silas fischer
🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈🐦🌵
ecologist-artist | dryland bird annual cycle ecology, ecophysiology, conservation physiology, global change, migration |
drab bird enthusiast |
they/them | phd candidate |
sefischer.com
- Reposted by silas fischerOur IUCN Amphibian Specialist Group FrogLog article is now online: www.iucn-amphibians.org/wp-content/u.... We (@kruthsatz.bsky.social , @patricepottier.bsky.social) discuss the importance of life stage-specific 🐸 vulnerability to climate change based on our preprint: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...
- Reposted by silas fischer📣 NOW OPEN: Applications for WOS Research Grants! These annual grants support research projects in all areas of #ornithology. The deadline is February 1! wilsonsociety.org/awards/resea...
- Reposted by silas fischerI started getting reports of an unseasonal Joshua tree bloom in the last few weeks, and looking over records on @inaturalist.bsky.social it's pretty widespread! So we're putting out the call for folks to record this "bonus bloom" and help us study it 🌿 lab.jbyoder.org/2025/12/10/w...
- Reposted by silas fischerHuzzah! After a lot of work, I'm happy to share that the results of my first chapter have been published and are available for your perusal. In this paper, I was interested in understanding how characteristics of urban environments influence the diel activity of cats academic.oup.com/jue/article/...
- Reposted by silas fischerAdd this to your to-do list if you work with undergraduates interested in #ornithology: Applications for our Burtt Undergraduate Mentoring Grants, which support research projects by undergraduate-mentor collaborations, are open until February 1! wilsonsociety.org/awards/jed-b...
- Reposted by silas fischerARTISTS! I need your help! In collab. w/the Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology, I'm organizing a group of artists to come to our Jan. meeting! We're looking for artists to create based on what they learn at the conference. $1000 stipend. Application is V short! forms.gle/ah1i8KwNJinZ...
- Reposted by silas fischerSTOTEN is now dead. It has been completely removed from Web of Science mjl.clarivate.com/search-results
- Warning to environmental scientists! 🧪🦑🌎🐟 The journal STOTEN has been placed on hold by Clarivate, meaning it is under investigation and may lose its indexing (including impact factor). Consider publishing elsewhere. mjl.clarivate.com/search-results
- Reposted by silas fischerparents freed a hummingbird from a skylight with a coleus flower attached to a pole
- Reposted by silas fischerI’m stuck in bed between chemo treatments for metastatic coloncancer, wearing a take-home chemo pump attached to my chest. I wanted to share my advice that you can benefit from ‘Letting Your Colleagues In’ don’t need to struggle alone @insidehighered.com www.insidehighered.com/opinion/care...
- Reposted by silas fischerHonored and excited to share that I am the winner of Nomis & Science Young Explorer Award!! Also thrilled to share that my article describing my research is out now in @science.org today! The normalization of (almost) everything www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 1/
- Reposted by silas fischerPlease share! Folks at CSU and USDA-APHIS are looking for a #postdoc to predict avian-aircraft collisions around airports. Preferred skills include #avian movement modeling, Bayesian hierarchical modeling, machine learning, and radar #ecology. Apply here: jobs.colostate.edu/postings/166... #boost
- Reposted by silas fischerHey seabird folks - have you ever thought "*ANOTHER* talk about <species X>?!" So did we. So we reviewed 3000 conference abstracts to see which species get the spotlight. Huge work from @ingridpollet.bsky.social with me and @seabirdsentinel.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Reposted by silas fischerHave you ever wondered about the disparities in #seabirds species at conferences? Are we talking about all the species? Wonder no more. We (@thelabandfield.bsky.social @seabirdsentinel.bsky.social @ingridpollet.bsky.social) have the answer! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- 🦉 Yours truly in the new TWS podcast promo photo! Adam Janke and I were recently interviewed about Out in the Field, the LGBTQIA+ initiative within TWS which I co-organize (wildlife.org/out-in-the-f...) — stay tuned for our episode release! 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
- Reposted by silas fischerDo you like songbirds? Are you concerned about how wildfire smoke may impact their physiology? I'm searching for graduate students who are interested in looking at the effect of wildfire smoke on songbird physiology! Come join my lab @usaskartsci.bsky.social! research-groups.usask.ca/ivy-lab/
- Reposted by silas fischerInterested in how animals use the sky? 🌌 I’m recruiting a PhD student (Fall 2026, Purdue University) to study Purple Martin flight behavior and airspace use using barometric transmitters. Details ➡️ jobs.rwfm.tamu.edu/view-job/?id... #Aeroecology #AvianEcology
- Reposted by silas fischerMy lab is hiring a 2-yr hummingbird evolution and genomics postdoc and a 1-yr salaried research and lab tech. Both with full U. Wyoming benefits. Please spread the word! Info below. Best consideration date Nov 1, start dates early Spring 2026.
- One of my favs: bioone.org/journals/the...
