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Does evenness even exist?

On this I can agree:
"Ecologists would benefit by instead determining which real distributions fit to which theoretical models and using the shape and scale parameters of those models to understand community structure"
d197for5662m48.cloudfront.net/documents/pu...
🧪 #Paleobio #EvoBio #Macroecology

A Bayesian approach to include Indigenous Knowledge in habitat selection functions https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.26.645387v1

Discovering Stochastic Dynamical Equations from Ecological Time Series Data | The American Naturalist Abstract Theoretical studies have shown that stochasticity can affect the dynamics of ecosystems in counterintuitive ways. However, without knowing the equations governing the dynamics of populations ...

Nabeel et al. present a method to derive models of theoretical ecology from stochastic time series data. This data-driven method may help empirical tests of ecological theories and to discover unknown principles. Read now ahead of print!
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

you’re fired. wait you’re rehired. email us a list of things you’ve done today wait forget it you’re fired again. come back your job was important. you’re fired. or hired. come in to the office. wait the office has no computers go home. we are the department of government efficiency.

Improper data practices erode the quality of global ecological databases and impede the progress of ecological research The scientific community has entered an era of big data. However, with big data comes big responsibilities, and best practices for how data are contributed to databases have not kept pace with the collection, aggregation, and analysis of big data. Here, we rigorously assess the quantity of data for specific leaf area (SLA) available within the largest and most frequently used global plant trait database, the TRY Plant Trait Database, exploring how much of the data were applicable (i.e., original, representative, logical, and comparable) and traceable (i.e., published, cited, and consistent). Over three-quarters of the SLA data in TRY either lacked applicability or traceability, leaving only 22.9% of the original data usable compared with the 64.9% typically deemed usable by standard data cleaning protocols. The remaining usable data differed markedly from the original for many species, which led to altered interpretation of ecological analyses. Though the data we consider here make up only 4.5% of SLA data within TRY, similar issues of applicability and traceability likely apply to SLA data for other species as well as other commonly measured, uploaded, and downloaded plant traits. We end with suggested steps forward for global ecological databases, including suggestions for both uploaders to and curators of databases with the hope that, through addressing the issues raised here, we can increase data quality and integrity within the ecological community.

1/ Important read for anyone using, contributing, or building large databases by aggregating data sources. Discusses issues with data quality, duplication, credit attribution, etc, and includes recommendations for improvement

doi.org/10.1111/gcb.... #ecopubs

Code sharing in ecology and evolution increases citation rates but remains uncommon Biologists increasingly rely on computer code to collect and analyze their data, reinforcing the importance of published code for transparency, reproducibility, training, and a basis for further work...

I'd like to encourage folks to publish their code. Not only does it make studies more transparent and reproducible, but it also increases citation rates!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

A presentation I did a while back (2015!) for first-year u/g math students about interesting stuff in math biology (apologies for PPTX & ugly eqns; a few of the figures are messed up in LibreOffice) - mostly showing fun pattern-formation pictures www.math.mcmaster.ca/bolker/misc/...

📍Pinned Post: Welcome to the papers with code feed!
bsky.app/profile/did:...

Papers from PubMed, bioRxiv, Bature, PLoS, etc, with links to GitHub will be included here. Anyone can post to this feed.

See also: blog.stephenturner.us

If you're looking for a gentle introduction to fit linear mixed models with R, with lots of examples, data & code available, here's one below. And not just another paper, just realized this one actually cites a Marvel’s comic book: cool-geek level unlocked :) journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

📖Published📖

Our new Application article introduces BATS, a python-based toolkit for landscape-level monitoring of free-tailed bats via weather radar 🦇 🌎 🧪

https://buff.ly/4fNcYeE

Resharing my attempt at a #mathbio starter pack for those (millions?!) of people who've joined in the last week!

