Orlin S Todorov

Carnivores highly active during the day were the first to go extinct after human arrival and settlement globally. Their complex life histories made them most vulnerable to habitat alteration and very salient hunting targets.

nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

They were multiply imputed 20 times based on 22 traits of 134 species (i. e. our whole sample) and the whole dataset had ~21% missing values. Values of closely related species would have been drawn preferentially by the algorithm (pmm with mida's touch), but not always.

Unsolicited listicle: My list of the most criminally underused/underappreciated phylogenetic comparative methods. Note, I am not involved in ANY of these methods; but I see them as things people are often asking of comparative data but have been surprised at how infrequently they have been cited.

https://nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecog.08061

https://nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecog.08061

Extinct Pleistocene carnivores were diurnal and highly active - fresh off the press 🐯 Only BMR and diurnality are robust predictors of extinction and this also stands for extant species 🦨🐅🦝 With @johnalroy.bsky.social we use an exhaustive sample and account for phylogenetic and trait uncertainty.

Extinct Pleistocene carnivores were diurnal and highly active There is much contention over the causes and correlates of megafaunal extinctions at the end of the Pleistocene. A major role for human impact such as hunting has been discussed widely. If correct, t...

And no, neither smaller, nor larger 🧠 are related to extinction proclivity.

All data available at ecoregister.org and doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16924578

BMR is a major but often overlooked confound of all traits previously proposed to be related to carnivore extinction during the Pleistocene in the context of the overkill hypothesis. We looked at 22 eco & LH traits in a sample of 120 extant and 14 extinct species from every biogeographic realm.

https://nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecog.08061

https://nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecog.08061

Extinct Pleistocene carnivores were diurnal and highly active - fresh off the press 🐯 Only BMR and diurnality are robust predictors of extinction and this also stands for extant species 🦨🐅🦝 With @johnalroy.bsky.social we use an exhaustive sample and account for phylogenetic and trait uncertainty.

photo of paulina borsook

1/ A longtime Wired editor just wrote a mush-brained essay about how he totally missed the political rot of Silicon Valley (& still doesn't get it).

But in the late 1990s, a Wired journalist warned of a toxic ideology bubbling up from tech. Paulina Borsook has largely been erased. Let's change that

Brain Surfaces of 70 primate species

1
To predict the behaviour of a primate, would you rather base your guess on a closely related species or one with a similar brain shape? We looked at brains & behaviours of 70 species, you’ll be surprised!

🧵Thread on our new preprint with @r3rt0.bsky.social , doi.org/10.1101/2025...

🦘🦘🦘 If you ever wonder why roos jump in your headlights (or even if you don't) here is a brief overview of why and what is different about marsupial cognitive ability. 🦘🦘🦘

uploads.strikinglycdn.com/files/c595eb...

Congratulations!

It was a pleasure being part of this collaboration led by Barry Brook with @johnalroy.bsky.social @willgearty.bsky.social et al! Watch this space for more 🐅🐆🐈🦝

Check what gem I stumbled upon last week:

bsky.app/profile/orli...

Fruit trees have been cultivated for nearly 3000 years :D

Randomly coming across a MDPI article where the author cites himself every time he's unsure what to cite (t-test, Fisher). It's also the editor's choice 🤦‍♂️
www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/14...
50 out of place self-citations! AI or just negligence?
plantscience.psu.edu/directory/rp...

Undue Influence: oil and gas giants infiltrate Australia's Bureau of Meteorology - Michael West Oil giants Shell, Santos, Woodside and Chevron finance the Bureau of Meteorology. The BOM does not discuss "climate change".

Public info institution the BoM never mentions fossil-fuelled global heating, even during mega-droughts, heatwaves, bushfires floods. Why? Perhaps because its board is controlled by Shell, Santos, Woodside & Chevron?

If you think this stinks, make a subsmission!

michaelwest.com.au/undue-influe...

