Tuomas Aivelo @aivelo.bsky.social

Assistant professor in science comms @UniLeiden
Rat and parasite connoisseur @HelsinkiRats
Academy Research Fellow @HelsinkiUni

More active at Bsky!

[Tuomas Aivelo @aivelo.bsky.social @aivelo]

🚨New paper!🚨

Can we negotiate our cohabitation with rats? Karolina Lukasik spearheaded study, which suggests there might not be alternative!

Out now in a special issue of urban multispecies justice of npj Urban Sustainability: https://t.co/oN3DGmk0fH

A short thread: (1/9)

[Helsinki Urban Rat Proj @helsinkirats.bsky.social @HelsinkiRats]

So what? Difficult to say as zoonotic risks of (para)jeilongviruses are unknown, though paramyxoviruses are known to switch host species. Clinical consequences to rats? No idea.

[Helsinki Urban Rat Proj @helsinkirats.bsky.social @HelsinkiRats]

Shortly: Method works and Helsinki rats have 13% positivity rate which is high compared to other screened pathogens.

[Helsinki Urban Rat Proj @helsinkirats.bsky.social @HelsinkiRats]

🚨 New paper 🚨

Colleagues from @SironenTarja & Jääskeläinen lab's developed a pan-jeilong-RT-qPCR for (para)jeilongvirus detection and used it on our rats and other Finnish and Latvian wildlife!

Congrats and thanks, Emilia, for the paper!

Link: https://t.co/APFacQSaQb

[Helsinki Urban Rat Proj @helsinkirats.bsky.social @HelsinkiRats]

Tutkijamme Santtu Pentikäinen kertoo rottien syksystä Viiden jälkeen -ohjelmassa

https://t.co/6ckpOdrb3b

[Tuomas Aivelo @aivelo.bsky.social @aivelo]

RHEV strains from Helsinki cluster with strains from South Korea and Spain, but polytomous trees and long branch lengths suggest lack of sampling.

Our genotype RHEV-C1 has been reported to cause mild liver dysfunction with human case reports from Hong Kong, Spain, and France.

[Tuomas Aivelo @aivelo.bsky.social @aivelo]

Genetic characterization of rat hepatitis E virus in Helsinki rats in Archives of Virology!

Earlier we reported that we found RHEV in four of our rat carcasses (prevalence of less than 2%) and now we have complete or partial genomes for these.

https://t.co/RKhqWG2P0D

[Tuomas Aivelo @aivelo.bsky.social @aivelo]

The research might be "eclectic disciplinary perspectives", but as Riikka aptly summarizes: "Urban stigmatisation and marginalisation are multispecies processes that emerge with place-making and have consequences for all the multispecies cohabitants of the city."
(5/5)

[Tuomas Aivelo @aivelo.bsky.social @aivelo]

With this invisible rat presence, we rethought urban stigmatisation and belonging as examples of multispecies societal phenomena. They are very territorial in scope, and place-making emerged as a fruitful concept to understand how multispecies urban is formed.
(3/5)

[Tuomas Aivelo @aivelo.bsky.social @aivelo]

Waste, humans, rats - junk food, shopping centers, drunk people. "Well, this just happens to be a place where people randomly poop around, business as usual."

Belonging and place-making are multispecies phenomena, and urban is not only human, but more-than-human.
(4/5)

[Tuomas Aivelo @aivelo.bsky.social @aivelo]

We (as in the ragtag bunch of researchers in CitiRats project) went out to look for rats with lower secondary-school students and we did not see any rats, but we did felt their hidden presence. They were present in stories, stereotypes, memories, and athmospheres.
(2/5)

[Tuomas Aivelo @aivelo.bsky.social @aivelo]

🚨New paper out today: ‘This place cannot be tidied up!’ Stigmatisation, rats, and place-making in a multispecies city🚨

The paper led by Riikka Hohti out today in Children's Geographies: https://t.co/38cy3xlikG

A short thread:
(1/5)

[Tuomas Aivelo @aivelo.bsky.social @aivelo]

‘Ik ben ecoloog, dus ik probeer ratten niet te zien als een plaagdier.' Ik weet dat dit provocerend klinkt, want ecologen zijn goed in het beoordelen (en doden) van andere dieren.
Mare interviewde mij over ons rattenonderzoek: https://t.co/XviF2Y3RRR

[Tuomas Aivelo @aivelo.bsky.social @aivelo]

Things that I learn while doing research: Instagram is just as cut-throat to street plants as to humans.

[Tuomas Aivelo @aivelo.bsky.social @aivelo]

First paper from Nienke Beets on her thesis on Stoepplantjes, a pavement plant citizen science project out in Biological Conservation! Happy to be a coauthor here. https://t.co/LMb8FLI6e4

[Tuomas Aivelo @aivelo.bsky.social @aivelo]

We discussed why pavement plants might be underwhelming in authentic context. Nienke mentioned that it is hard to take a good photo of pavement plant as you need to pick out the cigarette butts and other trash, figure out the light, find the least scrappy individual and so on.

[Tuomas Aivelo @aivelo.bsky.social @aivelo]

"What does a pig say? In English, a pig says “oink, oink”. In Finnish, “röh, röh”. In Danish, “øf, øf”.
But in the language of journalism a pig is usually silent."

Happy to contribute to Anne Salomäki's project at @risj_oxford on animal journalism!

https://t.co/SixtpGewmI

[Tuomas Aivelo @aivelo.bsky.social @aivelo]

Anna is doing her PhD on the process of how biodiversity research is translated into public understanding and this is a crucial first piece - next stop is to figure out how journalists do decisions on writing about biodiversity.
(5/5)

[Tuomas Aivelo @aivelo.bsky.social @aivelo]

My first Leiden paper out now - first-authored by PhD candidate Anna Heerdink in Journal of Nature Conservation, w/ @nruigrok and Ionica Smeets. The paper looks at how biodiversity research is presented in the Dutch print media.

A short thread:
(1/5)

https://t.co/ehKdrVTLaX

[Tuomas Aivelo @aivelo.bsky.social @aivelo]

I was surprised there is so little research on biodiversity-related science communication. While there are many studies on individual cases/species (looking at you, wolves!), the big picture lacks. Especially considering the sheer importance of the sixth mass extinction.
(4/5)