Shinichi Nakagawa

Promoting the use of phylogenetic multinomial generalised mixed-effects model to understand the evolution of discrete traits Abstract. Phylogenetic comparative methods (PCMs) are fundamental tools for understanding trait evolution across species. While linear models are widely us

Continuing our series on difficult comparative models - and how to address them properly - we’re happy to showcase another study, this time in @jevbio.bsky.social academic.oup.com/jeb/advance-... We will guide you through a series of increasingly complex models, from binary, through ordered to

We have an updated version of this preprint, available at:
ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...
Fingers crossed the formal, final version will be out soon.

We think this highlights a major issue in how we study behavior (& more).

Thank you @sekharma.bsky.social & @itchyshin.bsky.social!

#evolution

Location‐Scale Meta‐Analysis and Meta‐Regression as a Tool to Capture Large‐Scale Changes in Biological and Methodological Heterogeneity: A Spotlight on Heteroscedasticity Meta-analyses are widely used to understand how species and ecosystems respond to global change, but most assume that variability among studies is constant. This assumption can hide important biologi....

Our recent paper looks at location-scale interfaces in comparative data. But predicting variance in variance extends much further - if you still have not have a look here onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... (another recent paper in @globalchangebio.bsky.social). We show how extending the idea

VACANCY - Independent research fellowships leading to tenured positions

We’re inviting applications from outstanding researchers who either hold, or wish to apply for, Independent Research Fellowships.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: 10 November 2025

Click here to apply: jic.link/Fellows

Biology - UMass Boston Biology - UMass Boston

UMass Boston seeks a tenure-track Assistant Professor in microbial ecology, starting September 1, 2026. Apply by December 1, 2025. Details: http://www.umb.edu/academics/csm/biology #job

By extending the comparative model we can assay the evolutionary signal in evolvability itself and test a number of biologically interesting trait configurations (codivergence, contra-divergence, ceiling effects, phenotypic integrations and more!)

The models are notably more complex but fittable with modern Bayesian GLMM routines. Think of them as looking at mean and scale (usually variance) evolution along the tree, here in an example of two concurrent Brownian Motion dynamics driving diversification of both variance and means.

Our newest paper is out in Methods in Ecol Evol @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social :) amazing team effort - we show that the traditional way of analyzing comparative data lacks finesse. besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/oidcS... w/ @itchyshin.bsky.social Yefeng Yang, Losia Lagisz & Ayumi Mizuno

2 job adverts on a NERC project w myself + @darrenobbard.bsky.social on “What determines the virome: ecology and the environment, evolution, or species history?” early 2026 in
@uniexecec.bsky.social
- Postdoc: jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...
- RA: jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...
Pls share!

Fellow econ folks! We are hiring! Come work with me and my delightful colleagues at The University of Melbourne!

Applications close November 23, 2025

Link: unimelb.wd105.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UoM_Ex...

Have you always thought about running simulations to make sure your models work the way you want them to? The new squidSim can help!

I'm very impressed with how @joelpick.bsky.social led this project and with the amazing final result!

Casual Chat with Dr. James Steele YouTube video by AASPT

Clearly I'm grumpy about the state of research in the field atm, particularly how power analyses are performative and hypothesis testing is butchered... so resharing this chat I had with @runbabyo.bsky.social et al. where we talk about these topics www.youtube.com/live/b0rXmtx...

Please consider applying to our open faculty position call that includes Ecology!

apply.interfolio.com/172075

Interested in simulating the kind of data that you might commonly find in evolutionary and ecological studies?

Then we have the R package for you - squidSim!!

Check our new preprint:
ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

International #ResearchIntegrity conference 16-18 November 2025
Come to hear @elisabethbik.bsky.social Ivan Oransky @jamesheathers.bsky.social @retractionwatch.com Lisa Bero @liammannix.bsky.social @jdwilko.bsky.social @jacksonwryan.com +many others, stay for Sydney in late Spring @sydney.edu.au 🧪

The image depicts the University of Lethbridge, located in Southern Alberta, Canada. The prominent building shown in the image is the Science Commons, which is situated on the university campus within the coulee landscape.

