Laura Dee

Hi 👋 new BlueSky followers! Introducing our lab group @colorado.edu. We aim to understand and design solutions to the grand challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change. Our research combines global change ecology, community ecology, ecosystem sci, economics & conservation science to: 1/n

New paper: the Resist-Accept-Direct framework for managing post-fire forests in the Greater Yellowstone w/ Silvia Olvera Hernandez + @lauradee.bsky.social, funded by the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center. Grateful to the land + fire managers who shared their knowledge + future visions!

For anyone in or near Boulder, join me and Hillary Rosner at the @boulderbookstore.bsky.social next Thursday! Meat-eating plants, bog bodies, bog butter and other strange but fascinating wonders of boglands. boulderbookstore.net/event/2026-1...

Missed our last MEE live? You can now find it on our Youtube! 🌍 🧪 In this this webinar, Antica Culina introduces the concept of Risk of Bias (RoB), and discusses why RoB assessment matters for producing reliable systematic reviews and meta-analyses. buff.ly/B2GOVNe

Tenure-track assistant professor position in #ecology at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington: apply.interfolio.com/190454

👀

I’m looking to recruit a postdoc to join my research group at University of Iowa to work on disturbance ecology and biodiversity! Start date flexible, lots of opportunity for skill development, collaboration, and mentorship. Will review applicants in mid-August! Link: gavinmjones.com/opportunities/

Almost every European plant species is out of equilibrium. Climate change is only part of the story—disturbance greatly shapes where species actually occur. 🚨Our new paper 🌱in @natecoevo.nature.com analysed 3,047 species across >1.1M European vegetation plots. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

👀

Join us to learn insights for ESIIL's Macrophenology working group: esiil.org/news-events/...

The @ipbes.net spatial Planning and Connectivity assessment is now open for public (upon registration) review. If you are working on conservation planning or connectivity modelling, have a look and let us know if there is something we missed. www.ipbes.net/notification...

The Department of Biology at the University of Iowa is hiring an evolutionary ecologist at the assistant professor level for fall 2027. Come and be my colleague! jobs.uiowa.edu/faculty/view...

Ecologists! Check out this AWESOME paper using the newer (to us, anyway) Synthetic Control technique in combo w/ @inaturalist.bsky.social to show hurricane impacts on bees. From Asia Kaiser, @julianresasco.bsky.social, and @lauradee.bsky.social 🌍🧪 #causalinference www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How can Indigenous Peoples and local communities have a greater say in biodiversity assessments? This Biodiversity Day, we've published a study that presents guidance for stronger inclusion of Indigenous Peoples' and local communities' knowledge within IPBES.

Excellent thread here!

Journal Club articles at Nature Reviews Biodiversity are pitched by early career researchers. We are grateful to everyone who has contributed these articles so far, but current submissions are heavily skewed towards men.

Causal inference should quantify the sensitivity of results to hidden confounders (variables affecting both the location of projects and outcomes). The importance of this is illustrated using analysis of over-crediting in REDD+ projects 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Quasi-experimental analysis of the effects of Ethiopia’s protected areas on environmental and human wellbeing is combined with surveys of conservation professionals to explore why improving protected area effectiveness may be prioritized over network expansion 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Really cool paper with many applications to conservation.

So proud of Dr. Asia Kaiser for her ESA Murray F. Buell Award & recently defending her PhD! Asia is an outstanding scientist & seeking a postdoc (urban ecology, insect biodiversity, bees, agroecosystems, & synthetic control/stat methods). Please connect w Asia w opportunities. Please boost! 🐝🌎🧪🥒🏙️🌱

Asia Kaiser has been on an incredible streak lately! This new @natecoevo.nature.com paper w @lauradee.bsky.social is the latest. Cool work showing how ecologists can use synthetic control methods to strengthen inference — highlighted using iNat bee data in cities 🐝🌎🧪🌱🌆 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Writing isn't about getting words on paper. It's how the brain deepens understanding. When AI does that work instead, this process doesn't happen. Why does that matter? 🎧 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/critically-speaking/id1463016517 @natwexler.bsky.social

💡 Reminder! We're hosting an info session for those interested in the 2027 Faculty Fellowship Program — TOMORROW, May 5 @ 11 a.m. PT 🔗 bit.ly/3RkJzBy Not sure if you're eligible? Faculty & non-faculty scientists with primary investigator status at UW, BSU, NWIC, OSU, PSU, UM, WSU & WWU can apply!

