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Will Cornwell @will_cornwell

Associate professor at UNSW. Interested in the ecology and evolution of plants.

Joined August 2010
  • Tweets 979
  • Following 896
  • Followers 1,388
88 Photos and videos
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Will Cornwell@will_cornwell
22 Sep 2022
Results from a globally replicated experiment: microbes respond to temperature in a very well known way, but termites are much more sensitive to temperature. Termites are massively understudied for how important they are globally, and warming is likely to make them more important
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Will Cornwell retweeted
Atlas of Living Aust@atlaslivingaust
22 Jun 2025
This new mobile-friendly tool lets you create personalised species checklists for a specified area 📋 Check out the app: spr.ly/60174PzBZ Made by @unswbees @thomasmesaglio @fonti_kar @will_cornwell and team. spr.ly/60184PzBw #rstats #Shiny #ecology
Mosaic of three images. Top left, someone holding a mobile phone using the infinitylists Shiny app. Top right, two botanists on a boardwalk in a Melaleuca swamp in northern Sydney, looking closely at a small plant on the ground. Bottom, pink flowers from a rosy sundew (Drosera spatulata). Photo credits (clockwise from top left): Kate Mesaglio, Hervé Sauquet, Thomas Mesaglio

ALT Mosaic of three images. Top left, someone holding a mobile phone using the infinitylists Shiny app. Top right, two botanists on a boardwalk in a Melaleuca swamp in northern Sydney, looking closely at a small plant on the ground. Bottom, pink flowers from a rosy sundew (Drosera spatulata). Photo credits (clockwise from top left): Kate Mesaglio, Hervé Sauquet, Thomas Mesaglio
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Will Cornwell retweeted
New Phytologist@NewPhyt
6 Jan 2025
Faster than expected: release of nitrogen and phosphorus from decomposing woody litter Wijas et al. @BapsWijas @will_cornwell @AmyZanne 📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/…
Nutrient release curves and carbon  :  nitrogen ratio of woody litter against the proportion of mass remaining.

ALT Nutrient release curves and carbon  :  nitrogen ratio of woody litter against the proportion of mass remaining.

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Will Cornwell retweeted
Thomas Mesaglio@thomasmesaglio
2 Dec 2024
New paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.202… We compiled master plant species lists for 2 of the 5 oldest national parks: Royal (Australia) and Yosemite (USA) by combining herbarium vouchers @inaturalist records official expert park lists, extensively manually curating all records.
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Will Cornwell retweeted
Bill Simmons
@BillSimmons
16 Nov 2024
Hearing the NBA and Warner struck a deal for WBD to move out of the NBA’s house after this season. There will be no lawsuit. Zaslav got some much-smaller-stakes stuff to go away for good. Will Inside the NBA get licensed to ESPN next season? That’s the next subplot to watch.
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Will Cornwell retweeted
Mike Letnic@mikeletnic
26 Oct 2024
Wild herbivores' impacts on vegetation in arid Australia translate to soil seedbanks shorturl.at/no5bn. @TongtongXu16 shows that seed density increased along an aridity gradient and that herbivores suppressed seed density at the most arid site. @willcornwelll @BapsWijas
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Will Cornwell retweeted
Journal of Ecology@JEcology
23 Oct 2024
📸@dandy_gumnut tells us the story behind this month's cover image: 🍂'I was going through hundreds of #herbarium sheets & realised that centuries of info across the globe were just waiting for someone to transcribe it as a digital dataset we can analyse' jecologyblog.com/2024/10/22/…

Cover stories (112:10): Using machine learning to link climate, phylogeny & leaf area

The cover image for our October issue shows the first part of an automated process to extract leaf area from herbarium images. Here the model’s predictions of leaves are on the pressed plant …

jecologyblog.com
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Will Cornwell retweeted
Atlas of Living Aust@atlaslivingaust
16 Oct 2024
Congrats to iNaturalist 🇦🇺 for five laps around the sun! ☀️ 📊🤳 Thanks to you amazing #citizenscientists, they've just hit: - 9,000,000 species observations... - Of 60,000 different species... - From 100,000 observers! Read more below: 📚🔗 | spr.ly/6013qKWRh
Mallee ringneck parrot (Barnardius zonarius spp. barnardi) perched on a branch against the iNaturalist Au logo

ALT Mallee ringneck parrot (Barnardius zonarius spp. barnardi) perched on a branch against the iNaturalist Au logo

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Will Cornwell retweeted
Australian Journal of Botany@AusJBotany
15 Oct 2024
New research often revises species taxonomies. Without a clear crosswalk, old datasets & studies can be challenging to amalgamate. #R package APCalign helps solve this, aligning names to #AustralianPlantCensus. Elizabeth Wenk & colleagues @UNSW @unswbees doi.org/10.1071/BT24014

APCalign: an R package workflow and app for aligning and updating flora names to the Australian...

