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EDIT (03 September, 2025): I totally forgot to include a brief analysis of those "4000 citations" Hörren repeatedly uses to boost his famous study. The funny thing is that this number is NOT the actual amount of citations in other papers, which was less than 1900 by the time I wrote this gemlog entry, but the amount of supposed shares on X (formerly Twitter)!
Upon checking how PLOS picks social media references up, I noticed that PLOS is completely incapable of tracking studies on social media, as the first 100 results that allegedly shared the Krefeld study were citing and retweeting OTHER studies that included similar percentages and related topics in the title. No study is being tracked via its shared links (and it also is pathetically easy to remove tracking parameters from shared links, hell they are tons of apps and Firefox addons automating this!).
On top of this, an analysis regarding how reflective altmetrics are in terms of user engagement, Robinson-Garcia et al.[20] tracked the engagement of "8.000 tweets from 2.000 US-based accounts referencing 4.000 paper published in dental journals ", coming to the conclusion that 77% of the sample was "mechanical in nature" (bot AND bot-like real human engagement). 23% of those genuine tweets seldom kept up with dental studies and only posted sporadically about dental papers in general. Of those 23%, only 6% make up a "core" posting dental studies more often than the rest, once again highlighting a strong divide on social media where the vast majority of users are hardly-engaging lurkers. You don't want to imagine how bad it must be within other fields, especially in those where masses of funds are being burned on a daily basis (looking at you, Cancer research).
In the end, altmetrics are horribly easy to game and there are the very same incentives behind this phenomenon that push "regular" influencers and content creators to artificially boost their views, likes, shares and followers but the way PLOS calculates altmetrics doesn't even require those because it will count anything that, according to the logic of a poorly-configured Python script with limited API access, vaguely resembles a certain study. Anyone can safely discard ANY such citations since Elon Musk bought Twitter and put its API behind hefty paywall at the same time he fired most of his software engineers. You either are spectacularly incompetent and lazy at interpreting statistics in general or intentionally misleading by taking faulty Twitter stats and claiming those to be your official citation count in scientific papers. As much as I'd give Hörren et al. the benefit of the doubt and merely consider them too dumb for anything scientific (given they already cannot comprehend why international PLOS readers highlighted the application of a trend analysis on data NOT collected for a statistical trend analysis), however Hörren in particular created his own Wikipedia entry and virtually happens to be its sole maintainer, on top of his continued promotion of his own books, which are nothing but extremely watered-down infotainment with his face plastered over multiple pages and even on the cover of his latest book, and plain irrelevancy. I personally would regard him as a malicious actor of the self-serving, career-driven kind within entomology.
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EDIT (13 July, 2025): I added further reads to his Krefeld study colleagues and the lack of a German Wikipedia entry about the Krefeld Society. A new section about Hörren also blocked me on another site also has found its way into this posts.
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I already mentioned this guy in my gemlog about "Krefeld 2" where I analyzed his social media profile on Mastodon and came to the conclusion that he's spending more time promoting his own persona, rather than actually engaging in some type of education about insects.
Thomas Hörren is one of the twelve researchers behind the original study. He joined ruhr.social on 30 October, 2022 and has published, as of 16 March, 2025, only 30 posts overall, three of which are reposts from other accounts, putting the total of his own posts at 27. Excluding responses, three posts deal with the promotion of books he (co-)authored, two posts are part of a thread where he introduces himself to the Fediverse, one post (his very first) promotes a pre-print he co-authored (but apparently never went beyond its pre-print status), one post was "reboosted" by himself, three post explain two particular insects, one discusses a particular jellyfish, one deals with urban plants, one is a microscopic shot with little information, one promotes a "networking course" for endometriosis patients, four post promote three podcast episodes in which Hörren took part, one post shows Hörren taking part in the children's show "Tigerentenclub"...
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How many times have I mentioned "promote" so far? Five? Blimey, his account is overwhelmingly filled with some form of promotional content. Out of all 30 posts, only five are of the educational type (actually explaining stuff, excluding the pre-print), 14 are entirely self-promotional (including the pre-print).
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46,7% of his personal account is some type of advertising, 16,7% is educational. Now let's include the replies.
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One is a response to the response published in Nature where he mentions the group's inability to make their response open access, three are replies to some users asking questions about his books, one is a personal opinion on "national parks", one merely deals with how he's not going to add content warnings to his posts (a typical Fediverse drama topic). Six posts are replies to other users, four of which are connected to his PR posts.
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Now adding those to the overall napkin numbers, this pushes the advertising content above 50%, at a whopping 66,7%. I'm not going to calculate the percentage of his more personal posts but you should be able to tell that this, alongside the promotional posts, decrease the amount of purely-educational posts significantly.
