Seabirds in the mountains

Plant antics

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Abby McBride

For the latest cover of the journal Oikos, I illustrated a paper about kin selection in plants by Bodil K. Ehlers and Trine Bilde.

Tagline: “Imagine you and your cousin are two plants growing in the same pot. In what conditions would it make sense to cooperate rather than compete?”

I’m not sure if anyone noticed that the cover image for this Swedish publication includes a portrayal of the Scandinavian Ox Dance.

June cover of @Oikos_Journal! To show that kin selection is really happening, argues this 'Forum' paper, you have to measure inclusive fitness. The authors simulated interactions between plants and predicted conditions that favor kin selection. https://t.co/qnzD6Ppvh2 #ecology https://t.co/V8dntyCGxa

— Nordic Society Oikos (@NordicOikos) June 30, 2019

Acadia Birding Marathon

Ghost gallery

Sunny days alternated with late May blizzards throughout the week at Mountainfilm in Telluride, Colorado (during which I had an art show, talk, and sketch walk). Read more in a post by The Fulbright Program.

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Ghost birds in Ghost Town: watercolors of the New Zealand storm-petrel (thought to be extinct for the entire 20th century) on the walls of @ghosttowntelluride. Thanks to @mountainfilm, @the_fulbright_program, and @insidenatgeo for helping me bring seabirds to the mountains. Swipe for more seabird sketches. . . Photo by Christine Zirneklis . . #newzealand #seabirdstory #fulbright #natgeo #nz #seabirds #mountains #movies #fulbrightnz #watercolor #pencil #sketch #art #birds #conservation #science #biodiversity #wildlife #mountainfilm #telluride

A post shared by Abby McBride (@sketchbiologist) on May 26, 2019 at 2:58pm PDT

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Photo by Christine Zirneklis

Wikified

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It's Wiki-official: don't call it a seagull! (I don't know who is responsible for this edit, but it was rather startling to stumble upon yesterday.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-billed_gull #dontcallitaseagull #newzealand #biodiversity #gull #seagull #birds #wikipedia #taxonomy #ecology #conservation

A post shared by Abby McBride (@sketchbiologist) on May 9, 2019 at 7:03am PDT

Cited: my National Geographic blog post about New Zealand gulls (Just a Seagull? Nope, 2018) and my MIT graduate thesis (Don’t Call It a Seagull!, 2012).