In a coastal state, removing disclosure and permitting requirements for properties that will become dangerously flood exposed in the future isn’t a pathway to affordable AND SAFE housing.

How much do you know about 5 converging environmental crises? ➡️ Explore the most comprehensive assessment of links between biodiversity, water, food, health & climate. 🌏 For just & sustainable futures! Watch the IPBES #NexusAssessment video here: https://youtu.be/8H6aW_j2oSA?si=kcnREIc_f2cZmw95

States say disaster funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency has slowed to a trickle under the Trump administration. That's delaying projects to protect communities from wildfires and hurricanes. n.pr/3NVuLIF

📢 Content submissions for the 6th SORTEE Conference (13-14 Oct 2026) are now OPEN #SORTEE2026 Submit your proposal for an unconference, hackathon or workshop by June 7th via sortee.org/upcoming SORTEE members can attend for free. Join us sortee.org/join/

TEN post-doc openings at the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity. Yes, you read that right. TEN.

😍

Proposals for our Special Feature with @funecology.bsky.social & @journalofecology.bsky.social are still open 👀 We're looking to further understanding of how climate change affects plant–antagonist interactions, particularly through links to management strategies 🐛 bit.ly/45ZalEf

‪ 🌳 Do you want to contribute to research on how humans perceive forests? Take this quick, anonymous 10-min survey 🌲 👉 www.biodiful.org#/forest This will help us explore how people experience forest biodiversity! Please share on 🦋 & tag @biodiful.bsky.social to reach more participants 🙏💚 🌐🌍🦤🦑🪴🍁🧪

I wish more people knew this. Power analysis should be based on the smallest effect size of interest. Not on a guess, or a hope. You also need to specify that effect to make your claim falsifiable, and to know when the effect is statistically significant, but practically irrelevant.

Happy to share that we have a new paper out based on my PhD research: "Predicting missing links in food webs using stacked models and species traits" with @lauradee.bsky.social, Kate L. Wootton, François Massol, @aaronclauset.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1038/s414... 🧵/1

This looks exciting! Monitoring ecosystem change and attributing the impacts to planned (like forest management) and unplanned disturbances (like fire & drought) has become the primary focus of our team at work.

Disgusting - he should be fired

We need a global assessment of avoidable climate-change risks. To understand the urgency of emissions reductions, policymakers and citizens need a full analysis of what is at stake. www.nature.com/articles/d41... from @eunicelo.bsky.social @climatedann.bsky.social @bristoluni.bsky.social @nature.com

After learning about collider bias, reading this gave me the second-worst existential crisis about learning anything causal from data *even when you can run experiments*. Really a must-read if you’re not already familiar with this stuff.

I saw this when it was a preprint? They have a unique version of the estimand-estimator-estimates workflow, will be useful for may biologists, not just ecologists. We need more case studies for ecologists to emulate and for norms to shift so "regression and storytelling" becomes unpublishable.

"the largest act of mass murder of this decade, and of this century so far, was not perpetrated by militaries or militias, but by the world's richest man in Washington D.C.'s Eisenhower Executive Office Building." www.liberalcurrents.com/what-elon-ha...

New #causalinference paper just dropped! As an ecologist, I was trained to ask: "What do the data tell me?" This paper: there are only specific instances when this question is appropriate—when you lack domain knowledge, which we often have! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

And a nice accessible write up of the paper scienmag.com/from-correla...

If you have personal testimonials about how @ncar-ucar.bsky.social has benefited your career, submit your story to @ametsoc.org via this web form. #SaveNCAR docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Best practices for moving from correlation to causation in ecological research 🧪 #Macroecology

So, y'all have heard me going on about #causalinference in #ecology a lot. Now our big synthetic guide "Best practices for moving from correlation to causation in ecological research" is out! Led by Hannah Correia & Paul Ferraro, it's a great walk-through for all! 🌍🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#causalsky 🌍

FELLOWSHIP! We’re proud to announce the launch of the Climate Science Serving America fellowship, open to early- and mid-career scientists & engineers who work on climate solutions. Full salary, benefits, and a research stipend. Remote anywhere in the United States. drawdown.org/news/project...