My opinion of him and his colleagues already were low because of this. However, I managed to get into an argument with Hörren on the Fediverse on 11 July, 2025:
As you can tell, he almost immediately tried to drag me into a recorded discussion for his YouTube channel he just started to promote, claiming that he won't be able to address any of my points "adequately" otherwise. I was being intentionally rude to trigger some kind of emotional reaction where he would end up defending himself against, what he might perceive me as, an online troll. After merely rehashing every point addressed by other critics years before I even learned about this guy's existence, and merely adding the point about his agency handling his business matters (something which he doesn't mention on any of his social media profiles), he wants me to repeat my points live on camera – something he actively avoids doing with prominent critics.
I declined on the basis that it would've gone wrong in multiple ways and not merely limited to my inability to speak when I know that I'm being watched and recorded. He just started his YouTube channel and seeks to grow his audience, he's a "science communicator" with an agency behind him[1] and his online persona is mostly advertisement for his books and his job as a public speaker, consultant and interview partner. If I'd fail at getting my points across, he'd use it to publicly humiliate me. If I'd get my points across and make him look like a fool, it'd not be unlikely that he'd decide against publishing it. In all cases, it would end up on a non-neutral platform controlled by him. Besides this, he did not invite me to get in touch with his agency to handle a potential public discussion but asked me directly once he finally read the rest of my posts in which I accused him of being just another online influencer. I blocked him after noticing that he also tried to twist my own points, even falsely claiming that they diagnosed every species they caught, which they never did – in fact they repeatedly offered their stored glass bottles to other researchers to do it for them, instead. At no point did they ever publish a list of the caught species and never even diagnosed them superficially, i.e. order-only. Every time any member would even talk about their study either would address some criticism by, what I would consider, "low-hanging fruits" such as the somewhat-prominent "farmer Willi" or just fully and uncritically rehash the unfounded conclusion over and over again to somehow push for vague political changes in regards to environmental matters.
This brought me back to his own article on the German Wikipedia. I already came across it back in March but missed to properly analyze the user that created his article in the first place. It appears that Hörren is using a sock-puppet named "Anommatus"[2] to promote himself. Not only did this user contribute the most edits by a human user on the article of Thomas Hörren (most absolute edits came from bots), only two other articles were edited by the same user and, excluding one grammar edit, introduced references to work produced by Hörren et al., with Hörren naturally being mentioned first. Considering that even the user name – the genus "Anommatus" – shares an odd similarity with a research by Hörren from 2013 in which he publicized the then-current activity of Anommatus diecki in the northern parts of the Rhineland[3], there's a non-zero chance that this is not just a harmless coincidence. In fact, it is now even more likely that he is behind this account on Wikipedia – and thus makes him an absolute disgrace.
The English Wikipedia requires researchers to be transparent about contributions in which they may cite their own research. The German Wikipedia doesn't engage in such a policy at all and is even more biased towards recent events and celebrities than the English one, with tons of articles never getting beyond the stub stage and with very random but overly strict deletion and protection policies, which already caused most editors to stop contributing[4]. It thus is quite hilarious and sad that no one on Wikipedia so far caught this obvious type of self-promotion.
It should also be mentioned that the Krefeld Society does not have a German entry – strangely enough, there only is a stub article on the English Wikipedia which is classified as being of "low importance". Even worse, their own homepage still lacks HTTPS and hasn't changed at all since I came across it in March, despite claiming that it's being revamped. It's pretty much abandoned.
But what about his colleagues that assisted him during the Krefeld study? It appears that none of the other researchers conduct any research without Hörren and most of their other colleagues.
- Caspar A. Hallmann only offers a profile on ResearchGate[7] but his top co-authors list fellow Krefeld colleague Martin Sorg, overall having collaborated with 50 other researchers;
- Martin Sorg, the same guy demonstrating his uncritical obsession with malaise traps that he builds AND sells on Hörren's latest video, is curator at the Krefeld Society, strangely also listing a total amount of 50 co-authors on ResearchGate[8] – the "Stiftung Energie und Umwelt Nordrhein-Westphalen" wrote a promotional portait of Sorg[9] and list him as researcher, author and consultant;
- Eelke Jongejans also lists 50 co-authors and collaborates with Sorg most of the time[10];
- Henk Siepel, despite being a professor, publishes articles nearly every month[11], with four in a single month (March, 2025) – just like the others, he lists 50 co-authors;
- Nick Hofland is a PhD student and so far has not published any research independent of the Krefeld Society[12], listing 11 co-authors,
– Heinz Schwan doesn't offer any references, though he appears to work exclusively for the Krefeld Society[13];
- Werner Stemans is a board member of the Krefeld Society and lists 30 co-authors[14];
- good luck getting far with such a common German name but Andreas Müller is listed as being a member of the Krefeld Society, his roles in the study being limited to "Data curation, Project administration, Resources, Writing – review & editing" according to the JS popup text in the Krefeld study;
– there are two Hubert Sumsers with oddly similar interests but one profile on ResearchGate lists the same amount of 50 co-authors but no position whatsoever[15];
_ Dave Goulson is the only British co-author of the Krefeld study and, just like Hörren, got his own Wikipedia page[16], yet in both the English and the German Wikipedia – just like Hörren, he mainly sells books and founded the charity "Bumblebee Conservation Trust";
- Hans de Kroon, just like most of his colleagues, lists 50 co-authors and publishes articles every month on a variety of topics related to environmental matters with no clear specialty.
