David Wolfson

I'll be there

Graphical abstract for a manuscript titled "Too few, too many, or just right? Optimizing sample sizes for population-level inferences in animal tracking projects". The workflow has been fully implemented in the movedesign Shiny application and R package, allowing users to easily test sampling strategies and assess the reliability of space-use and movement metrics, ultimately promoting more rigorous and impactful wildlife research and conservation.

This workflow has been fully implemented into the latest version of the #movedesign R Shiny app, making it easy for researchers to test and optimize their animal tracking sampling strategies! The package is now available on CRAN #rstats github.com/ecoisilva/movedesign

Graphical abstract for a manuscript titled "Too few, too many, or just right? Optimizing sample sizes for population-level inferences in animal tracking projects". The workflow presented in this manuscript evaluates sampling design by assessing sampling duration, sampling interval, and the number of sampled individuals needed to obtain reliable population-level estimates.

✨ New preprint! "Too few, too many, or just right?" 🌍🌎🌏 We explore how to evaluate study design in animal tracking studies by assessing sampling duration, interval, and, now, the number of individuals needed for reliable population-level estimates. #movementecology www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Very excited to be working with Angie Reed + the Tribal Exchange Network (www.tribalexchangenetwork.org) on a revival of {redoc}, an #rstats pkg enabling collaboration on reproducible reports. Thanks to the R Consortium and congrats to the other grant winners! r-consortium.org/posts/r-cons...

I am currently planning on writing a whole research paper in #quarto/ #r-#markdown. How do other fellow #academic researchers enable others (possibly without #git/ markdown) to provide comments that are easily integrated in a markdown flow?

#AcademicSky #StatsSky #EconSky

Comparison of Bayesian Models to Estimate Survival From Dead‐Recovery Alone and Together With Live‐Encounter Data: Challenges and Opportunities Different models in the Bayesian framework for analyzing dead-recovery data, either alone or together with live-encounter data to estimate survival, are presented and compared. Although all but one o...

To estimate survival, a key parameter in population dynamics, ecologists use different statistical models to account for imperfect detection of living and dead individuals. M. Schaub and @jaumebadiaboher.bsky.social studied the performance of these models. Read more here: doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

Postdoc Goose Impact We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher for research in the context of international adaptive management of geese. Did you analyse animal movement patterns during your PhD? Do you want to work wi...

New postdoc position available 🚨
We are looking for a new post doc to work on adaptive management in geese. Are you experienced in working with animal movement patterns? And are you used to working with large files of transmitter date? Then apply before the 1st op september!

The deadly risk of trying to reach food in Gaza An NPR journalist in Gaza describes his experience seeking food from a site run by private American contractors, facing Israeli military fire, crowds fighting for rations, and masked thieves.

. @npr.org is one of the only US national news organizations that still has a reporter inside Gaza, Anas Baba, and he keeps reporting even though he himself is starving. This piece is unbelievably powerful.
www.npr.org/2025/07/05/n...

A death trap in the nest: anthropogenic nest materials cause high mortality in a terrestrial bird The impact of anthropogenic debris on wildlife, particularly in marine environments, has garnered significant attention in recent years due to the sev…

In our new paper led by Ursula Heize, we show that >90% of #WhiteStork nests have anthropogenic materials (plastics, paper, etc). Ropes are particularly dangerous: ~12% of the chicks became entangled on ropes, particularly on baler twine!

Check out the paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Publication rates before and after tenure: clear decline post-tenure in non-lab-based fields and sustained in lab-based fields. Super interesting.
arxiv.org/pdf/2411.10575

Very excited to share this paper led by my former postdoc, Eric Palm, and collaborated on with a stellar team of scientists
conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1...
@claytontlamb.bsky.social @talavgar.bsky.social @melaniedickie.bsky.social @jmnorthrup.bsky.social

An image of the first slide from my talk. Its titled “Tempo and mode of trait evolution in the adaptive radiation of Malagasy vangas”. The authors are myself, Euan Lim, and Sushma Reddy, all affiliated with the University of Minnesota. My email is auerb027@umn.edu. Around the text are five photographs of vangas, birds which look extremely different from one another.

Hey #Evol2025 folks -

Interested in adaptive radiation? Morphological evolution? Cool birds?

I’ll be presenting the results of my first dissertation chapter, looking at diversification in Malagasy vangas (+ a bit about what comes next!)

(Sat 4:45-5 in Macroevo & Diversification IV, Parthenon 2)

What are the best open source / non-proprietary data formats that include metadata (variable names, value labels, notes) like #stata .dta files? I know of Open Data Format. Are there others I should know about? Why aren't these more widely used? #rstats

opendataformat.github.io/index.html

President of UMN: It's hard budget times
President of UMN: So we're going to cut instructional support down to 19% of total budget (down from 30% in 2001)
President of UMN: And I need 500K to hire a Vice President for Strategic Initiatives*
President of UMN: You know, austerity

*yes this is real

Same. Seems like maybe lots of active users never switched over?

A preprint of our paper on #CausalInference in #Ecology - Best practices for moving from correlation to causation in ecological research - led by Hannah Correia is now up as a preprint ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v... 🧪🌍

This came from a GREAT workshop last year, and gives a solid framework and howto

The cover of the book

Exciting news! 🎉 The 2nd edition of Geocomputation with R is now available as a physical book! 📖🌍

Order your copy today and explore the latest in R for spatial analysis.

Learn more about the book's journey: buff.ly/5QpqjPD

#geocompx #rspatial #rstats #GIS

Ecologists’ endless quest for automatic inference
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/05/28/e...

🚨 New Paper 🚨
Coauthors and I just published our work in PLOS One on Canadian graduate funding. We found that Canadian graduate funding falls _well_ below cost of living.
On average, $10kCAD below cost of living.

journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

I'll say 110km. Have a great race!

Do you have hours of videos📹with animals? Speed up your watching by using BEHAVE - a user-friendly, open-source, free, zero-install tool for coding animal behaviour in video recordings!
Try BEHAVE here: behave.claude-apps.com

Read more: sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

the charges that they're trying to raise against grad student Doğukan Günaydin set a terrifying precident of using statutes that are usually reserved for terrorists as justification to disappear someone

(DHS did this all while mispronouncing his name and making basic clerical visa errors)

Landscape suitability and range expansion estimates for the North American Interior Population of trumpeter swans https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.03.647047v1

I did a lot of bear hair snares in the North Cascades of Washington. Happy to chat.

ringed seal photo 1

ringed seal photo 2

I am looking for a Postdoc (3 years, start Mid-2025) to work on conservation genomics of ringed seal in the Baltic.
The project will use genomic data for 100s of individuals, SDM and genomic simulations.
#conservationgenetics
#consgen

Apply here:
recruit.visma.com/spa/public/a...

Please share 🧪
We seek 2 postdocs to work on Vancouver Island marmots in the following areas :
1 - demographic models.
2 - conservation genomics.
Positions based at UNBC, working with MRF. Full details here

marmots.org/recovery-eff...

#conservation #jobs

Yes please

This piece absolutely nails it.