Opwall Science

Welcome to Opwall Science! This account is dedicated to sharing research news from our global network of fieldwork sites, as well as to highlight news and stories that might be of broad interest to the biodiversity and conservation science community.

New family of flies for me - Megamerinidae This is Megamerina dolium - the sole species found in the British isles from this family 😎 From the @opwallscience.bsky.social @kneppwilding.bsky.social malaise samples I think only a few records from Sussex so I’m happy - check out their leg spines

New natural history note out in Ornithological Research documenting novel parental care behaviour in the Crested Guan (Penelope purpurascens), as observed in camera trap footage from Cusuco National Park, Honduras: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Congratulations to Libelje Mortier et al. on publishing the first ever checklist of fungi species for Honduras! This study – which includes data from Cusuco National Park, found evidence for 1365 species occurring in Honduras, although this is likely a fraction of true diversity tinyurl.com/4btmsfe5

Great to see the huge “Status & Trends of Caribbean Coral Reefs 1970-2024” out, and very pleased to have made major contributions to the Honduras chapter. Overall the findings of the report are very alarming, indicating severe declines in Caribbean reef health: gcrmn.net/caribbean-20...

New open-access paper by Sam Jones et al. examining the mechanisms governing elevational range limits in the bird communities of Cusuco National Park, Honduras. Results show habitat and behaviour are likely to be more important than physiology in governing altitudinal limits: tinyurl.com/393byxx6

New paper in Coral Reefs by Rebecca Cramp et al. documenting Diadema urchin declines between 2014-2022 in two ecologically-different Caribbean study sites (Utila and Tela), and examining the impacts of these declines on the benthic communities in these sites: tinyurl.com/5bb4khur

New spider described by Brogan Pett et al. from the Mariarano forest, Madagascar! Welcoming to the World Paccia haddadi – a ground-sac spider that endemic to the dry forest ecosystems of north-western Madagascar, and the 8th spider species described from the site to date tinyurl.com/2f5t6a5b

Congratulations to Rachel Gunn et al. for their new Aquatic Biology paper which, from examining cleaner gobies on the reefs of Utila, Honduras, shows that cleaner behaviour is complex ,being influenced by a range of behavioural and ecological variables tinyurl.com/ys2bwdw8

Congratulations to Joseph Oakley & Natalia Argüelles-Valle for their new note documenting the first record of the Salamander Bolitoglossa dofleini in Mexico! This extends the northern range of the species by >100km tinyurl.com/ycyuwttf Photo: Joseph Oakley

Raman was one of our @opwall.bsky.social research assistants in Croatia a couple of years ago, and watching her impact as a young conservationist makes me so proud!!

Great new paper by Richard Bodmer et al. examining the ecology of River dolphins at fish aggregations in Amazonian Peru. It found that Pink dolphins formed feeding aggregations in both small and large rivers, while Grey dolphin aggregations largely occurred in large rivers; tinyurl.com/ezxjtmaa

Nice review by @thereremouse.bsky.social et al. of a new harp design that was extensively field-tested by the Croatia bat team in our Krka National Park field site this summer:

An extremely strong month for the Utila marine research team! Congratulations to @jamesboon.bsky.social, @salkeith.bsky.social et al. on another great paper, this one examining how reef structure influences fish anti-predation behaviour!

Great new open-access by @jamesboon.bsky.social, @salkeith.bsky.social, et al. showing high taxonomic and functional turnovers in the deep reef fish communities off Utlia, Honduras - a very interesting finding given deeper reefs have often been assumed to be more stable than shallower reefs!

New paper by Catherine Sheppard et al. examining aggressive behaviour in damselfish in the coral reefs of Honduras. Results showed predicting aggressive responses can be complex, extending beyond simply whether the subject of the aggression is a “neighbour” or a “stranger”: tinyurl.com/mr3vhef9

The most gorgeous of larvae These are immature Simuliidae - black flies. They sucker on to a fast-flowing river bottom & filter feed. They have beautiful cephalic fans which are filtering fans @opwallscience.bsky.social @opwall.bsky.social #Honduras #FlyFriday

Check out the most badass of larva - this is an immature lacewing How cool is nature - from the cloud forests of Honduras @opwall.bsky.social @opwallscience.bsky.social #NationalInsectWeek @royentsoc.bsky.social

For #Flyfriday & #NationalInsectWeek, Check out this golden boy Eliozeta helluo (Fabrioius, 1805) is found across Europe, scattered parts of Russia, China, the Middle east, Korea, Japan & Mongolia! This one was found in Romania, collected on an @opwall.bsky.social @opwallscience.bsky.social trip

Congratulations to @thereremouse.bsky.social et al. for their fantastic new paper provided a much-needed update to the terrestrial mammal inventory for Krka National Park, Croatia! Great output that should be highly useful for Park managers! Open access too so please take a look!

