Joachim Mergeay
@jmergeay
EU 🇧🇪- Scientist INBO Belgium- conservation genetics of any species - climbing arborist - wolves - LCIE - he/him 💙🇺🇦💛
Hazelhoen is nog steeds aanwezig in Z-België, in minstens 2 gebieden. Moeilijk te vinden zelfs als je weet waar. Maar inderdaad schaars. In Fennoscandia is de makkelijkste manier om met een speciaal fluitje de ijle zang vd mannetjes te imiteren.
Those wondering what’s up with the Belgian jersey? It’s a tribute to René Magritte and The Voice of Space. On the inside it has another reference to Magritte. #ESPBEL
We're hardly the size of the California Bay area, but yeah. Sometimes size doesn't matter. Yesterday it was the USA against the rest of the world, and we felt that support.
Nice thread on how to screw up because you think you don’t need actual experts. Anyone, more Brain damage from lead pipes? The US still massively relies on lead pipes for its drinking water network. To avoid corrosion orthophosphate is added to levels that blue-green algae adore.
And you also still have tons of lead water pipes??! Jeez, let me guess, mostly in red states? #braindamage
Sometimes during my tree care work I encounter the most magnificent trees. Here a majestic Tilia cordata, 30 m high crown towering over the other trees, 5.6 m circumference. Full of life in its cavities.
Happiness comes in many forms. Home sweet home. Flemish goats, conserving livestock genetic diversity. #consgen
I was completely dumbstruck to see European mistletoe on a silver fir tree Abies alba in the Vosges this week. Turns out it is a subspecies, Viscum album abietis
You gotta admire beavers. I’d say this one has bitten off more than he can chew, but I’ve seen such giants felled by a 30 kg rodent chiselling away chip by chip. Those that stay up are an important source of dead standing wood, for all kinds of creatures.
This is where I’m at peace. Wading, flyfishing, observing, immersing. Sometimes litterally.
5/ With a management goal of just 170 wolves (17 packs) in Sweden and only three packs in Norway, the effective size of this population would fall to less than 25. Or 20x lower than recommended. lciepub.nina.no/pdf/63900281...
4/ We used the full pedigree of the Scandinavian wolf population to calculate exactly generation per generation since its founding the effective size Ne, and compared this to the Ne that simulations used by Swedish authorities churn out. It turns out the simulations overestimate Ne up to 3 times.
For birds blunts or modern equivalents are still used in combination with a fluflu to slow the arrow down quickly. You don’t want an arrow that missed its target to land 200 m further en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flu-flu...
To then hear over and over again excellent scientists talk seriously about "predictive ecology" is disheartening, because it does a disservice to conservation biology. Life has endless # variables each bound to chaotic principles. Explaining what happened is different from predicting the future.
Reminds me of a passage from Jost (2009:18, 2088-2091): the null hypothesis of zero differentiation is virtually always false, and if sample size is large enough, this can be demonstrated with any desired statistical significance. Good to find @ecoevoevoeco.bsky.social here!
The terrible war that Russia is waging on Ukraine not only affects humans, but also animals. Feralized dogs are under natural selection to lose their dog-like traits, and become more wolf-like again. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @evolappjournal.bsky.social
A Eurasian eagle owl mistook these solar panels at my parent’s for an open window at night, reflecting the night sky?
This looks more like Coenagrion sp. (Likely puella) than Enallagma cyathigerum: the blue shoulder stripe should be as wide or wider than the black one below, like here.
« as a philosopher of science … » I chose to set camp on Mt Stupid because it gives me such a nice view on the subject area of invasion biology.
