Tanya Strydom

Sending love to 6-year-old me who was obsessed with dinosaurs 🦖🦕

Quick science PSA: not actually dinosaurs LOL — Permian marine communities 😂🙈 (Science accuracy > vibes)

Still wild to be studying deep time like this... 🥹✨

🚨 NEW MUD DINOSAUR SCIENCE 🦕☄️

Obsessed with seeing networks being built, smashed and stress-tested with real data - not just debated from the sidelines 👀 (self-aware self-own 🙋).

🚀 Paleoecology leveled ⬆️.
Big questions + awesome squad → measurable, mind-blowning results 🤯

Here’s what went down 👇✨

Thanks @gracielle.science ☺️☺️☺️ I'm in my Gen-Z science comm era 🧬💻🦄

Shoutout time 📣: Big love to my co-authors @dralexdunhill.bsky.social , Jennifer Dunne, @ctrlalttim.com and @beckerhopper.bsky.social. Couldn’t have done it without you. 🙌💖

A conceptual diagram illustrating the hierarchical transition of ecological networks. It flows from a broad "Global Metaweb" at the top (all possible interactions), down to "Regional Metawebs" (filtered by species co-occurrence in yellow and orange regions), and finally to specific "Realised Webs" at the bottom (interactions filtered by local community context like abundance and energy gain).

Bottom line: Networks are picky, assumptions are queen, and our framework is a cheat code. 🫡

4️⃣ A unified framework improves application and progress:
We built something of a 'network GPS' 🗺️🕸️ to help pick the right network for the right question. This keeps everyone from getting lost in the jungle of misinterpretation 🌳😵‍💫 and makes progress actually progress 📈🚀.

3️⃣ Explicit assumptions are essential for evaluation:
If you don’t know what assumptions went into making your network, you’re basically guessing 🎲❌🌱. Spell them out ✍️📝 so your analysis isn’t just chaos in disguise ⚡🕸️.

2️⃣ Network representations are not interchangeable:
There’s no one-size-fits-all 🤷‍♀️🧢. Your favorite network might be great for unicorns 🦄 but terrible for horses 🐴. Pick your network like you pick your Netflix shows 🍿📺—what you’re actually trying to watch.

1️⃣ Network representations encode different processes:
Different networks = different vibes. Some networks are about who eats who 🍴🦌🦅, some are about who hangs out with whom 🫂🌿. Knowing the network’s 'personality' is key to asking the right questions 🧠✨.

Preprint alert 🚨 (yes, I still go online, shocker)

Scaling from Metawebs to Realised Webs: A Hierarchical Approach to Network Ecology

TL;DR: Networks are like… weirdly finicky and if you want your network analysis to not be a sad chaos, check this preprint: [https://doi.org/10.32942/X2JW8K] 🏠💻

It should be illegal to have cool science brainwave moments after 16:00 on a Friday - if only to try and keep the work-life balance somewhat respectable

Peak vibes, no cap 🔥

dplyr but make it bussin fr fr no cap `genzplyr` is an alternative syntax for `dplyr` that replaces boring old function names with GenZ slang. Your data wrangling is about to hit different.

@hadley.nz , you’re so real for this 😭🙌

Lowkey spent my whole day glowin’ up my code with the new `genzplyr` pack — it’s giving ✨clean syntax✨ fr.

hadley.github.io/genzplyr/ind...

SORTEE Webinar: The Risks and Rewards of Large Language Models in (Open) Scientific Research SORTEE Workshop & Webinar Series

Happy to announce the next edition of the @sortee.bsky.social Workshop & Webinar series on October 27 at 16:00UTC, ‘The Risks and Rewards of Large Language Models in (open) Scientific Research’ with @tanyadoesscience.bsky.social !! Sign up here:
events.humanitix.com/sortee-webin...

Whoever decided to host the poster session in the Natural history museum you are my hero! 🤩

Cat croissants! 🐱🥐

Photo of a name tag for a conference about palaeontology. The name tag also features a collection of stickers related to palaeontology

Stickers placed = conference mode loading 🤓🤓🤓

Looking forward to learning about DINOSAURS!!!

Best of both worlds? Start with the Smörgåstårta, followed by Fish n Chips (with mushy peas obvi), and round it out with the Prinsesstårta. Simple!

They've done it again... This time with adding (unnecessary) visual detail to the zero commit days. Inconsolable 😭😭😭

A photo of a cup of tea next to a plate with a selection of different biscuits as well as a tin of Fortnum & Mason breakfast blend tea

“Back in time for tea and medals”

Celebrating the end of a fun fieldwork campaign the British way™

I feel like GitHub has (very subtly) modified the gradient they use for ones contributions calendar... I am going to need 2-4 business days to come to terms with this…

New paper! (arxiv.org/abs/2503.14093) I haven’t been this excited about one in a while, and I think the theory @mhab.bsky.social develops here will be a big step forward for the field. Why? Let me explain 🧵...

I had a class of 4th graders and 10th graders! And yeah for sure! 🥰 Or they're asking 'big questions' and you're questioning why we as a field haven't thought of it yet!

Thanks @gracielle.science for passively convincing me to register! xx

I've just had two @skypeascientist.bsky.social sessions today, and honestly it might just be the most rewarding part of this job. 🥲 Highly recommended for anyone who has the bandwidth/time for some science outreach

Reporting from the trenches - i.e., emerging after a battle trying to use excel formulas and conditional formatting... Why does it all have to be one line though??

EcologicalNetworksDynamics.jl: A Julia package to simulate the temporal dynamics of complex ecological networks Species interactions play a crucial role in shaping biodiversity, species coexistence, population dynamics, community stability and ecosystem functioning. Our understanding of the role of the dive...

Get simulating! #Biodiversity / #foodweb dynamics with #julialang. Classic bioenergetic model, consolidation of lots of add-ons & super fast.

Very happy to share this, a result of amazing collaborators and a rich history of model development.

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Current me: Right I’ve said yes to this review I’m going to get it done in the next few days and submit my comments nice and early

Me in a fortnight: Submitting my review the day before the deadline counts as early right?

The lack of post it notes is disappointing… :p

I recently made the jump to using Quarto (which you can host via GitHub pages). Quarto is also handy if you’re also keen on the reproducible reports (think Rmd manuscripts) space. It’s a bit of a learning curve but a fun one!

tanyadoesscience.com