Will Pearse

This just in: @akoontz11.bsky.social & al show that trees referred to Quercus tardifolia, the elusive "late-leaf" oak of W. TX, are apparently all hybrids. So: is it a species at all? Read and share: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... @marionrenault.bsky.social @ijpsjournal.bsky.social

The UK COVID inquiry's care-home component is out: please read the 'voices' section (page 9). During the pandemic, it felt to me as though some acted as if those dying in homes weren't human beings with worthwhile lives. Let's act on these recommendations. covid19.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/u...

I am bullish about COP this year. 2024 was hard for those who care about the climate and biodiversity crises because of the political changes. But we see the true landscape now, and our prospects are stronger for it. (this is what I say to inspire action www.theguardian.com/environment/...)

Why are we losing biodiversity if we all agree it matters? willpearse.substack.com/p/why-are-we...

An ecosystem services game! I made a tool to teach how biodiversity supports us that's based on the output from my lab's recent global analysis of ecosystem function (www.nature.com/articles/s41...), and I personally think it's quite fun to play... substack.com/home/post/p-...

Designed to be Forgotten: Visual Anonymization in Ecological Publishing. Bring back the unique personalities of journals. bring back diversity in design, argues @emoqanaki.bsky.social Happy to have published this in the latest Bulletin of the ESA @esajournals.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1002/bes2...

Our global analysis of ecosystem functions and services is online now! This is probably the paper I'm most proud of - a quantitative, global map of every one of the IPBES ecosystem service categories, all tracked back to the original data! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Enter the SPHERE/ @nbntrust.bsky.social biodiversity forecast challenge! Show us what you can do with the amazing NBN Atlas data, and have real-world impacts on how we carry out biodiversity monitoring. Find out more (nbn.org.uk/news/sphere-...) and enter (github.com/SPHERE-PPL/N...)

Learn from the winter fuel payment fiasco: don't open new drilling licenses in the North Sea www.theguardian.com/politics/202... @labouruk.bsky.social

Can you predict the UK’s next wheat disease outbreak? Enter SPHERE's forecasting contest, run in collaboration with @ADASgroup! Details (www.imperial.ac.uk/news/article...) and GitHub to enter (github.com/SPHERE-PPL/A...)

🌍 Biodiversity post-doc! 🏭 Combine our dataset on European policy and industrial emissions with biodiversity data to figure out what policies work where. 💻 Apply here (www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-...), or ask me (profiles.imperial.ac.uk/will.pearse) or Laure (profiles.imperial.ac.uk/l.depreux)

Happy to see my PhD work on birdsong complexity published today! doi.org/10.1098/rspb... 🐦‍⬛ 🎶 ⬇️ Why are some birdsongs simple and some extremely complex? The answer is long thought to be ‘sexual selection favouring complex signals’. But - really?

www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

New preprint! 🌳🐛 We combined experimental and genomic methods to study local adaptation of winter moths to variation in oak budburst timing in Wytham Woods, UK. With @andreaestandia.bsky.social, Lea Beaupere, Ella Cole, and @sheldonbirds.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Develop a forecasts of severe patient harm to be used by the NHS! Every 4-hour delay in Emergency Department admission increases 30-day mortality risk by 8%: join the SPHERE forecasting contest and help the NHS reduce delays before they happen! Find out more here: www.imperial.ac.uk/news/article...

out now in Science: @loganjames.bsky.social collected pairs of sounds in 16 species where we *know* which sound is more attractive (to that species) he played them to ppl on themusiclab.org, asking, in each pair, which was nicer. humans agreed w other animals doi.org/10.1126/science.aea1202

Got what it takes to forecast for the NHS? 🏥 We’re releasing 1.3GB of data (2.5 years of records) for a massive forecasting challenge. Predict ambulance & admittance trends to help the NHS. Win 🏆 too... Join here: github.com/SPHERE-PPL/N... #DataScience #MachineLearning #NHS #Forecasting

SPHERE's annual meeting is on the 14th of January! Robin Freeman (ZSL), Julie Smith (ADAS), and Eric Daub (Alan Turing Institute) will speak, we'll congratulate the Lyme Disease forecast winners, & announce our next contest in collaboration with the NHS! sphere-ppl.org

Boost your skills! 📊 Help identify AI training for environmental forecasting at the SPHERE-PPL Annual Meeting, and network! 📅 14th Jan 2026 | The Alan Turing Institute Find out more: sphere-ppl.org Register: forms.gle/iy6jC3Xg3QrT... #Training #AI #EnvironmentalScience #Forecasting #TuringInstitute

*The UK's winter 2020 COVID was foreseen, and should have been better managed* Please read the 2nd chapter of the COVID enquiry. The previous government must be held to account for their negligence, which cost lives. covid19.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/u...

