I’m a community ecologist based at the University of New England. My research focuses on ecosystem services, insect ecology (pollination, plant-insect interactions, trophic ecology), and science communication.
Lab website: Saunders Ecology Lab. Get in touch if you’re keen to work with me!
Find me on Twitter @ManuSaunders.
I’m also co-founder of the Australian Wild Pollinator Count.
(N.B. All photos on this site are mine, unless credited otherwise.)
Ecology is not a dirty word 
Thanks for your comment. Great blog.
cathie at fernenland
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Hello, I look forward to reading your blog. You’ve just made my day by following mine – my 100th follower 🙂
Indeed ecology is real science, the most interesting science in my opinion.
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Ooh, how exciting! Congratulations on reaching 100 🙂
Thanks for following!
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Hey Manu, Happy New Year. http://www.futurity.org/insects-temperature-1332412-2/?utm_source=Futurity+Today&utm_campaign=272289a07c-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_01_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e34e8ee443-272289a07c-206355553
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Very glad I have discovered your blog. I look forward to reading your entries. I believe ecology to be one of the most important and profound of the sciences. Indeed, with the societal changes in the latter part of the 20th Century I believe one could call it ‘the’ science of the 20th Century.
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Thank you! I agree, Ecology is most definitely ‘the’ science…I think it always has been, just under different names. 🙂
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Thanks for the follow! Your blog is very interesting, will be following.
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No worries! and same to you 🙂
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Love your blog, can’t wait to get stuck into reading your back catalogue 🙂
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Thanks Bea! glad you like it here 🙂
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Thanks for the follow, and for helping me find out about your great blog!
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No worries! I’m glad I found your blog too 🙂
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Would you be interested in writing a guest post for me sometime? Perhaps PhD-related, or an ecology-related topic of your choice? Let me know 🙂
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Yes, I would love to! Thank you for asking. I’ll email you 🙂
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Hello… recently I was given a blog award (the Leibster award) by another blogger. I don’t normally accept them (it’s a bit like a chain letter), but he asked so nicely that, in a moment of weakness, I agreed. One of the requirements is to pass on the award. I decided to pick five other blogs to nominate that I really enjoy reading, with the intention of directing more traffic to them. Yours is one of these blogs. I hope that you will accept this as a token of how much I enjoy reading what you write. You can display the award image on your blog, you can write a post about it and you can pass it on to others if you like; but really I just want you and others to know that I think you have a really great blog. My post that links to your blog is here: http://wp.me/p2mlPL-xj
Thanks for all the enjoyable reading!
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Thank you so much! I appreciate it, and I’m glad you enjoy reading mine as much as I enjoy yours. I am not a fan of chain letters either, but I will write a post soon with a few of my favourite blogs to pass on the kindness. 🙂
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I look forward to visiting some new blogs at your recommendation
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Hi Manuelinor,
Just letting you know that I have recently acknowledged your blog in a posting on my own. I trust you don’t mind.
http://naturestimeline.com/2014/01/24/observations-about-and-from-nature/
Kind Regards
Tony Powell
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Thanks Tony! Great pictures on your post – I enjoy following your nature observations too!
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Thanks, hopefully I can keep up the pace this year.
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Glad you stumbled across Poeta Doctus and liked it! That someone of your qualifications and engagements has found some interest in my own work is an extra inspiration to speed up the “slowness” of my own blog, and focus it more on ecosophical/ecopoetical concerns. Good luck in your own on-going endeavours!
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Thank you, and likewise! Literature is a wonderful world, it’s a shame it is often seen as not compatible with science. I’m looking forward to reading more on your blog!
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Hey, just read your ecosystem services-disservices paper in Conservation Biology and I’ve liked it very much. I still think that the ecosystem disservices concept can be useful, but you are right that it does not solve the complexity challenge faced by the ES concept. The idea to focus more on functions context-wise and without paying too much attention to the species fulfilling this function is what I’ve been missing in all the debates about “good natives” vs. “bad aliens”.
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Thanks for the comment, glad you liked the paper. Hopefully it will start some good discussions!
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Hi Manu, I thought you might be interested in this science communication contest. https://www.unsw.edu.au/top5under40
Cheers Cecile
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Hi Manu, one of my favourite photography blogs just posted a bunch of gorgeous photos…do you know these bees? Are they Hylaeus? I’ve never seen them before: https://beingmark.com/2017/04/28/green-gold-bee/#comment-107043
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wow! amazing. Definitely a Hylaeinae, looks like a Palaeorhiza?? Do you know where the pic were taken? Most of this genus is in Papua New Guinea, with a few species in Australia 🙂
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It was taken in Brisbane, but I don’t know the exact location…I can ask Mark
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That matches the distribution of the genus. I’ve never seen one in the flesh, but the pics match Michener’s description!
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He said it is a sunny spot on Eprapah creek, just above the tideline
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Also check out these pics: http://www.bowerbird.org.au/sightings?query=palaeorhiza
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Wow! Beautiful 🙂
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I am a bushland worker. Looking forward to reading anything you post.
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