- Reposted by silas fischer“Remote-control science” keeps power in the #GlobalNorth while local experts do the work without credit. Time to #decolonize research with fair authorship, funding & respect for local knowledge 🌍 #DecolonizeScience #ResearchEquity #GlobalSouth #FairScience onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
- Anyone else here going to TWS this year? 👀
- Reposted by silas fischer💥BREAKING: Birds in a tropical pluvial rainforest of the Chocó have been quietly changing in morphology for 109 years. Some have shrunk, others grown. Tails grew longer, bills grew deeper. Even in forests with continuous cover, climate change may be rewriting evolution in real time.
- Reposted by silas fischerhi everyone!! popping back into this space briefly to share the fundraiser for my long-awaited top surgery! eek! we are SO close to reaching my goal! any form of interaction helps, even if you can't donate! thank you, i love you, and keep taking care of each other! #transrights! gofund.me/60c167de1
- 🐦 Never got around to posting about our paper on Gray Vireo #migration in @wilsonornithsoc.bsky.social (1 of my MS chapters), but better late than never! We used light-level geolocators to track migration ecology of ♀ and ♂ Gray Vireos from 3 breeding sites in New Mexico and Utah USA… 👇 short🧵 1/
- From the current WJO issue: Migratory connectivity and potential nonbreeding sexual segregation in Gray Vireos (Vireo vicinior). #ornithology doi.org/10.1080/1559...
- 💫 Unexpectedly, we found ♀ appeared to winter ~5° farther N than ♂—suggesting sexual segregation on the nonbreeding grounds, which may be explained by larger body size in ♀....the OPPOSITE trend expected among songbirds exhibiting sexual segregation (where ♂ typically winter farther north). 2/
- ⛰️ We also found that breeding popn’s occurring closer together don't necessarily overwinter closer together. Birds breeding @ Sevilleta NWR (NM) wintered mostly along the MX Baja Peninsula, whereas birds breeding only ~90km N of there @ Kirtland AFB (by Albuquerque) seem to winter in Sonora MX.. 3/
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View full thread🌵Don’t have access? Message/email me and I’ll send you a pdf. Thanks to amazing coauthors Gunnar Kramer, Matt Baumann, Evan Fahy, Kathy Granillo, & Henry Streby. doi.org/10.1080/1559...
- Reposted by silas fischerICB Hotter Nights, Hidden Consequences: An Overlooked Dimension of #ClimateChange Amanda W Carter, J Morgan Fleming doi.org/10.1093/icb/... "Global temperatures are shifting in complex ways due to climate change..." #science #biodiversity #temperatures #research #warming
- Reposted by silas fischerReminder: We continue to seek presubmission inquiries for Review, Perspective, and Methods papers for The Wilson Journal of #Ornithology! We can offer a limited number of Open Access fee waivers each year for these types of papers.
- Reposted by silas fischerFully funded PhD working on insectivorous bird declines with a broad range of stakeholders. Starting ASAP #ornithology #zoology #biodiversity #science #ecology www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin...
- Reposted by silas fischerThe GRFP lives!! (due end of October) www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...
- Reposted by silas fischerScience is rarely a linear path from hypotheses to published papers. Here, I tell the story of our many ups and downs during the discovery of pollinator recognition. Hope you enjoy it! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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- Reposted by silas fischerToday 14 scientific societies in #ecology #evolution and #marineScience are publishing the results of a survey that finds negative impacts of federal policies on food security, flood mitigation, infectious disease preparedness, and wildlife conservation: 🧪👩🔬 www.firsthandaccounts.org/impacts/2025...
- Reposted by silas fischerPlease share! Our lab at LSU @lsuscience.bsky.social is looking for a student to join us in Spring or Fall 2026. If you are interested in mountain birds and GENOMICS, and want to work on a project in Bolivian cloud forests, send me an email montanolab.com/join-us/
- Reposted by silas fischerad to come, but I'm looking for an M.S. student to study the conservation genomics of swift foxes on the American Prairie Reserve in Montana beginning 9/1. this is a collaboration w/ Smithsonian & Justine Becker; strong candidates will have prior genomics experience and be up for remote fieldwork
- Reposted by silas fischer🚨 NEW PAPER ALERT! 🚨 Led by Erin Morrison and @ajshultz622.bsky.social, we compiled the AvianLexiconAtlas to categorize all 10,906 bird species’ English common names. Here are some general trends we uncovered… journals.plos.org/plosone/arti... 1/4
- Reposted by silas fischerNot sure if my cis pals are aware of this, but if your trans friends are sobbing in their office today this is one of the (many) reasons why:
- Reposted by silas fischerThe federal government is trying to kill 150,000 trans people in the United States. I can count the number of cis people talking about this on one hand.
- took a break from data entry (contracted NEON point counts) for #birding and saw my first King Rail ! 🐦 🪶 🥰
- Reposted by silas fischerThe Southwest is neat. Our funding for the USGS-Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center is proposed to be cut in the white house budget. The whole ecosystems unit of the DOI is threatened. Pretty bad timing considering SW challenges of climate extremes, wildfire, water scarcity, etc.