Spotlight on forecasting contests! 🎯 At the SPHERE-PPL Annual Meeting, you can shape AI forecasting challenges in Environmental Science and maximise their real-world impact. 📅 14-01-2026 | The Alan Turing Institute Register now: forms.gle/iy6jC3Xg3QrT... Find out more: sphere-ppl.org/pages/Events...

🚀 The 2nd SPHERE-PPL Annual Meeting is happening 14th Jan 2026 at The Alan Turing Institute. Explore AI forecasting in Environmental Science, shape forecasting contests, and network! 📩 Register now: forms.gle/iy6jC3Xg3QrT... 🌍 Find out more: sphere-ppl.org/pages/Events...

I'm a little biased, but estined to be a classic: a conceptual framework about how to think about 'ecological acclimation' to climate change. Good from the fundamental theory perspective - it wins my "using maths constructively" award for the year! besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Are you an ecologist interested in spatial scaling? Of course you are, we all are! So join this new fractal network! I can say, with absolutely no bias or impartiality at all, that it's amazing!

There still time to enter the SPHERE Lyme disease forecasting contest! Act now for a chance to help improve our understanding of disease *and* win fabulous prizes! (alright, a free conference ticket - but still!) sphere-ppl.org/pages/Foreca...

A great event about funding practical solutions to the biodiversity crisis! Looking forward to the next one!

Why have I, as an otherwise rational human being, clicked the "update all CRAN packages" button when installing an R package at 4.46pm on a Friday just before a bank holiday? 😭

Net-zero is good for business (UK leads this tech), good for health (heatwaves kill, so does dirty air from burning fossil-fuels), and popular (only 24% of UK public oppose yougov.co.uk/topics/polit...). Good to have debate, but @tonyblairinstitute.bsky.social is wrong on net-zero

Two days of rewilding discussion and workshops? Sign me up! Or... you know... sign you up? Great opportunity to get involved with the BES rewilding SIG and meet other practitioners and academics www.britishecologicalsociety.org/content/expl...

Take part in SPHERE-PPL's Lyme disease forecasting contest! Help improve our understanding of a dreadful disease *and* improve publicly available datasets for everyone! sphere-ppl.org/pages/Foreca...

Make sure you talk to Mahika Dixit #BES2024 about her work on machine learning, museum specimens, and butterflies and bees! It turns out new image analysis tools help you unpick differences in queens' and workers' responses to climate change

Fight that hangover and get to Nell Pates' talk at 11am in the rewilding session #BES2024! A global meta-analysis of rewilding practice and academic literature awaits - there are some massive disconnects and some tangible ways to resolve them...

I have some PhD projects now available for application if you are interested in insect biodiversity change. Please check out the links below and shout if you have questions!

First meeting of the UK Vector-Borne Disease Hub! Lauren Cator, @drstevenmwhite.bsky.social , @hannahvineer.bsky.social (and others not on bluesky) figuring out how to share data to support disease modelling and forecasting and make the UK healthier! www.imperial.ac.uk/news/250073/...

I'm glad the assisted dying bill has passed. There are important details to be resolved, but my dad deserved a choice and deserved better than he got. I have no good digital photos of him: please donate at this link and then take a photo with a loved one

Updating the #IUCN status of marine fish using AI shows that x5 more species are threatened with extinction than previously thought! see our study in Plos Biol with @nloiseau.bsky.social 👉 doi.org/10.1371/jour... 🔑 This silent extinction affects 12,7% of marine fishes (1337 species) ! 🧪🌐🌍🦤🦑

Long-time tweet, new BlueSky-er, it's nice here! My lab works on ecology, evolution, conservation, human health, and AI! We've recently built an ecosystem function forecast model - learn more here www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperi...