Frank Burdon

What co-benefits do we gain when planting trees along stream margins? We don't fully know. PhD funded by the George Mason Charitable Trust going now — mapping food webs across Mt Taranaki's "ring of restoration" 🌱🐟 Please repost among your networks More info here: tinyurl.com/TreesInsects...

A new meta-analysis of 66 stream studies reveals that biological structure and ecosystem functioning respond differently to #restoration. One key insight is that without proper reference states, we can't tell if interventions are hitting true process-based targets for stream ecosystem functions.

Riparian vegetation connectivity shows positive relationships with local (alpha) metrics of aquatic insect #biodiversity. Furthermore, beta-diversity metrics (compositional variation) followed nonlinear patterns along the connectivity gradient, with species turnover driving most of the variation.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is bringing ecological inference closer to decision-making, producing detections, alerts, trends, and prioritisation outputs. Yet, consensus on how to interpret or act on these remains limited - a new paper explores this opportunity doi.org/10.1111/1365...

This issue has emerged as another threat to the Arawa lakes with PFAs being found in Lake Rotorua. The close proximity of the airport to the lake has resulted in forever chemicals being detected - raising concerns about mahinga kai sourced from the lake.

This is a cool approach to an interesting management problem: a study used particle-tracking velocimetry (PTV) to assess the response of grass carp larvae when exposed to out-of-water acoustic signals

When you visit Curonian Spit, you can find a sizable colony of~5000 cormorants. You can immediately see their effects of massive nutrient flow of guano. Flock of birds as the original inspiration (airborne geological formation) for the biogeochemistry by Vladimir Vernadsky. 🧪⚒️ #Geology #Ornithology

eDNA and traditional surveys provide divergent species lists? That's not a flaw—it’s a predictable feature based on what is being measured. 🧬 This paper breaks down the eDNA "inference chain" (shedding, transport, degradation & PCR) to show why eDNA is an inferential tool, not a direct count. 👇

Can agentic AI automate fisheries and ecological modelling? 🐟🤖 While AI agents can automate complex R coding workflows, subtle statistical hallucinations mean they aren't ready for unsupervised analysis and policy advice. Great tool for experts, risky for non-experts. 🧵👇

As analyses become cheaper, real observation becomes more valuable. My latest long-form essay Are we observing the Earth *less*? A case for observatories, long-term studies, and museums in an increasingly tech-obsessed world 👇 tnature.substack.com/p/are-we-obs...

Our recent study showed a 91% decline in kōura (freshwater crayfish) populations in invaded Arawa lakes 📉🐟 Our new study shows rising temperatures also pose a threat, but restoring rocky shorelines and riparian trees may give kōura a fighting chance 🪨🌿 Read more: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Trophic transfer efficiencies decrease with warming in freshwater ecosystems. Tradeoffs between primary production and TTEs may help explain why freshwater ecosystems with differing levels of production sustain similar food chain lengths (although some will benefit from trophic subsidies) #foodwebs

One of the famous stories in Te Arawa history is that of the rangatira Hatupatu, when he attempted to introduce tāmure (snapper) to the Arawa Lakes. The story holds that it was unsuccesful, despite the great effort made to bring live fish inland from the coast. Imagine if snapper were in the lakes🎣😉

I've been thinking a lot about how I do science, with the challenges of getting access to sites. Using microcosms could be an excellent alternative to help test ecological theories and new methods. I'll be interested to read this paper.

Biodiversity loss isn't just about losing species—it alters how they interact, threatening the ecosystems we depend on. A new study from a largescale subtropical forest experiment reveals that specialized and diverse species interactions are key to keeping ecosystems functioning. #BEF #Forest

I've been thinking a lot about how we can improve freshwater biodiversity monitoring 📊🔍 This new paper may have the answers. DNA megabarcoding, combined with automated imaging & machine learning (CNNs) can provide accurate IDs, abundance, AND biomass for aquatic insects 🐛🧬

Researchers with access to field stations are in a very privileged position - it is imperative that they are used to keep their functions alive in the minds of administrators

Cool study of the impact of an introduced North American freshwater fish on crayfish in New Zealand.

This fun online game is a useful educational tool for understanding more about the ecology of gammarid amphipods in streams: amphipodfeast.francoiskeck.fr

This study documents the novel use of UAVs for surveying populations of a wetland dragonfly with a high-resolution camera, along with characterising different aspects of the habitat using hyperspectral imaging

Anyone familiiar with SIA will know the troubling assumptions that need to be made about TDFs. This new preprint indicates that fractionation rates for nitrogen are temperature dependent, at least in lab populations of a cyprinid fish www.authorea.com/doi/full/10....