- Reposted by silas fischerRacist and sexist roots in the cancellation of NSF grants under Trump: Grants with female PIs canceled 2x more than men Grants with Black PIs canceled 4x over White PIs Grants with Hispanic PIs canceled 2x over White PIs Grants with PIs with disabilities canceled 2x more than without
- Another scoop from Jeff Mervis (@policyhound.bsky.social): NSF's ~1400 grant terminations have disproportionately affected PIs from groups underrepresented in science: women, racial & ethnic minorities, & those with disabilities. 1/3 www.science.org/content/arti...
- Reposted by silas fischerScience news is particularly grim this week. For NSF funding, 2 key fronts: 1) freeze on ALL existing grants (portal is down - no $$ going out, including reimbursements) www.nature.com/articles/d41... 2) budget proposes 40% overall cut & 15% cap on indirects (lawsuits blocked same for NIH in Feb)
- It's official. 15% ICR on NSF grants. My favorite line: "Reducing administrative burdens for awardee institutions." Say the opposite of what is true... the communication strategy of our time: www.nsf.gov/policies/doc...
- Reposted by silas fischerAs a new faculty member in particular I can't overstate how devastating this is going to be.
- Excellent piece by @rheisman.bsky.social out today in Audubon about our new paper (doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2024.2846)! 🪶 🦉 🐦 🧪 We show that visually appealing, accessible, familiar birds were studied more than drab, distant, inaccessible species. @royalsocietypublishing.org Read Rebecca’s piece 👇
- New byline! For Audubon Magazine, I covered @silasfischer.bsky.social's new research showing that there's a bias in #ornithology research toward more aesthetically appealing bird species. 🪶🧪 www.audubon.org/magazine/stu...
- Reposted by silas fischerSince bird migration season is heating up once again, I guess it's time to remind you that I wrote a really fun, entertaining, interesting book about the science of bird migration research. If you read it you will learn a lot and also laugh some, I promise! 🪶 bookshop.org/p/books/flig...
- Reposted by silas fischerThe National Science Foundation (NSF) is terminating a bunch of research funding. Much of this is in line with the goal of making sure nothing gets in the way of systemic racism and sexism, but they also explicitly target research on "misinformation/disinformation." www.nsf.gov/updates-on-p...
- Reposted by silas fischerIt’s essential to revive this earlier point: NSF is REQUIRED BY LAW to evaluate all proposals for broader impacts. DOGE will likely ask/make NSF break the law. And it’s key for members of Congress and the public to know that. More NSF-specific legal context: www.aaup.org/sites/defaul...
- First off, it's critical to note: NSF is CONGRESSIONALLY MANDATED to evaluate proposals via broader impacts, as defined by this law below. Hence, if the admin wants NSF to deviate, that's called **breaking the law** (important to remind Congress of that) www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/... 2/5
- Reposted by silas fischerNSF freezes grantmaking after DOGE comes calling www.science.org/content/arti...
- Reposted by silas fischer📰Published📰 South American locusts face growing threats from heat & dehydration🌡️ buff.ly/gnXZGmI 🧪🌍
- Reposted by silas fischerBrown-headed Cowbird message to host species everywhere:
- Reposted by silas fischerNEW PAPER, JUST OUT! 👀 Insects from the '70s and '80s were already collecting microplastic, decades before the term microplastic even existed. 🤯 A thread on the surprising history of this pollutant and the incredible insect larvae that helped us uncover it. 🐛 Let's dive in! 🧵👇 1/x
- Reposted by silas fischerWe're disappointed to see Ben Barres's powerful book "The Autobiography of a Transgender Scientist" among the ~400 titles removed from the Naval Academy Library. Needless to say, we're proud to have published his book and will keep it — and his memory — alive.
- Reposted by silas fischerListening for Worm-eating Warblers’ insect-like trill but the ivy-covered slopes be like:
- Reposted by silas fischerSix-decade research bias towards fancy and familiar #bird species #ProcB #BiologicalSciencePractices royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
- Reposted by silas fischer“Historically, the most terrible things—war, genocide, and slavery—have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience.” —Howard Zinn
- Reposted by silas fischerWhat a game — public university beating private gives me joy every time — Houston 70, Duke 67 😆🏀 (Maybe shouldn’t have scrapped the herbarium!)
- Reposted by silas fischerHope it was worth it to stop a few of us from peeing.
- Reposted by silas fischerHELP NEEDED 🪶 I'm doing a large-scale synthesis for a PhD chapter, and some of my search hits are published in journals I can't access or by authors for whom I can't find contact info. If anyone has access to these papers/journals or knows how to get in touch with the authors, please let me know!
- Reposted by silas fischerIn case this is helpful to someone out there: I'm moving to Ball State University this August, and I'll have a support for MS students over the next three years (RAs/TAs) If your lab has talented students graduating this spring, I welcome them to reach out and talk about the opportunities.
- Reposted by silas fischer"from 1965 to 2020, nearly half the variation in publication trends among 293 North American male passerine & near-passerine birds was explained by 3 factors subject to human bias: aesthetic salience (visual appeal), range size (familiarity) & number of universities within ranges (accessibility)"
