Matthew Holden 🏳️‍🌈

It's baffling why the Go8 (a group of 8 leading universities in Australia) endorsed a position to weaken environmental laws. Not only do we, the researchers at these universities, disagree, but our research shows it is a bad idea. In just one day, 90 Go8 researchers documented our opposition.

Cute little spikey echidnas have massive poos! The size of a go card! The 💩 can also be detected by dogs. Let's turn 💩 into conservation solutions. Great talk by Kate Dutton-Regester at @uq-cbcs.bsky.social @brisbanetimes.bsky.social @qld.greens.org.au @hugepossum.bsky.social

Expand or better manage protected areas: A framework for minimizing extinction risk when threats are concentrated near edges Several international agreements have called for the rapid expansion of protected areas to halt biodiversity declines. However, recent research has sh…

Don't post your preprint on SSRN (option at many journals). Google scholar often delists papers that have an SSRN preprint. Arxiv preprints are more prominent in scholar. @elsevierconnect.bsky.social @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social @academic-chatter.bsky.social eg. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Love this Nesbit lecture by prof Ben Andrews on using the diffusion equation as a tool to understand geometry.

Our new paper: If you get a bit more conservation $ should you expand a protected area or improve management? Past work suggests management is often more cost effective but we show when threats are concentrated near edges we find expanding may be optimal doi.org/10.1016/j.bi... 🌍

This is excellent. I once reviewed a grant in a European scheme that had 12 while men on the team. I used similar framing to critique the issues, even though EDI was not included in the criteria. I also followed up with the scheme to ask why no EDI.

the answer to the trolley problem is not to pick who to sacrifice, it’s to dismantle the system that led to an unsafe trolley crossing.

if any part of your morality strategy involves picking a group to let die on a hill, throw the entire strategy out. it’s wrong.

As a grant reviewer, how do you request Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, even if it isn’t an explicit selection criterion Many funding schemes now include equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) as an explicit selection criterion. But what happens when it isn’t written into the rubric? Should applicants still consider …

New blog: As a grant peer reviewer I consider Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) even if the scheme doesn't list EDI criteria. Key is to tie the selection criteria to EDI. This is how I do it mathemagicalconservation.wordpress.com/2025/09/23/a... @katehelmstedt.bsky.social @hugepossum.bsky.social

Happy 4^ / 3^2 / 5^2 day!!! (3^2/ 4^2 / 5^2 for us weird Americans) Not too many days satisfy the Pythagorean thm. @amermathsoc.bsky.social @austms.bsky.social @stevenstrogatz.com @monsoon0.bsky.social ht Peter Baxter for noticing. Looking forward to coming back to the US for joint maths in Jan.

Embedding Sustainability in Undergraduate Mathematics with Actionable Case Studies There is a growing need to integrate sustainability into tertiary mathematics education given the urgency of addressing global environmental challenges. This paper presents four case studies from Aust...

Ooh arXiv paper from @matthholden.bsky.social @katehelmstedt.bsky.social about embedding sustainability in undergraduate maths with case studies 👀 Looks very actionable!

arxiv.org/abs/2508.07594

Excited for our annual conference on modeling for ecology, biodiversity, sustainability, environment, water, energy, climate, fisheries, forestry, & ag. Love all the cool #math & stats used to save the world. Join us in Stellenbosch 2026. 🌍#MathSky @hugepossum.bsky.social @katehelmstedt.bsky.social

Job alert: 2.75 -3 yr postdoc in Mathematical ecology/epidemiology or Decision Sci at the University of Queensland on the value of information for decisions with @hugepossum.bsky.social @katehelmstedt.bsky.social Katriona Shea & myself #MathSky 🌍 uq.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/uqcareers/jo... please share

getting in an arms race with LLMs over em-dashes by using dashes so long ——— so very long ——— that they have never appeared in training data

Please share: PhD scholarship opportunity in mathematical ecology on the value of information for improving ecological management, open to international students, with a great team @hugepossum.bsky.social, Katriona Shea, Kate Helmstedt, & me at UQ, Australia 🌍 🧮, study.uq.edu.au/study-option...

Great work classifying ecosystems around the world to create an IUCN red list of ecosystems presented by Prof Emily Nicholson. Shows a small global decline in ecosystems but with extreme variation with some declining rapidly. 🌍
@aciucn.bsky.social @uq-cbcs.bsky.social

Beetle grows ‘termite’ on back to steal food Puppet helps insect trick real termites into feeding it

Just saw this amazing science article - Beetle grows replica ‘termite’ on back to steal food www.science.org/content/arti.... Despite it being in Australia it wasn't one of the 1,168 species in our Brisbane home but we did find 6 species of rove beetle doi.org/10.1002/ecy....

Yes, where nuclear plants exist they should continue and be maximised to produce relatively clean energy. Of course, in Australia, and other sunny locations building new nuclear plants is extremely costly compared to solar, even accounting for storage and would be wildly irresponsible.

The latter (sorry character limits created the ambiguity). Agree with you, given that accounting for species protection only adds 2-3%cost, it would be interesting to see what the cost contribution of the renewables are alone. Would help to put that 2-3% in context.

He accounted for infrastructure to go the longer distance from the network when avoiding threatened species. Don't think there would be a difference in storage requirements with the increased distance. Storage is mostly about the baseline cost of renewables the % increase is on top of that.

Bycatch reduction interventions are effective for improving marine species populations but very few studies report the impacts on fisher safety, and other fisher objectives. This is a major barrier to adoption. Great talk by Cindy Vargas @arizonastateuni.bsky.social at #iccb2025.

We can achieve 100% renewable energy in Australia & also protect threatened species impacted by wind and solar developments with only 2-3% increase in electricity bills compared to if we didn't consider threatened species. #iccb2025 great talk by A Rogers

ICCB 2025_Guidelines on how to give linguistically friendly presentations in English.docx Guidelines on how to give linguistically friendly presentations in English ICCB Language Accessibility Subcommittee The philosophy of ICCB 2025 is grounded in inclusivity and accessibility, prioritizi...

Love the Guidelines on how to give linguistically friendly presentations in English at #iccb2025 for more accessible and diverse conferences @tatsuya-amano.bsky.social

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

I really dislike this sentiment re: AI impacts on education: If an assignment can be completed by AI then it is clearly just busy work; educators need to create better assignments.

Absolutely not true. Just because AI can do something too doesn't mean that doing it doesn't have pedagogical value.

Every proof in every undergrad math class can be pooped out by the random sentence machine. The point is exactly to engage in the process of generating a proof.

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Please share. 2 tenure-track T&R math/stat jobs at the University of Queensland, Australia. Amazing weather, gorgeous campus & lifestyle. 17% employer retirement contribution, lots of leave. Strong global reputation. Supports diversity @stevenstrogatz.com uq.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/uqcare...

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My top tips for conferences 1) have fun, Skip some talks 2) go to the poster session 3) focus your talk/poster around one main message w email address on last slide 4) see who's attending in the program before you arrive and schedule meetings. @iccb2025.bsky.social
www.instagram.com/reel/DJQd0_h...

Amazing talk by Dr Helen Mayfield on building models to manage ecosystems by consulting experts in a systematic way (expert elicitation) ... and most importantly an evaluation of whether it worked. @uq-cbcs.bsky.social @martinemaron.bsky.social

The total Australian Research Council budget is $1bn.