New blog post out; our "fieldwork dictionary" summarizing the main survey methodologies used at our terrestrial and marine fieldwork sites: www.opwall.com/article/the-...

New open-access paper by Asela Buenfil-Rojas et al. describing a method to extract RNA from Morelet's Crocodile scuts (partly based on samples obtained from our Calakmul site), just out in MethodsX - shorturl.at/PXBFO

Great new blog post by Glenn Shiach discussing the recent taxonomic spider discoveries from our research site in the dry forests of Madagascar: www.opwall.com/article/scie...

New paper by Rodney Roundtree et al. examining the acoustical ecology of dolphins and fish in the Pacaya-Samiria Reserve, Peru. They document distinct dolphin sounds seemingly used in different situations, and show a correlation between dolphin & fish acoustical activity: shorturl.at/gxerkhttps:/...

New Opwall blog post introducing Andrew and Annika at RARElab, who we hope to be collaborating with on many interesting things in the near future! www.opwall.com/article/rare...

Amazing species to be found in the cloud forests of Honduras!

Frederico Barosso - our new Research and Education officer - giving a great overview of his thermal ecology research in a new blogpost here: www.opwall.com/article/test...

New paper by Hrvoje Čižmek et al. on the ecology of the Critically Endangered Noble Pen Shell off Miljet, Croatia. Results show the population to be dominated by older individuals, making it vulnerable to the mass mortality events posing a particular risk to the species: www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/17...

New paper showing patterns in neotropical monitoring programs (incorporating relevant Opwall sites). Results indicate spatial and taxonomic bias in these programs, and crucially that many span <10 years in duration, meaning they may not pick up important ecological trends shorturl.at/alx37

New book chapter preprint out on @authorea.com led by @jonathancazabonne.bsky.social. A massive piece of work using a wide range of data sources (including from Honduras) to provide an extremely thorough overview of the knowledge gaps that impede research into poorly-studied taxa.

Great to see samples collected by @flygirlnhm.bsky.social at our @kneppwilding.bsky.social project being used as comparative data to support this super-interesting project on demographic patterns in Hoverfly migration!

Fantastic Diptera collection being collated by @flygirlnhm.bsky.social at the @nhm-london.bsky.social from our project at @kneppwilding.bsky.social!

@whatalexseas.bsky.social giving a superb talk on how citizen science projects can contribute to marine conservation outcomes at the inaugural Ocean Advocate Summit in Bristol last week.

New paper led by Deepankar Mahabale examining hunting sustainability in a community-led wildlife management plan in the Peruvian Amazon. Results show planned quotas with community buy-in can yield sustainable hunting yields, and such approaches may be a counter to illegal hunting: shorturl.at/OTlSL

Congratulations to Dr James Boon on passing his Viva!

Going through the malaise samples from the @opwallscience.bsky.social trip to Honduras And check out this Phoridae - those wings are amazing @dipterists.bsky.social

New paper out last month pooling standardized reef monitoring data from across the globe (including our research site on Hoga, Indonesia) to examine state shifts in reef ecosystems. Results show concerning shifts from reefs dominated by hard corals to more algae-dominated reefs: shorturl.at/4v7dV

Very pleased to participate in the first Ocean Advocacy Summit in Bristol soon, where Alex O’Brien & Catherine Edsell will discuss the importance of citizen science in marine conservation. The summit is on 1st Feb - you can find more here: ocean-advocate.org/ocean-advoca...

Excellent few days in Czechia discussing upcoming fungi, parasite, and bat research with @teamlaboul.bsky.social

Important paper highlighting further declines in fieldwork-driven research in the biological sciences.

Our mycology collaborators are searching for records of fungi-infected ladybirds and would love to hear from you if you have any records to report!

A gorgeous fly collected from @opwallscience.bsky.social trip to Honduras in 2023 Ormia sp. are very special Tachinidae as they have ‘ears’ on their prothorax that they use to listen for the hosts (Orthoptera) for their offspring to live in and consume 😎🤓 @dipterists.bsky.social