Human impacts on large mammals went well beyond triggering late Quaternary mass extinctions. A new paper by Brook et al. showing that biogeographic patterns were erased by the spread of domesticated species:

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

A related paper is in press. Stay tuned.

Deadline is 1st October and the project is fully funded for local and international students. Spread the word!

Available projects for research degrees | University of Tasmania - Environmentally sustainable food product Globally, there is an urgent need to make food production environmenta...

We are recruiting a PhD student to work on a decision-support tool for food producers to assess and optimise the environmental sustainability of products. Ideally, someone who is knowledgeable about food production, sustainability and can or is willing to learn how to code in R/Shiny or Python.

Came here to say that 🙈

36 USD delivery to oz 🤦🏻‍♂️

‘Things keep evolving into anteaters.’ Odd animals arose at least 12 separate times Findings speak to the dramatic impact ants and termites can have on mammalian evolution

Crab-like creatures are famed for having evolved five times in evolutionary history. But anteaters have evolved at least 12 times--in half the evolutionary span. Cool story by @jakebuehler.bsky.social for @science.org

North American bird declines are driven by reductions in common species Declines in North American birds are driven not by rare species vanishing but by sharp losses among formerly common species.

🚨 First PhD chapter is out! My work thus far, with @andy2dobson.bsky.social

We found that formerly common species have declined the fastest, on average.

📄 North American bird declines are driven by reductions in common species | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

my guess is that this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of unethical conduct.... ⬇️

Despite broad uptake, metascience and the Open Science reform movement have garnered ample criticism. Such criticism is also known as critical metascience. We will reflect on central critiques by bringing together key voices from a variety of disciplines, asking what needs to change, how and why?

-- Metascience 2025 Virtual Preconference --

"Critical Metascience: Does Metascience Need to Change?"

23rd June 15:00 BST

nomadit.co.uk/conference/m...

🔹️ Sven Ulpts

🔹️ Sheena Bartscherer

🔹️ Me!

🔹️ Carlos Santana

🔹️ @lisamalich.bsky.social

🔹️ @jbakcoleman.bsky.social

#MetaSci #STS #PhilSci

The Difference Between “Significant” and “Not Significant” is not Itself Statistically Significant It is common to summarize statistical comparisons by declarations of statistical significance or nonsignificance. Here we discuss one problem with such declarations, namely that changes in statisti...

all this talk about changes in p-value magnitude being interpreted as an increase in the "quality of evidence" necessitates that i share this. we all should share and actually read this in fact (for starters).
#stats #metasci

A collage illustrating diverse biological behaviors across life forms: orange and yellow lichens growing on rock (symbiotic behavior), a close-up of bacteria (microbial interactions), leafcutter ants cooperating to carry a leaf (social insect behavior), a sundew plant trapping an insect (plant predation), and phylogenetic trees representing evolutionary relationships.

What theoretical & methodological challenges emerge when investigating #behavior across the tree of life? We are organizing an interdisciplinary workshop on 'comparative behavioral biology' (Sept. 26-27). Please help us share the open CfA! 📢👇 hiw.kuleuven.be/clps/events/... #philsci #HPbio #evobio

Reconstruction of a Dire Wolf standing in alter pose (bottom) and two sketches of the head of Aenocyon growling (top left) and almost from the front (top right)

Dire Wolf (Aenocyon dirus) thread.

No, those wolves in the news yesterday are NOT dire wolves. To be clear those are Gray Wolves with just a few genes modified based on Dire Wolf DNA through CRISPR

#paleoart #direwolf #aenocyon

Sketch, capture and layout phylogenies www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧬🖥️🧪 github.com/husonlab/phy...

Silencing Palestine: Universities Australia and the new definition of antisemitism - Overland literary journal I am a researcher of literature and I am invested in understanding the political nature of language, and the context in which that language is embedded — even chaotic and unfocused language. I want to...

As Jumana Bayeh argues in her scholarly close reading, Universities Australia's definition of antisemitism has one purpose only — to silence voices in support of Palestinians.