Please let me know if you'd like to be added (I've not kept up with the incoming hordes well)

go.bsky.app/GVkxwBv

The Equilibrium Theory of Biodiversity Dynamics: A General Framework for Scaling Species Richness and Community Abundance along Environmental Gradients | The American Naturalist Abstract Large-scale temporal and spatial biodiversity patterns have traditionally been explained by multitudinous particular factors and a few theories. However, these theories lack sufficient genera...

I guess a must read for a macrecologist.

The Equilibrium Theory of Biodiversity Dynamics: A General Framework for Scaling Species Richness and Community Abundance along Environmental Gradients

www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

#macroecology

Movement and migration ecology starter pack! Help me fill it out as more folks join Bluesky 🌎🌍🌏

go.bsky.app/SSiWN2u

🔬 Check out the official #CESAB GitHub repository for data, code, and resources to boost your biodiversity synthesis research ... from functional ecology to world pa, litterarure scraping, bayesian analysis and more! 🛠️

👉 frbcesab.github.io

#OpenScience #Biodiversity #DataSharing #R
🧪🌍🦤🦑

Just created a starter pack for ecological forecasting community! 🦋🍃 Please let me know if you want to be added!

go.bsky.app/Qk9PfFw

Module 1: Getting started with LiDAR processing for forestry and natural resources - The Jones Center at Ichauway Research Labs If you are interested in learning to use LiDAR for forestry and natural resources, this tutorial can help you get started. You will learn to view large datasets, create raster products, map trees, and...

Ready to learn how to use LiDAR for research in #forestry and natural resources using #R? This week I am releasing a 7-part series to help you get started! Share with anyone you know who wants to get started. Part 1 covers acquiring, & viewing LiDAR data! bit.ly/lidR-module1

My new paper is out in Bioacoustics: "Field tests of small autonomous recording units: an evaluation of in-person versus automated point counts and a comparison of recording quality." doi.org/10.1080/0952...
Thanks to NSERC and Bowdoin Scientific Station.
#bioacoustics #ARUs #ornithology

Spurious Correlations Correlation is not causation: thousands of charts of real data showing actual correlations between ridiculous variables.

Maybe having them find random correlations in unrelated data akin to this page:
www.tylervigen.com/spurious-cor...

I'd say it's decently silly but still teaches a good lesson about how stats can be incorrect when you don't consider the context of your data

Me in my Echo Chamber

We have a starter pack for scientists using camera traps! 📸 If you work with camera trap data in any way, either collecting data, running ecological models, training CV/ML models, let me know I’ll add you to this list 🎉 go.bsky.app/CbJkbVw

If you are interested in #rstats, hierarchical modeling in ecology, and in particular occupancy models, then check out my blog!

The one post that gets the most traffic is this one here on how to combine presence-only and detection/non-detection data. 🧪

masonfidino.com/bayesian_int...

Data justice and biodiversity conservation Increases in data availability coupled with enhanced computational capacities are revolutionizing conservation. But in the excitement over the opportunities afforded by new data, there has been less ...

Critical paper for thinking about data use and justice in global #biodiversity #conservation, #macroecology, ecological data synthesis and analyses.

How are people and nature made visible, represented and treated as a result of digital data?

conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Totally forgot about this game, so re-posting again! Good nerdy guessing-game animal wordle-esque fun :) 🧪

In the simpler days of 2015/16 we wrote the BES Guide to Reproducible Code: www.britishecologicalsociety.org/wp-content/u.... It’s time for a refresh! Would you like to help? I’m looking for people to review the existing booklet by 5th December.

3D plots showing how the value of information is often low and only high when an analytic condition is met. See the paper in link for a full description

Plots showing how the value of information depends on the number of actions and states, with more actions and states often leading to higher value of information. See the paper in the link for a full description

When do you need to collect more data? ... surprisingly, more data often has little value for decisions. Our new paper unravels why "Value of Information Analyses" can yield surprising results in #ecology doi.org/10.1111/2041... w @katehelmstedt.bsky.social in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social 🌍