Jeremy Collings

A probability matrix is not conscious. For fucks sake.

Environmental context alters plant–soil feedback effects on plant coexistence Plant–soil feedbacks are thought to mediate outcomes of plant competition through microbially driven positive or negative feedback loops. Plant–microbe interactions are known to depend on the underly...

Popping on to share that the first project I worked on in my PhD was published recently. Check it out: esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Useless posterior predictive checking bar graphs for Models 1 and 2

Posterior predictive checking of binary, categorical and many ordinal models with bar graphs is useless. Even the simplest models without covariates usually have such intercept terms that category specific probabilities are learned perfectly. Can you guess which model, 1 or 2, is misspecifed? 1/4

Stochastic Forces in Microbial Community Assembly: Founding Community Size Governs Divergent Ecological Trajectories www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #jcampubs

[dismantle the system that incentivizes quantity over quality in terms of scientific output and instead incentivize robust, reproducible, well thought-out research, which by necessity takes much longer to conduct and writeup]

An algorithm that scientists can use to code up analyses... that is often wrong but prioritizes getting some output out... and is programmed to speak with utter confidence in the output... terrifies me to my core. Systematically... what do we even do about this?

Slide advertising SUNY cortland undergrad posters at Botany 2025 on how polyploidy affects Nicotiana flowers: posters 181, 184, and 186

#Botany2025 ! My talk is in Smoketree D/E today (Mon) at 11:45am, but more importantly, these FANTABULOUS @sunycortland undergrads have posters tonight! Come learn about how polyploidy affects Nicotiana flowers! :) 💖

figure 1 from https://doi.org/10.1086/737588 describing (a) our conceptualisation of an evolutionary transition in individuality, (b) an interpretation of the traits that we consider in our mathematical model, and (c) a graphical representation of the population dynamics in the model.

Interested in host-symbiont interdependence, eukaryogenesis, and evolutionary transitions in individuality? my first paper just came out! With @gokhalecs.bsky.social and Pete Czuppon, we study when & how individuality emerges in a host-endosymbiont collective doi.org/10.1086/737588 a short thread🧵:

Frantically trying to figure out how I can be her.

What a genius name for this little fellow!

Yes please!

How may theoretical ecology & evolutionary theory push microbiology forward?
At Environmental Microbiology, I am commissioning a series of Perspectives exploring that question. Excited to share them in the 🧵 below
The series is open, so do get in touch if you'd like to propose a new contribution!

📢New paper alert ‼️

Excited to share our new paper out now in the @jappliedecology.bsky.social
We evaluated how oil palm plantations affect the community structure of Amazonian birds, with a focus on functional and phylogenetic diversity.

Read more here
tinyurl.com/4ubwjr7s

You’re Not Angry Enough About Homelessness in America Homelessness is increasingly caused by soaring rents and low wages, not laziness or personal failures. The solution is strong government intervention to house everyone and to end landlords’ control ov...

While writing There Is No Place for Us, what I wanted most was for readers to feel the fury I carried throughout my reporting—the outrage, the horror at what this country forces our neighbors to endure.

This review by @lilysanca.bsky.social says everything I hoped the book would convey, and more:

Here is an article highlight for this recent #BulletinMathBio paper, with a short summary of the paper written by the authors.

smb.org/news/13519509

Writing papers like I'm the Carrie Bradshaw of ecology.

So now that I have the doctorate, I get to just be a weirdo, right? That’s how it works? Cause I’m gonna go ahead and be weird now if thats cool.

Three new SPARC Synthesis Groups demonstrate the value of long-term data collected across ecosystems - LTER The LTER Network Office is excited to announce that three Scientific Peers Advancing Research Collaborations (SPARC) proposals were funded this year. The three groups will meet in person at the Nation...

Exciting news, our SPARC proposal has been funded! Our project brings together experts across disciplines and will explore above-belowground coupling/synchrony. Big thanks to @uslter.bsky.social! lternet.edu/stories/thre... 🌱🦠📉🌎

#LTER #SPARC #plants #microbes #SynthesisScience #TeamScience

Idk guys, the idea that 'nature' is some entity that intrinsically heals seems similarly reductionist to medieval European ideas that subjugate the 'wild' as an abode of evil. What if we wrote rich literature that reflects the infinite feelings/relationships one may have w/ their surroundings.

I've got a lot of thoughts about this blog post (love it). This topic is actually one that I obsess over daily. The metaphorical machine that pumps out unbelievable, sloppy papers that get read as as Truth terrifies me. The senior researchers that act like this isn't the case make me deeply m/sad.

I was gonna call it the Collingsian Statistics but that's much funnier.

I think that I’ve decided to give up entirely on statistical ecology. My new method of inference is going to be putting my hand on a tree and intuiting the parameter values.

Screenshot of Stan forum website with rainbow Stan logo

Late to the party, but love the Stan forum's pride logo. Never been a better time to be a gay Bayesian statistician.

Progressive Pride Flag made in 2022 by Dr. Justin Luong from photos taken by Justin Luong of California Native Plants. #Pride #Pride2025 ##CaliforniaNativePlants

Happy Pride from California Native Plants!

Writing Resources Writing is a huge part of any career in science, and for many writers – no, for most writers – it’s a daunting challenge. But it’s not a challenge that you have to tackle alone. That’s a lesson I w…

Your occasional reminder that I maintain a curated list of resources for scientific writers. Is it exhaustive? Heck no. It is useful? I think you'll find it so. scientistseessquirre...

No but I do very much agree with the author’s suggestion that, as far as statistical modeling in ecology goes, our standards are too low and our training is (generally) crappy.

You mean… I actually have to think about the process that I’m studying?!?? 😭😭😭

Excited to share our new paper: arxiv.org/abs/2505.06224! We introduce a unified framework for evaluating model representations beyond downstream tasks, and use it to uncover some interesting insights about the structure of representations that challenge conventional wisdom 🔍🧵

Defended my dissertation yesterday! The weight of it hasn’t totally sunk in yet, but I’m very proud and grateful for all the support I’ve received in my PhD from colleagues, friends, and family.

You also can’t learn to write good papers without writing bad drafts (or bad papers) so write your own outlines, drafts, and papers!