Five researchers list an identical amount of co-authors they have collaborated with throughout their careers (50), only one researcher is a PhD student and another just a regular member of the Krefeld society. Four researchers also are working as consultants and actively seek out the spotlight in various popular news media, including German newspapers and German and British public broadcasters.
Wait a minute, the most attention-seeking ones now bemoan that the decline of insects continues uninterrupted[18]. Does that mean they do a terrible job as consultants or simply don't get hired because they largely avoid interacting with those they deem responsible for the decline, targeting the wrong crowd (their own selected "science communication" bubbles) to merely engage in some cheap online activism and, well, propaganda...?
Since I don't use Bluesky for anything besides sporadic shitposting, I didn't notice that he suddenly blocked me on a different site right after I merely blocked him on the Fediverse[19] – I wasn't even considering ever replying to any of his stuff ever again since he also merely engages in lazy cross-posting. He tried to appear calm and unaffected on the outside but actually was far more pissed than I expected and outright petty (and even pettier than I was when I got insulted by an Ubuntu Studio user out of the blue after noticing that a GRUB bug was primarily caused by the lack of transparency of the exact package source and appropriate testing by Arch maintainers – I never went out of my way to block this particular user outside of Mastodon and didn't even bother to block him on my now-gone "priv").
I do hope he got to appreciate Wario's and Waluigi's asses when he went through my shitpost account, though.
After accusing Bavaria of clickbait and claiming that they analyzed a study that is still in the works, plus repeatedly digging out old articles just to "stay relevant", I was having enough with Hörren's bullshit in particular and he proved every negative opinion I've been having of him since I came across the "famous" Krefeld study. He unironically uses the amount of citations to imply that it makes his study more credible, despite violating every principle taught in statistics classes. I counted multiple violations in the original Krefeld, including p-hacking, selection bias and even the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, as they began collecting data before even formed a hypothesis and even adding older data from the UK (in a study about German habitats that, for some reason, are mostly situated in RLP, NRW and Lower Saxony, despite claiming that it covers the while country) AFTER they came up with their hypothesis halfway or even towards the end of their data collection.
Hörren et al. continue to avoid even mentioning that their study violates statistical principles, and even worse, they continue to view it as being useful for "practical applications". "Practical" may refer to political lobbyism since the study doesn't include any details beyond a low-resolution map in which all studied areas are vaguely highlighted. There is no list of each exact location, no identification of the insects that were caught – just the weight of each alcohol-based glop. You can't do anything to help insects by not making any kind of raw data public, in fact they didn't even document parts of their raw data formally. A statistical tragedy, an utter useless practical guide.
Perhaps that makes the discovery that Hörren is far more focused on selling the mere idea of himself being some heroic entomologist that will have a positive influence on the development of adequate biotopes for insects to strive in especially bad. A survey conducted in 2022 already highlighted the ineffectiveness of Instagram – a social media site in which he has accumulated 12k followers[5] – to promote environmental education[6], with most users considering Instagram to be an unreliable resource. It may explain why Hörren thus refuses to share any concrete facts online and rather points to his own books and podcasts, yet this is where the bade taste in my mouth gets particularly nasty. He does nothing but self-promotion and only treats himself and the projects he contributes to as his only reliable sources. He doesn't engage with other entomologists outside of his society; he produces infantile books with his face plastered over multiple pages (in one case even the book cover) that barely include any information – they target a specific fraction of the "general public" that invests in books to merely feel good about themselves and brag about it online, without realizing that even the German Wikipedia would teach them more than Hörren ever will.
If you really want to learn about nature and insects in particular, use one of the various free online guides such as LepiWiki for butterflies, go outside and observe. If you want to observe on private property you don't own, ask the owners kindly and respect their wishes if they should decline or ask you to not make any of this or parts of your observations public out of fear that it will attract Instagram tourists (or politicians wanting to destroy or "properly maintain" this space). If you witness one of your habitats being in active danger, get involved in your LOCAL politics and don't get higher-up's involved unless you got no other options left if vulnerable species are affected.
Don't waste your time with fame seekers such as Thomas Hörren. They make a living off selling their faces to the lowest common denominator.
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[1]
"Since summer, 2023 the Agentur Blumberg Managing is partnering with the biodiversity and insects researcher Thomas Hörren and contact for the agency of this researcher:
Key notes / presentations / interviews / consulting / collaborations"
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
(note that the first nine posts overwhelmingly consist of self-promotion)
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[7]
[8]
[9]
(note the hyperbolic and dramatized writing style)
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[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
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[18]
[19]
Go to clearsky.app and compare the "blocked by" or "blocking" lists of "jatardine@bsky.social" and "thoerren@bsky.social". I only blocked him on Bluesky after noticing that I was blocked by him first.
[20]