The Department of Neuroscience at the University of Lethbridge has a tenure-track position for a neuroscientist studying brain function across the life span in nonhuman animals. Join a terrific community of researchers in a beautiful part of the country.🧠🧪 Re-post
uleth.peopleadmin.ca/postings/8586

Upcoming events Upcoming conference by Society for Open, Reliable, and Transparent Ecology and Evolutionary biology (SORTEE)

Members of the American Society of Naturalists @asn-amnat.bsky.social can get free registration to the 2025 SORTEE conference Oct 15-16 sortee.org/upcoming/

Sekhar won the best poster award (!) and you can learn more about this work, done in collaboration with @itchyshin.bsky.social in preprint form at: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

~10 years after the experiments, the paper is finally ready 😅😅

Take home: nothing beats patient collaborators 😆

Thanks @josefin-sundin.bsky.social @BenSpeers-Roesch @itchyshin.bsky.social @TimClark @SandraBinning!!

#OceanAcidification #AnimalBehaviour #OpenScience

ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

Assistant Professor, Psychological Sciences - Flagstaff, Arizona, United States About the Department/College The Department of Psychological Sciences is located on the Flagstaff Mountain Campus of Northern Arizona University (NAU), situated at the base of San Francisco Peaks. NAU...

Tenure-Track Quant Psyc job opening at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. Areas of interest are pretty broad (SEM, multilevel, or psychometrics), the deadline to apply is coming up soon (Sept 15) if you're interested!

careers.nau.edu/jobs/assista...

the Association for Interdisciplinary Metaresearch and Open Science always welcomes new people doing or curious about metaresearch!

Awesome!

Very happy to share that I've been awarded the 2025 @ecolsocaus.bsky.social "Next Generation Ecologist" award. I'll be giving a plenary at the ESA2025 in Adelaide. See you there!!

www.ecolsoc.org.au/news/2025-ne...

Full or Associate Professor in Infectious Disease Modeling APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS: CURRENT PENN STATE EMPLOYEE (faculty, staff, technical service, or student), please login to Workday to complete the internal application process. Please do not apply here, a...

The Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics (CIDD) at Penn State is hiring for a senior-level position in Infectious Disease Modeling. Come join our dynamic group of disease researchers!

Feel free to message me for details

psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/PSU_Ac...

This infographic describes the main results from a survey of members of 14 scientific societies. There is a pie chart showing that both academic (58%) and non-academic (42%) responded to the survey. It lists statistics: 85% of respondents reported uncertainty about the future; 71% reported federal training programs were "very" or "extremely important"; 83% reported negative impacts or irreparable harm on their field of science. There is a word cloud summarizing open-ended responses with the largest words "student research fund federal grant". Eight major themes in the responses are listed: disruption of research with societal important; concerns of closure of the USGS Bird Banding Lab; Early Career Bottleneck; Restricted Freedoms including travel and speech; Decline in Government Efficiency and Expertise; Concerns about Biased/Removed Data and Data Gaps; Concerns about the Ability to Meet Legal Mandates; and From Positive Impact to Irreparable Harm. There are icons for each participating society and a QR code for website and data availability.

Today 14 scientific societies in #ecology #evolution and #marineScience are publishing the results of a survey that finds negative impacts of federal policies on food security, flood mitigation, infectious disease preparedness, and wildlife conservation: 🧪👩‍🔬 www.firsthandaccounts.org/impacts/2025...

Title and author list for the synthesis paper titled "Understanding and Predicting Population Response to Anthropogenic Disturbance: Current Approaches and Novel Opportunities" published in Ecology Letters.

The latest paper from the DISCAR synthesis group is out at Ecology Letters! We discuss the key approaches to predicting human impacts on wildlife populations, highlighting avenues for incorporating indirect effects, such as energetic modelling. doi.org/10.1111/ele....

The SORTEE Guidelines for Data and Code Quality Control in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

doi.org/10.32942/X24...

Principles of experimental design for ecology and evolution Here I argue that we do not discuss experimental design, often until it is too late. This editorial seeks to begin a conversation about how and where to replicate appropriately.

I wrote (ranted) on experimental design as I was frustrated as an editor at how little guidance students were getting. I underestimated the interest in the issue: it has been downloaded 10,000+ times! Clearly it’s something we need to be talking about more. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....