Last eve to cool off from 30.6°C heat I slid into the cool (17.4) of the River Lark, carrying on up from West Row to c1 km up from Judes Ferry. Met several more gatherings of giant Chub under willows & other overhangs. Such impressive beasts could be 25 years old. #MySwim 1/8

Forest dynamics plots have revolutionised our understanding of tropical forests and how they are changing. Here with Fangliang He at Biashanzu National Park,China, learning about their plot monitoring 207 thousand trees of 156 species. More videos: youtube.com/@bill_sutherla…

Why are chalk streams important, rare and threatened? 3.49 minute video on YouTube; first 2.20 here. Brief performances by gudgeon, minnow, roach, dace and chubb. More details, and better fish images, coming from ⁦nicola crockford⁩. Full video: youtube.com/@bill_sutherla…

Absolutely. It is wonderful and extremely powerful that the same data is being collected in standard ways across the world. Would be great if this was the case for other monitoring.

Get much pleasure from this strawberry tree I planted from a seed. I used to teach that this, and other members of the Lusitanian flora occurring in Iberia and Ireland, were Ice age relics. Exciting new research shows probably Neolithic introduction. More: youtube.com/@bill_sutherla…

Amazed to stumble (or rather splash) on W Suffolk's best kept secret 8min drive from our home of 30yrs! Worlington Hythe. Got in River Lark at West Row sad that vis poor, lots algae, few fish, but persisted up, coming to this "yellow crowfoot road" leading to bliss.. #MySwim 1/25

Yr 8: Rock cycle Yr 9: Carbon cycle L6: Conservation

Wasn’t sure why strawberry tree was preferred for copper smelting. tony p Tweeted that it burns hot and long (but as does ash and hazel). Online people say is hot (is famously dense) with little ash. Paper on the history: britishandirishbotany.org/index.php/bib/…

Agree they are stunning and striking. Is national tree of Italy as resembles flag: green leaves, white flowers, red berries.

This is always such an enjoyable, dynamic conference of the next generation of global conservationists. Always enjoy the two workshops I run on planning research projects and improving conservation practice. Many other workshops available and lots of talks. See you there?

Do you want to read a paper that is long like a famine year (a Finnish expression) but perhaps you’ll like it? Topic: Nature intertwines rhythms, seasons, all sorts of events. My old modelling book sadly did not cover the flexibility of methods when it comes to modelling time. 🧵

THRILLED to meet my 1st Common Barbel (Barbel barbel), 30+cm, in River Nene at Elton, thanks Matt Hay. Natch just as my camera went on a weird setting! It was hanging out in willow den with the only large chubs we saw; vid shows our pincer movement on them. #MySwim #cambs🧵1/12

Delighted to be 61st best scientist in UK and 13th best in my field of eeerm Physics. Apologies astronomer Will J Sutherland at QMC for merging. Perhaps as I coauthored a paper ‘Black hole models of leks’? Told research.com last two years; guess just need to accept it.

We're really struggling to get someone to talk about evidence-based conservation from a Global South perspective for our session at #BES2024. If you're going to the conference and could give a talk on this topic, could you get in touch?

Coordinated responses to conserve threatened species are needed, but how this works in practice is largely unexplored. We assessed the human context underlying how seabird conservation is responding to #climatechange & identified opport for improvement ➡️doi.org/10.1111/csp2.1…

A *fabulous* resource: the Coilltean Caillte/Forgotten Woodlands project has mapped 15,000 Scottish place-names indicating presence of trees/forest in the land. Gaelic as ecological memory-trove. Map, pronunciation guide, stories etc. here: storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/9b790d… 👏Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba

Why are some forests so diverse, like the 156 species in this Chinese forest plot or 1100 in an Amazon plot? Discussion of possible explanations with Fangliang He and Nathan Kraft. More: youtube.com/@bill_sutherla…

Delighted Tatsuya Amano, and the translatE project, awarded the BES Equality and Diversity Champion award for their initiative to tackle language barriers and promote diversity in science. An amazing global collaboration of 130 people, including native speakers of 17 languages.

Accidentally posted shortened version. Sorry! Why are some forests so diverse, like the 156 species in this Chinese forest plot or 1100 in an Amazon plot? Discussion of possible explanations with Fangliang He and Nathan Kraft. More: youtube.com/@bill_sutherla…