Florian Hartig

Check out our new preprint, led by @melinaleite.bsky.social “Dispersion tests in generalised linear mixed-effects models - a methods comparison and practical guide” ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

We are hiring: 4 PhD Positions in Ecology / Data Science and one Ecological Data Scientist We are looking for 4 PhD Positions and one Scientific Programmer / Ecological Data Scientist to join the AG Hartig (Theoretical Ecology)

We are hiring: 4 PhD Positions in Ecology / Data Science and one Ecological Data Scientist. For more information, see www.uni-regensburg.de/universitaet...

Consider joining our session at the World Biodiversity Forum (WBF) 2026 in Davos:

Spatial models for biodiversity: Exploring state-of-the-art applications

Details and abstract submission are here meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/WBF2026/sess...

📣 Plenary speaker #5:

Dr. Florian Hartig @florianhartig.bsky.social

Professor for theoretical ecology at the University of Regensburg. His research concentrates on theory, simulation models, statistical methods and data science / AI in ecology, evolution and conservation.

statisticalecology.org

Our new study “Human and apex predators shape lower trophic levels through top-down control”, led by Ye Htet Lwin and conducted in in Htamanthi Wildlife Sanctuary, northwestern Myanmar, now out in Biological Conservation www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I will soon open up calls for a PhD student (free choice of topic as long as it fits to our group) and a scientific programmer / ecological data scientist. If you know what we are doing and would like to join our team, feel free to get in touch.

🌍 Excited to be part of the Global Ecology Starter Pack - a great way to discover and connect with people interested in ecology at large scales! go.bsky.app/F86HYqj

👉 If you’d like to join the next pack (Vol_3 is in the works), DM @global-ecology.bsky.social. 🌐

Advancing general ecosystem models (GEMs): Towards a mechanistic understanding of the biosphere in the light of the Anthropocene General ecosystem models (GEMs) have been framed as the ‘climate model’ equivalents for nature, but while the latter have been continuously improved and diversified for several decades already, the f...

Our new article “Advancing general ecosystem models (GEMs): Towards a mechanistic understanding of the biosphere in the light of the Anthropocene” let by Joachim Paul Töpper just out at Ecological Solutions and Evidence dx.doi.org/10.1002/2688...

Insektensterben: Warum Studien immer wieder kritisiert werden An Studien, die nach den Ursachen für das Insektensterben suchen, wird viel Kritik geübt. Wie erklären Forscher, dass es unterschiedlichen Interpretationen gibt - und worin sind sich alle einig?

Spannender Artikel (Paywall) von @christianschwaegerl.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy in der @faznet.bsky.social zur Diskussion über das Insektensterben & die Krefeld-Studie.

U.a. mit Argumenten von @sebseibold.bsky.social @florianhartig.bsky.social & Jens Dauber vom @thuenen.de.

Support for survival models, in particular Cox PH? · Issue #464 · florianhartig/DHARMa Via https://bsky.app/profile/staffan.betner.nu/post/3liessyzzqc2z

I‘ll answer here github.com/florianharti... , feel free to add to the discussion

That being said, I agree that standard S3 functions schools conform to R defaults as far as possible and I’ll have a look at the example you point out … there are a number of other standard S3 functions that we still need to implement

Issues · citoverse/cito Building and Training Neural Networks with an R interface - Issues · citoverse/cito

Hi Norm, thanks for your comments - if you encounter any bugs or have suggestions for changes, please post them at github.com/citoverse/ci...

deep neural networks in one line of R code, with convenient options for automatic hyperparameter tuning, xAI and bootstrapping.

The current CRAN version supports only fully connected DNNs, but our development version on GitHub also includes CNNs and multi-modal architectures.

Looking for a simple way to do #deeplearning in #Rstats? Check out cito, available on #CRAN via cran.r-project.org/web/packages... and presented in this recent Ecography paper nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Cito is an interface to torch for R and supports building and training

Nice! How do you see this in relation to ggeffects?

Is there a robust effect of mainland mutualism rates on species richness of oceanic islands? In island biogeography, it is widely accepted that species richness on island depends on the area and isolation of the island as well as the species pool on the mainland. Delavaux et al. (2024) sugges...

All details and code in arxiv.org/abs/2411.15105

But why does the effect appear in the first place? We believe the reason is that as mutualism rates are predicted by latitude, mutualism and latitude are perfectly nonlinear confounded. Using only a linear model, nonlinear effects of latitude create spurious effects of mutualism.

The main issue we see is that the mutualism covariate is not measured, but predicted by a very simple model that only depends on latitude (R2 = 0.14). Predicting mutualism rates with a more precise model (R=0.39) removes any effect of this covariate in the main regression.

Is there a robust effect of mainland mutualism rates on species richness of oceanic islands? In island biogeography, it is widely accepted that species richness on island depends on the area and isolation of the island as well as the species pool on the mainland. Delavaux et al. (2024) sugges...

In Nature, Delavaux et al., 2024 suggest that species richness on oceanic islands is reduced by mutualism rates on the mainland. In arxiv.org/abs/2411.15105, @maximilianpichler.bsky.social and I had another look at this question and conclude that this effect is likely a statistical artefact.

Well, I've heard it said that great minds think alike ... ;)

It may be time for a starter pack of ecology starter packs ...

Just created a starter pack for ecological forecasting community! 🦋🍃 Please let me know if you want to be added!

go.bsky.app/Qk9PfFw

Our study "Analyzing longitudinal trait trajectories using #GWAS identifies genetic variants for kidney function decline" led by Simon Wiegrebe and Iris Heid just published via www.nature.com/articles/s41...

On my way back from a short visit at Uni Birmingham! Thanks Juliano Sarmento Cabral for inviting me!

go.bsky.app/NiaWN5i

I'm happy to receive suggestions for this.

Our preprint "Calibration, sensitivity and uncertainty analysis of ecological models -- a review" with Anne Malchow now available at doi.org/10.22541/au.... Comments welcome!

DHARMa v0.4.7 #rstats package for #glmm residual diagnostics now available on #CRAN. Among other things, this version includes a new residual test for #phylogenetic correlation, as well as support for the #phylolm package. cran.r-project.org/web/packages...

New paper on spatiotemporal population dynamics of #RedKite in Switzerland. We inversely fitted #RangeShifter to long-term monitoring data. This hugely reduced prediction #uncertainty. esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... 1/n

cito v1.1 #rstats package for deep neural networks (#DL #DNN) (with formula syntax) is now available on #CRAN. New features include likelihoods such as the negative binomial distribution and easy hyperparameter tuning: cran.r-project.org/web/packages...

Our study "Latitudinal patterns in stabilizing density dependence of forest communities" now out in nature.com/articles/s41... . See also tread by first author @lisahuelsmann.bsky.social below