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"Of lynxes and limetrees: New Insights into the Historical Ecology of the Bavarian Forest on the Threshold of Modernity": Preprint of our new study #biodiversity #historicalecology #environment #environmentalhumanities #digitalhumanities

arxiv.org/abs/2507.02512

arXiv.orgOf lynxes and limetrees: New Insights into the Historical Ecology of the Bavarian Forest on the Threshold of ModernityThis study explores the historical ecology of the Bavarian Forest at the threshold of modernity through the lens of a large-scale biodiversity survey conducted in 1845 across the Kingdom of Bavaria. Focusing on the Forestry Office of Zwiesel, the article analyses archival records that document the distribution of animal and tree species during a period of administrative rationalisation and early scientific systematisation. These sources include official correspondence, detailed species inventories, and early distribution maps compiled under the direction of zoologist Johann Andreas Wagner. The study highlights local and regional observations of fauna, such as the Eurasian lynx, capercaillie, and various freshwater fish, and presents new data on historical forest composition, including the presence of rare tree species and venerable specimen trees such as the "Urwaldtanne" and the "Wolframslinde". By integrating historical ecology, environmental history, and digital humanities, the article sheds light on how 19th-century state institutions, scientific actors, and local knowledge contributed to the early documentation of biodiversity. The findings also offer a basis for long-term environmental comparisons and inform current conservation efforts in the region.

#AcademicJob | #PhDStudentship

Funded PhD in Ecological Ethnomusicology

📍 University of Birmingham (or distance learning)
📅 Start: Jan 2026

Work with Prof. Alexander M. Cannon on the UKRI-funded SoundDecisions project exploring music, ecology, and development in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. Fieldwork with Khmer Krom and Vietnamese communities.

📅 Deadline: 26/08/2025

findaphd.com/phds/project/soun

CC @academicjobs

Happy New Year. I know things feel really hard for a lot of us right now, so let me tell you something important:

In the highland rainforest of NSW, in the Werrikimbe region, there’s a community of superb lyrebirds. Lyrebirds are known for their unparalleled mimicry: they can reproduce the call of any bird they hear (and many other sounds as well). They collect songs like crows collect shiny objects. The variety and complexity of their repertoire, and the skill with which they deliver it, determines their reproductive success.

They also compose songs of their own. These songs vary from region to region; they are learned by lyrebirds when they're young, and passed down from generation to generation with remarkable stability. If a lyrebird finds or produces a new melody that other lyrebirds like, they absorb it into the communal repertoire.

The lyrebirds that live in the Werrikimbe are called flute lyrebirds because in winter, when they're in love, they sing a complex rising melody which sounds like scales played on a flute. This "flute accent" exists nowhere else in the world; it’s unique to this one community. On cold mornings, it floats down through the mists like an enchantment.

How did this haunting melody come about? It's said that a young boy kept a tame lyrebird, and every day the bird listened to him practicing the flute. Then one day the bird escaped. It went to live with its wild brethren, and taught them this new song.

But the truth is much more magical: Lyrebirds composed this song all on their own. It's more complex than any human flautist could ever hope to achieve, and it’s got features unique to lyrebird melody and anatomy.

Lyrebirds live and breathe music. They are built for music. They spend their lives studying the soundscape. They listened to the world around them, all of the pain and suffering and desire and joy, and this is what they sang back into it.

youtube.com/watch?v=00nrAh2zVWo

We're delighted to announce the publication from Open Humanities Press of Dark Botany: The Herbarium Tales, edited by Prudence Gibson, Sigi Jottkandt, Marie Sierra and Anna Westbrook.

Available in open access and print:

openhumanitiespress.org/books/

Dark Botany activates the material and sensorial wonder of plants. In this Wunderkammer of critical plant studies essays and plant+artworks, the herbarium emerges as a site of multiple materialities and reflexive forms of counter-narrative. Herbaria specimens come alive as assemblages, telling truths about their dark histories and darker contemporary currents, while reflecting on the complexity of texture, movement, memory, compound structure, chemical emissions and rapid evolution of plants and languages. What one discovers is that herbaria are not static: they are as vital, energetic and enigmatic as the plants in their collections.

www.openhumanitiespress.orgOpen Humanities Press– Dark Botany: The Herbarium TalesA scholar led open access publishing collective