Simon Heyes

A few species I work on are very rare localised endemics numbering a few thousand. The marble daisy-bush grows on Silurian limestone and marble outcrops near the Nunniong plateau in East Gippsland, Vic. Grevillea iaspicula is only found around caves in Devonian limestone karst in at Wee Jasper, NSW.

New paper by fellow PhD student Mark Clifton @ the Plant Reproductive Ecology & Conservation Genomics Lab! This study investigates polyploidy and hybridisation in endangered, clonal Callistemon species from Victoria, Aus. doi.org/10.1071/BT25... 🌏 🌿 🧪

1/ Given recent attacks on Camp Sovereignty & the fact that a little rich kid racist is assembling the troops agen this Sunday, it'd neat if lots of people attended this I reckon. 2–8pm Camp Sovereignty · Naarm Free concert + delicious food

Fires beyond fire-prone ecosystems: the erosion of beech forest doi.org/10.1111/gcb.... @globalchangebio.bsky.social Global warming weakens the flammability barrier & enables fire to spread beyond fire-prone ecosystems, into fire-sensitive spp 🧪🌍🔥🪴🌱🍁🌐 wildfire #ClimateChange #GlobalChange #Fagus

This article is excellent. It speaks volumes about how governments take so many in the environmental and conservation sectors and communities for granted theconversation.com/australia-ha.... As H5N1 begins to spread and devastate Australian wildlife the dire consequences of this are evident.

1/ A lil🧵collecting the illuminating public interest reporting of Pauline Hanson nemesis—"trashy journo" Sarah Martin Rinehart puppet, "Pauline Hanson & her chief of staff, James Ashby, flew to Florida on Gina Rinehart’s private jet in October & stayed at the mining magnate’s Palm Beach mansion"

Help shape the future of BHL 🌱 As we begin to modernise the BHL platform, we’re inviting BHL users to share their experiences through a 3–5 minute survey. Your responses will directly inform our priorities, identify problems, guide improvements, and shape a better BHL experience: bit.ly/4fpc75D 🧪

Just published. A correspondence in @nature.com from Dr Marissa Parrott and I about the risk that the H5N1 strain of bird flu poses to Australian wildlife, including mammals, and the need for all of us to work together! rdcu.be/ftIkt

Now in summer, we can confirm that a large part of the beech (Fagus sylvatica) forests that burned in low‑intensity understory fires have died. This constitutes a clear case of a low‑intensity, high‑severity fire (I had expected bsky.app/profile/jgpa...) 🧪🌍🔥🌳🍁🪴 wildfires Picos de Europa, N Spain

I am hiring! My former postdocs have all gone on to great ongoing roles, so I am now looking for 2 new postdocs in dynamic vegetation modelling: Modelling vegetation-fire interactions in Australia Modelling Australian vegetation distributions Details linked below - please share!

Its been a while! March was extremely hectic between working on submitting a manuscript for review, giving talks and general Masters work. Have a photo of some Grevillea pollen from the archives (Grevillea jephcottii, taken in 2022). The centre pollen grain is showing pollen tube growth!

After decades of environmental and biodiversity failure, the idea of relying on "nature markets" is just the latest sick joke from the neoliberals who brought us the destructive privatization of public services. #auspol

Very depressing results for my home town in the UK with Reform winning 24 out of 25 local council seats.

The mainstream media and parties in this country has almost entirely given up any pretence that they are here to serve democracy Some may think I'm helping fuelling the growing distrust in institutions but they don't need my help to pave the way for the far right to take over Utterly grim...

Been playing with an eye opening website from the Australian #Greens, new tax the 1% campaign. It calculates how many hours it takes Gina or other billionaires to earn your annual salary. 2.9 hr to earn the Australian median salary of $73k 😮😡 www.taxthe1percent.com.au

At the same time the most immediate risk is a 25% chance of a super El Niño. Think heatwaves, think fire, think crop failure, think mouse plague ( oh we already have that in WA). Think only 7 months prep time. Would you catch a plane with a 25% chance of crashing ? 11/

🎉🆕📰🎉: Sexually deceptive orchids with distinct flower morphologies elicit different behaviours from a shared pollinator doi.org/10.1093/aob/... #PlantScience

'Scientists have issued a dire warning that the widespread death of key eucalypt species in Australian ecosystems could be imminent, due to global heating. Scientists gathered at the Snow Gum Summit last week to discuss combating the loss of an iconic tree'. www.melbournefoe.org.au/media_releas...

🚨 New blog post estar: An R package to measure ecological stability🌍 Find out more about the estar package, which helps researchers analyse stability using the data they collect from real world systems 👇️ 🔎

New virtual issue in AJB 🌿All Functional Trait Handbooks, from the landmark Cornelissen et al. (2003) to the latest on reproductive traits, are now collected in one place. 20+ years of protocols for measuring plant traits across species, ecosystems & continents. All free to read. 🔗 buff.ly/zXlFjQx

Probably a reach here but I'm looking for someone (early career maybe) who would be willing to mentor me as I navigate the post-PhD life. I feel lost on a lot of things and would be grateful to bounce ideas and experiences with someone who's been through a couple of years post-PhD. 😭

There's not too many upsides to getting up at 4am to measure plant traits but the sun rises aren't too shabby

I've been thinking about how Starmer and the Labour Together purge of the left in the party has done the opposite of what they intended. Instead of crushing the left they have liberated it from the shackles of the Labour Party. Fingers crossed for Hannah Spencer in Manchester 🤞

X’s algorithms are not neutral tools, but an editorial force, shaping real worldviews. And unlike much of what you read on X, this finding is based on rigorous research. 👉 Read the full story: theconversation.com/a-few-w...

Yup. But not just because of AI. Scholar is the pet project of one of Google's early employees. I can't see it surviving his retirement. OpenAlex is our best alternative, we need to invest in improving their data.

Tomorrow I'll be presenting at #VicBioCon! I've got a speed talk in Plants and Pollinators 1 (at 11:45am) and have a poster that evening at 5pm. Come say hi and ask me about my Acacias! 😊

Acacia paradoxa has a broad SE Australian distribution, occurs across starkly different habitats, and has remarkably variable morphology. Here is a photo snapshot of some of the diversity captured during my honours field work. #InvasionEcology #Botany #AustralianBotany #Acacia #PopulationGenomics

I want a Royal Commission into masculinity and domestic violence - such language, so easy to slip off the tongue, is so utterly unacceptable and unparliamentary. It shows an inherent, deep misogyny, that’s underwrites so much of what in wrong with Australia.

I made a map of 3.4 million Bluesky users - see if you can find yourself! bluesky-map.theo.io I've seen some similar projects, but IMO this seems to better capture some of the fine-grained detail

“In the race to embrace new technologies, some ecologists fear their field is losing touch with nature” 🧪

Nice surprise to find these Drosera pygmaea and still some other annuals in flower in a grassland in January!

Fully funded PhD opportunity in my lab to study threatened plant species responses to drought and heat. This is part of mu recently funded DECRA fellowship.

Aidan Robbins has been making videos on temperate rainforests all over the world, but says Ireland's were the hardest to cover because they are now so rare. Great to see these precious, neglected ecosystems getting some global attention. They deserve so much better. m.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qq9...

The Jewish Council of Australia want to unite with the broader community to combat antisemitism as part of racism overall. Please read their proposal and sign here: petitions.getup.org.au/petitions/fr... @getup.org.au

To remember William Bond, you could listen to his powerful talk on behalf of grasses! It is a seminal lesson in savanna ecology. Personally, I also find it nice to hear his voice. jgpausas.blogs.uv.es/2021/02/21/a... 🧪🌎🔥🌿🌳🪴🌐 #PlantScience #savanna

🌱Angela also sat down with our Executive Editor Richard Bardgett to talk about how she went from seed science to applied ecology, and falling into a career in academia 🎧Listen to the podcast here: buff.ly/2augoKE

Growing old and tolerant? How Eucalypts and Acacias traits vary across life-stages. Come see my poster and talk at ESA 2025 conference. Monday, Nov 24 5:44 PM Tuesday, Nov 25 3:00 PM #ESA2025 #EcologicalSocietyOfAustralia #EcologyAustralia #BiodiversityOnTheBrink #KaurnaCountry #Adelaide

#Styphelia ericoides (Ericaceae), aka the pink beard heath! This is a widespread shrub to 2m high that has typical beard-heath flowers: tubular and densly hairy (bearded) on the inside. The flowers are very small (1-1.5mm long), creamy-white with pink tips. #plants #photography