Chris Brown

Employment - Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

EEB Postdoctoral Fellowship @ U.Toronto app deadline Jan 15 2026. Opportunity for independent research, encourages collab across labs/disciplines. Lots of great folks to interact with, Come join us!
eeb.utoronto.ca/employment-2/

How do we monitor fisheries to know if seafood is sustainable? It turns out WHERE we monitor is just as important as HOW MUCH we monitor. We argue the “where” needs to be codified in fisheries policies:

Report: www.nature.org/content/dam/...

Blog: www.seascapemodels.org/posts/2025-1...

great title! plan to discuss in lab mtg this week, very good timing for us

Classic paper titles

“This research is important for the conservation and Management of Sharks”: A proposed framework for ensuring that this is actually true

I'd really like to get the "AI water is being hyped up as a problem by the labs because it's so obviously stupid it invalidates AI critics' more serious complaints" people and the "Andy's in the pocket of the labs because he's questioning the AI water issue" people together in the same room

Great work! I think loss of migration knowledge from overfishing is a huge under appreciated issue with fish.

ShoalBase | Join, Explore, Contribute Now ShoalBase offers a global database on fish social behaviour, supporting research, conservation, and ecology through community contributions and visual data mapping.

🧵1/9 There are 35,000+ fish species, but we have formal social-behaviour classifications for a tiny fraction. Most knowledge lives in the experience of researchers, fishers, divers, aquarists, naturalists, and Indigenous communities, but almost none of it is centralised. So we built ShoalBase.org.

Teaching stats next year, I’m planning to make it interactive - Stats can be more than numbers and R code, Gelman and Vehtari’s book has lots of ideas for interactive classroom stats activities

And AI works well for quick hits, but if you have the money hire a real human designer for something that is accurate and well thought out

name a style (e.g. below is 'botanical line-art'); include reference images for accurate rendering; ask for white space for easy post-production modifications (e.g. adding a DOI); ...

TLDR: Helps to be clear on your key points; but with web search the AI can sometimes do a good job on its own of figuring these out; use less text, (more text = more chance of errors); ...

New post on making science infographics with Gemini Pro 3 (Nano Banana), my experiences so far

www.seascapemodels.org/posts/2025-1...

The new Gemini image model (AKA nano banana) is pretty impressive, does very accurate infographics based on web-search, can do basic reasoning, including generating images of code and resulting plots (without running that code the image comes out of the AI)
www.seascapemodels.org/posts/2025-1...

Two years ago we got together in a beautiful mountain to learn and develop #rstats packages for ecology

After {labeleR} (ecologyr.github.io/labeleR/) and {BlueCarbon} (ecologyr.github.io/BlueCarbon/), {mappestRisk} is now officially out! See thread by lead author @dario-ssm.bsky.social 👇

@anotherbobsmith.bsky.social just found you on bsky, great paper thanks. very useful for our work in @globalmangroves.bsky.social

CSIRO to cut up to 350 research jobs in major overhaul After 440 positions were slashed last year, the CSIRO has announced more staff cuts across the country in a bid to remain financially viable.

Disgraceful & tragic what governments have done to this once science powerhouse! www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...

"Federal Science Minister...Tim Ayres said the cuts were aimed at refocusing the efforts of the CSIRO towards research priorities, such as critical minerals, iron & steel...in Australia."

Should I post a pre-print? - a short guide of pros and cons written with my students and collaborators, thanks all
www.seascapemodels.org/posts/2025-1...

The implementation plan is part of what has made this map a success for conservation.

Other authors have criticized conservation mapping (e.g. www.nature.com/articles/s41...).
Conservation maps can help save biodiversity. We just need to be clear about what their purpose is.

"This has led groups of researchers to publish increasingly detailed maps of global conservation area priorities, but none of these articles have directly influenced the implementation of the biodiversity hotspot approach..."

The key gap they identify is that academics are making conservation maps but not linking those to an implementation plan. The authors explain the biodiversity hotspot map is well known in the academic literature, but its implementation plan is not. I quote:

Twenty-five years of misinterpreting the biodiversity hotspot approach - Nature Ecology & Evolution A quarter of a century after its publication, the biodiversity hotspot concept remains one of the most cited and influential frameworks in conservation science. But its real-world impact is poorly doc...

Must read paper if you do conservation science "Twenty-five years of misinterpreting the biodiversity hotspot approach"
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We had fun with Rstats and genAI at the Centre for Marine Socioecology R workshop the past two days. Sharing these prompting patterns we developed in the workshops, that help an AI agent work through different statistical modelling tasks with a researcher step-by-step.
github.com/cbrown5/GLMs...

The official home of the Python Programming Language

TLDR; The PSF has made the decision to put our community and our shared diversity, equity, and inclusion values ahead of seeking $1.5M in new revenue. Please read and share. pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-...
🧵

How to plot interactive effects from GLMs the easy way #rstats
www.seascapemodels.org/posts/2025-1...

Quick web quizzes are easy to DIY now with vibe coding. Love this chartle idea. I’m going to make my own version for my next stats class

Highlighting a few well informed articles about the environmental impacts of large language models. Maybe not as bad as we've been led to believe by the mass media but definitely still needs consideration: www.seascapemodels.org/posts/2025-1...

Thought we were the only ones protecting feral deer down here in tassie!

This is an alarming finding from AI company Anthropic. What they mean is: the models guess when they are being tested for ethical decision making, and modify their responses to appear more ethical. So the ethical tests probably underestimate bad behaviour assets.anthropic.com/m/99128ddd00...

screenshot of the guide's news section with the following updates: ### Latest updates (September 2025): #### R packages - `contextR`, conversational memory for LLM workflows - `kbretrieveR` for working with AWS Knowledge Bases - The R Language Analysis Suite (text,talk & topics) - `LLMR`, a general interface - `myownrobs`, AI coding agent for RStudio - `air`, an AI coding helper - Format and complete few-shot prompts with `promptr` - LLM-powered chatting in Shiny with `shinychat` and `querychat` #### Other tools and extensions - Databot, an EDA assistant for Positron - R instructions for Cursor Users #### Helpful reads - ellmer deep dive - Howard Baik - On hallucinations - Cosima Meyer - LLM workshop materials from posit::conf 2025

🤖 Big update to the LLMs + R guide

> 10 packages added plus other tools and interested reads

luisdva.github.io/llmsr-book/

As usual, all the content is available in English and Spanish.
#rstats

South Australian and Federal Governments announce the details of the $102.5 million Algal Bloom Summer Plan The $102.5 million Algal Bloom Summer Plan delivers targeted relief and long-term recovery for South Australia’s fisheries and aquaculture sector, including grants of up to $150,000, fee relief, and n...

The SA and Federal governments $102.5M Algal Bloom Summer Plan is rolling out, with grants up to $150K, fee relief, and new R&D funding to help fisheries and aquaculture recover and build resilience 🐟

Read more: seachangeaustralia.org/south-austra...