ÉPICBiodiversity

epic-biodiversity.orgJoin us! | ÉPICBiodiversity

19 May

Join us! We are looking for a Ph.D. student to work on the response of ecological network structure to environmental drivers; this line of research can be adapted to questions on climate change, phylogenetic conservatism, and more! 🧪🌎 epic-biodiversity.org/opportunities/

epic-biodiversity.orgCan biodiversity monitoring help measure progress on One Health actions? | ÉPICBiodiversity

And now, read about it straight from @francisbanville.bsky.social on the blog! epic-biodiversity.org/blog/2026/05...

ÉPICBiodiversity@epic-biodiversity.org

The framing document of One Health (the OH JPA 2022-2026) lacks concrete indicators to track progress. In a new preprint, @francisbanville.bsky.social shows that about 70% of the KM-GBF is directly relevant to actions in the JPA. A short thread. 🧪😷🌎 ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

ecoevorxiv.orgThe Global Biodiversity Framework supports global assessment of One Health actions

ecoevorxiv.orgThe Global Biodiversity Framework supports global assessment of One Health actions

In other words: looking at biodiversity reporting will allow the One Health community to track progress on the ambitious goals it has set for itself. This can be done retroactively, but should also inform the content of the potential post-2026 OH high level document.

This should, of course, be the signal for the One Health community to take biodiversity far more seriously than they historically did, as not as "something with vague ties to the environment, except for stuff we eat".

epic-biodiversity.orgWhere should we look to monitor species interactions? | ÉPICBiodiversity

12 May

Information about species interactions is very scarce! In a new preprint, @gabdans.bsky.social shows that the methodology that enables biodiversity monitoring and reporting also supports the detection of species interactions, leading to multi-use monitoring. epic-biodiversity.org/blog/2026/05...

epic-biodiversity.orgData Gaps and Zeros can create biases in the Living Planet Index | ÉPICBiodiversity

7 May

The #LivingPlanetIndex is an important tool to monitor animal populations. In a recent preprint, @crcruzr.bsky.social shows that the reported downward trends are driven by data gaps and population sizes reported as 0, and not only population decline. 🧪🌎 epic-biodiversity.org/blog/2026/05...

nouvelles.umontreal.caBiodiversity at risk in Colombia’s tropical dry forestsA study of changes to the habitats of more than 700 species reveals massive biodiversity loss—but also possibilities for restoration.

25 Feb

Very nice write-up of Maria Isabel's research on the biodiversity trends in Colombia's Tropical Dry Forest nouvelles.umontreal.ca/en/article/2...

epic-biodiversity.orgHas socio-ecological research provided tools that can help policy? | ÉPICBiodiversity

New paper and blog post by the one and only @crcruzr.bsky.social - are socio-ecological indicators ready to provide guidance for concrete biodiversity action? epic-biodiversity.org/blog/2026/01... The answer is: partially, but there are all sorts of interesting lessons for the future. 🧪🌎

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But this hides one of the most fascinating differences across the Global North/Global South divide: the role of stakeholders and experts in this research is different. This difference is not only about whether categories intervene as stakeholders or experts, but also whether they intervene at all.

ecoevorxiv.orgBridging Science and Policy: A Global Review of Socio-ecological Indicators Guiding Biodiversity Action

Go read the full preprint on @ecoevorxiv.bsky.social ! ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

epic-biodiversity.orgHas socio-ecological research provided tools that can help policy? | ÉPICBiodiversity

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Second, stated v. revealed preferences differ, and economic data are still largely dominating the body of evidence mobilized for these papers.

At the global scale, looking at the use of socio-ecological indicators for decision-making seems to remain a rich country game.

epic-biodiversity.orgHas socio-ecological research provided tools that can help policy? | ÉPICBiodiversity

First, we have never, collectively, published as much on socio-ecological indicators and decision making. But a lot of these publications still use the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment as their reference framework, with even the UN SDG struggling to catch up.

epic-biodiversity.orgAre we there yet? Ongoing habitat loss in Colombia’s Tropical Dry Forests | ÉPICBiodiversity

14 Jan

🧪🌎 Only 12% of Colombia's Tropical Dry Forest is located within protected areas, which puts over 750 species of plants, birds, and mammals at risk of habitat loss. Read more about our most recent paper, where we also tie this trend to national-level biodiversity commitments.

sciencedirect.comSpecies' habitat change over twenty years in Colombia's tropical dry forestsCountries worldwide are working together under the Convention on Biological Diversity to tackle biodiversity loss. As part of this effort, the monitor…

14 Jan

Read the paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

epic-biodiversity.orgUse of generative artificial intelligence | ÉPICBiodiversity

12 Jan

Last week, during the lab meeting, we adopted a position statement (and lab rules) on the use of generative AI. epic-biodiversity.org/generative-ai/ In a nutshell: "The use of GenAI is disallowed-by-default", but we also go to great length to justify why.

epic-biodiversity.orgEffective sampling of wildlife disease from biodiversity data | ÉPICBiodiversity

15 Dec 2025

🧪 New @mdcatchen.bsky.social preprint! Here's how we can decide where to look for wildlife disease, based on combinations of biodiversity, uncertainty, and prevalence data. This is a really cool paper, that is pushing the boundaries of what we can do with sampling and monitoring techniques.

11 Dec 2025

We have added support for ESRI administrative areas to our species distribution #JuliaLang package — a lot more stable than GADM (although limited to level 1 divisions). 📗 Read more: poisotlab.github.io/SpeciesDistr...

epic-biodiversity.orgAI and the carbon footprint of ecological research | ÉPICBiodiversity

28 Nov 2025

The impulse to use generative AI as a tool for computational ecology is just another form of statistical machismo (and will destroy the world). We're a little more nuanced in the actual article, and encourage all ecologists to think about the possible footprint of _every_ computation. 🧪

14 Nov 2025

Today we'll be at the #OneHealth symposium of @umontreal-en.bsky.social - @ctrlalttim.com will moderate a panel on biodiversity and health, and @francisbanville.bsky.social will talk about the alignment between indicators for biodiversity and the OHHLEP action tracks, part of our @geobon.org work.

epic-biodiversity.orgReservoirs on the move: where might raccoon rabies end up under climate change? | ÉPICBiodiversity

Climate change may dramatically increase the range of raccoons and skunks in Québec. Good news? Nope. They are two reservoirs of the raccoon rabies virus. In a recent preprint, we discuss how this might play out over the next 80 years. 🧪🧵

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This is because, although both species respond to, more or less, the same climatic variables, they respond to them differently. The potential to see their responses to climate change becoming decoupled is real!

ecoevorxiv.orgClimate change increases the distribution of reservoirs of the Raccoon Rabies Virus in Quebec

This work is the output of the excellent Honors thesis from Ariane Bussières-Fournel, and for now, you can read all about it in @ecoevorxiv.bsky.social -- ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

epic-biodiversity.orgReservoirs on the move: where might raccoon rabies end up under climate change? | ÉPICBiodiversity

Long-story short, both species will gain potential habitat in the North, and this does not really slow down unless we manage to stick to SSP2-RCP4.5. Even SSP1-RCP2.6 is a fairly dramatic increase in potential habitat. Most densely inhabited areas in Québec are reached by 2100.

Habitat becomes increasingly polarized in its suitability to either reservoir, with raccoons benefiting the most from more pessimistic scenarios: the places in which we expect the two reservoirs are different over time, and different under the four scenarios.