To facilitate communication, research projects, biodiversity assessments and nurseries across Australia should use the scientific names accepted by the Aus

connectsci.au
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Keen to do environmental science with impact? Come join us @UNSWScience Apply at: external-careers.jobs.unsw.e…
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Will Cornwell retweeted
Corey Callaghan@callaghanct
12 Sep 2024
Our research group @UFWildlife and @UFIFAS_FLREC is looking to hire a postdoctoral researcher focused on quantitative ecology! Pay: 65-75k USD. Looking for someone to start late 2024 or early 2025. - Experience or interest in working with state and federal agencies a must!
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It's time to update how we think about life-history traits for AM fungi! Another great paper led by @t_camenzind
New Phytologist@NewPhyt
5 Sep 2024
Revisiting life-history theory in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi with stoichiometric principles 📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/… #Viewpoint by Camenzind et al. @t_camenzind @jsoilecol @AguilarT_CA, @mrillig #arbuscular #mycorrhizal #fungi
Similarity in stoichiometric patterns in plant and AM fungi and its implication for life-history trade-offs.

ALT Similarity in stoichiometric patterns in plant and AM fungi and its implication for life-history trade-offs.

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Will Cornwell retweeted
Tessa Camenzind@t_camenzind
5 Sep 2024
It is out😊@NewPhyt nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/… A collaboration funded by @DAAD_Germany allowed us to discuss AM fungal traits integrating perspectives from mycorrhizal, and plant and microbial ecologists @jsoilecol @AguilarT_CA @mrillig @will_cornwell @SolomonMcMahan @HeuckMeike

Progressing beyond colonization strategies to understand arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal life history

Knowledge of differential life-history strategies in arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi is relevant for understanding the ecology of this group and its potential role in sustainable agriculture and...

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
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How citizen science can support threatened species conservation. @thomasmesaglio @jodirowley @will_cornwell theconversation.com/citizen-…

Citizen scientists can help save Australia’s threatened species if we give them more direction

New research examines how citizen science data contributes to decisions by governments and conservation organisations about which species are at risk of extinction, and how they can be conserved.

theconversation.com
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Will Cornwell retweeted
A/Prof Tim Curran@TimCurran8
8 Aug 2024
Really excited to be running this workshop in my home town. Please come along if you are near Gunnedah on Sunday 25 Aug.
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Fungi are in the air… but their functional diversity and sporulation strategies vary from temperate to the tropical. Check the great work led by @AbregoNerea @jyuscience combining global surveys with fungal trait data! Happy to have contributed! nature.com/articles/s41586-0…
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Will Cornwell retweeted
#AustralEcology@AustralEcology
23 Jul 2024
Termites drive plant decomposition in Australian arid lands, with their influence varying across landscapes. Higher wood availability increases termite activity and their contribution to decomposition. @BapsWijas #AustralEcology @EcolSocAus @WileyEcolEvol bit.ly/45RFqsl
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Will Cornwell retweeted
Botanic Gardens of Sydney@BotanicSydney
21 Jul 2024
🤖 Our scientists are using machine learning to delve into the untold history of #plants. Using datasets of unprecedented size, they can now can unlock hidden secrets of the botanical past. 👇 Read the full story bit.ly/4bR1WCV

AI revolutionising scientists’ understanding of nature | Botanic Gardens of Sydney

New developments in machine learning are allowing huge datasets to reveal changes in plants. Scientists at Botanic Gardens of Sydney have harnessed these advancements to look at Australian eucalypt...

botanicgardens.org.au
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The next generation of trait ecology will involve measurements with some element of automation. We've tried to pilot some of that for leaf size here with herbarium sheets. Amazing work with @dandy_gumnut and @jasongbragg: besjournals.onlinelibrary.wi…
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Will Cornwell retweeted
Journal of Ecology@JEcology
19 Jul 2024
Using machine learning to link #climate, #phylogeny & #leaf area in eucalypts through a 50-fold expansion of leaf trait datasets🍂 @dandy_gumnut @jasongbragg @BotanicSydney @UNSWScience besjournals.onlinelibrary.wi…

Using machine learning to link climate, phylogeny and leaf area in eucalypts through a 50‐fold...

This image illustrates the initial step to extracting leaf area from a specimen image using a new machine learning method. The authors used this novel method to reveal that the relationship between...

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
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‘Absolutely incorrect’: The evidence is in on whales and offshore wind farms. Commentary on likely positive impacts on fish by Prof Suthers @UNSWScience smh.com.au/environment/conse…

‘Absolutely incorrect’: The evidence is in on whales and offshore wind farms

Those who hold doubts about offshore wind farms may not be aware that their misgivings have been deliberately planted.

smh.com.au
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