open access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives. A global consortium of over 660 contributors, BHL has made more …
Michael Kearney
@ecophys.bsky.social

This is a Len Beadell marker I photographed last weekend on the Gunbarrel Hwy in South Australia, surrounded by an ecological and social disaster called Buffel Grass. Anangu call it tjanpi mamu which means "devil grass" in Pitjantjatjara. It's steadily eroding the flora and fauna of our deserts.

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Michael Kearney
@ecophys.bsky.social

But the pastoral industry loves it and thinks it deserves an Order of Australia www.beefcentral.com/news/buffel-.... If you love Central Australia, help pressure the Federal Government to declare it a national weed and invest in the development of biological controls.

beefcentral.comBuffel grass put on the Federal election agenda - Beef CentralFarming groups and politicians have come together to put buffel grass on the agenda ahead of the Federal election, with the Labor Government expected to call an election in the coming days...Read More
Michael Kearney
@ecophys.bsky.social

This is a Len Beadell marker I photographed last weekend on the Gunbarrel Hwy in South Australia, surrounded by an ecological and social disaster called Buffel Grass. Anangu call it tjanpi mamu which means "devil grass" in Pitjantjatjara. It's steadily eroding the flora and fauna of our deserts.

Michael Kearney
@ecophys.bsky.social

I was with John Read who has watched it spread over the 25 years of regular visits. It's spreading by wind, humans, cars and mammals. It's killing river red gums, figs, mulga woodlands, and smothering flower-filled native grasslands and spinifex-covered sand dunes and plains.

Michael Kearney
@ecophys.bsky.social

It changes fire regimes to be more intense and burns the country to a monoculture. It is the light green in the photo, spreading up into the hills replacing Triodia. Efforts to control it by spraying or weeding are now like trying to hold back the tide and the only real hope is biological control.

Michael Kearney
@ecophys.bsky.social

A great summary by @nicholaswu.bsky.social on a paper applying #NicheMapR to model climate change impacts on heat stress in frogs globally, led by @patricepottier.bsky.social. Note how different the +2 and +4 warming scenarios. Climate warming impacts on biology are very nonlinear. #UniMelb #ARC

Nicholas Wu@nicholaswu.bsky.social

New paper in @nature.com led by @patricepottier.bsky.social! We demonstrated global vulnerability of amphibians to warming, threatening 10% of >5,000 species examined. How did we do it? See thread🧵 Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Michael Kearney
@ecophys.bsky.social

I’m in the Western Australian mining town of Kalgoorlie where I’ve set up a makeshift grasshopper brothel in a cabin at a caravan park. In this historically male-dominate town of humans one of the grasshoppers - Warramaba virgo - is all female …

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Michael Kearney
@ecophys.bsky.social

The parthenogenetic species meets the sexual ones (from which it evolved by hybridisation) on the outskirts of Kalgoorlie where this hybrid mating happens naturally. They form “hybrid zones” where triploid offspring have very low fitness meaning they can’t coexist.

Michael Kearney
@ecophys.bsky.social

I’m in the Western Australian mining town of Kalgoorlie where I’ve set up a makeshift grasshopper brothel in a cabin at a caravan park. In this historically male-dominate town of humans one of the grasshoppers - Warramaba virgo - is all female …

Michael Kearney
@ecophys.bsky.social

I’ve collected males from nearby sexual populations and set them up with the parthenogenetic females (who haven’t had sex for a couple of hundred thousand years). What should happen is that the males’ sperm fertilises the cloned eggs so that their offspring will have three sets of chromosomes.

Michael Kearney
@ecophys.bsky.social

The late Eric Pianka made thousands of observations of desert lizard body temperature and activity. We used them to test biophysical models of their cost of living and projected the models to past and future climates in Africa and Australia #unimelb #ARC @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.orgClimate change and the cost-of-living squeeze in desert lizardsClimate warming can induce a cost-of-living “squeeze” in ectotherms by increasing energetic expenditures while reducing foraging gains. We used biophysical models (validated by 2685 field observations...
Michael Kearney
@ecophys.bsky.social

Please circulate: Postdoc position on responses of Australian mammal pests to climate change. Part of my ARC Laureate Fellowship research. Lots of hands-on fieldwork. Learn about biophysical models. Remote locations. Collaboration with #EcologicalHorizons and #AWC jobs.unimelb.edu.au/en/job/91880...

jobs.unimelb.edu.auDetails : Research Fellow in Mammalian Movement Ecology and Energetics : The University of MelbourneCareers at The University of Melbourne

Michael Kearney reposted

Nicole Kearney
@nicolekearney.bsky.social

This week I assisted with the annual pitfall trapping at Secret Rocks on the Eyre Peninsula. This beautiful place is a living arc for so many species of endangered wildlife, including Numbats, Malleefowl, Red-tailed Phascogales and the Sandhill Dunnart. 1/2

Michael Kearney reposted

T.M. Perez
@tmperez.bsky.social

I like the last paper I published- In it collaborators and I test a classic hypothesis in ecology for the first time (that we are aware of) in plants. The take-home message is plants that like temperature variability may “win” in future climates. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....

journals.uchicago.eduClimate Constrains Photosynthetic Strategies in Darwin’s Daisies: A Test of the Climatic Variability and Jack-of-All-Trades Hypotheses | The American Naturalist: Vol 201, No 1Abstract Empirical evidence for the climate variability and performance trade-off hypotheses is limited to animals, and it is unclear whether climate constrains the photosynthetic strategies of plants...
David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈@whysharksmatter.bsky.social

Science friends 🧪🌎🦑, @altmetric.com tracks Bluesky posts now! Quote or reply to this post with a link to the paper you’re best known for or most proud of, and a brief plain-language summary of what you found and why it matters! Let’s fill Bluesky with SCIENCE!

Michael Kearney
@ecophys.bsky.social

I'm sharing one that an exceptional MSc student led showing how plant growth trajectories, from seeds onward, can be predicted in different microclimates using a theory deeply rooted (sorry) in physics #DEBtheory @juliacon.bsky.social #NicheMapR. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.comIntegrating dynamic plant growth models and microclimates for species distribution modellingClimate is a major factor determining the distribution of plant species. Correlative models are frequently used to model the relationships between spe…
David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈@whysharksmatter.bsky.social

Science friends 🧪🌎🦑, @altmetric.com tracks Bluesky posts now! Quote or reply to this post with a link to the paper you’re best known for or most proud of, and a brief plain-language summary of what you found and why it matters! Let’s fill Bluesky with SCIENCE!

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