The Bayesian Workflow book is coming!
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2026/04/16/t...

Abstract submission deadline getting closer (May 1, anywhere on Earth). Excited by all of the submissions received thus far, and excited to learn about all of the amazing research being done in statistical ecology.

Look forward to seeing you all in Mérida, México!

🚨New preprint and our results are rather concerning..

We find the "boiling frog" equivalent of AI use. Using large-scale RCTs, we provide *casual* evidence that AI assistance reduces persistence and hurts independent performance.

And these effects emerge after just 10–15 minutes of AI use!

1/

📢 Update: We’ve extended our survey deadline! During 2026, we will undertake a major renewal of the Movebank system. Help us build a more scalable, sustainable database for your projects. Your feedback will directly shape the future of Movebank. Survey: survey.academiccloud.de/f/221856?lan...

Trump administration orders dismantling of the U.S. Forest Service Late Tuesday afternoon, with the subtlety of a wrecking ball and the morality of a foreclosure notice, the Trump administration announced the most devastating attack on the U.S. Forest Service in the ...

“They’re destroying more than fifty research facilities across thirty-one states, labs that house decades of irreplaceable long-term science…And they’re replacing all of it — the offices, the scientists, the institutional knowledge, the professional independence — with fifteen political appointees”

Why not?

New paper in IBIS: I surveyed GenAI policies across the top 20 ornithology journals. 40% had no discoverable policy, and the rest varied widely in what’s permitted. Authors need clearer guidance.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ibi.70054

#ornithology​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

For decades biologists assumed ravens follow wolves to their kills.
Our paper @science.org shows something different: ravens rarely follow wolves far. Instead they remember areas where wolf kills are common and return to them—sometimes from >150 km away.
doi.org/10.1126/science.adz9467
📷Dan Stahler

Global south countries publish less with open access

Open access makes the rich get richer
#science #publishing #academia 🧪🗺️

nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

🧵 New paper out today in @peercommunityin.bsky.social Journal!

@joelpick.bsky.social et al. introduce the first standardised guidelines for data & code quality control in #ecology & #evolutionarybiology, on behalf of @sortee.bsky.social 🔓

doi.org/10.24072/pcj...

#OpenScience #EEB [1/5]

So good! I think my musical tastes peaked in '05 (I was 22).

Hey #GIS or #rstats or #rspatial communities. Do you know of any good podcasts that discuss spatial data or GIS themes? Can you suggest your favorites to me? ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

i’m tired of every paper (even critical ones) on societal impact of AI starting by both-siding the “benefits” and risks/harms of AI

in academia, i would like us to arrive at a collective reckoning that we don’t need to play both sides. it's totally legit to clearly state just the harms. period

Photo of a Varied Thrush calling by Byrant Olsen. Text on graphic says: New Ways Of Listening To Birds Create Opportunities For Understanding Bird Ecology & Pose Challenges IBP researchers outline methodology for analyzing passive acoustic monitoring data to learn more about seasonal timing of bird behavior.

🪶New bioacoustics research from IBP! Read about it in our latest blog post and download the open access paper here=> https://bit.ly/4sixzOt

Acceleration hotspots of North American birds’ decline are associated with agriculture Human activities might have accelerated declines of population abundance, but this acceleration remains underexplored. Using 1033 North American Breeding Bird Survey routes, we analyze abundance chang...

Thrilled to share our new paper out in @science.org, led by François Leroy and Petr Keil! Using the Breeding Bird Survey, we document not only a continent-wide decline in bird abundance since the 1980s — but, crucially, the acceleration of these declines over time. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I want to learn how to make templates for Quarto documents (pdf or html). Can you point me to your favorite blogs or resources for this? I’m talking like designing my own templates for reports etc. #rstats #quarto

Best practices for moving from correlation to causation in ecological research - Nature Communications Different scientific traditions offer seemingly disparate approaches to inferring causal relationships in ecological systems. This Perspective unifies the causal assumptions and methods from...

Excited to share our new paper in @natcomms.nature.com We synthesize causal discovery & inference approaches across traditions (regression adjustment, quasi-expts, SEMs, Granger causality, convergent cross-mapping, and more) into a unified workflow for ecologists. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Migratory bird stopover patterns linked to urbanization and social landscapes - Nature Cities Urban ecology traditionally focuses on single cities, yet cities play key roles in ecological processes such as migration. Radar analysis across the continental USA reveals that nearly half of stopove...

A study I led came out in Nature Cities yesterday!

We used radar to study the role that urban landscapes play in migratory bird stopover. Spoiler: birds use cities a lot, and the patterns of their use reflect social processes and the inequities embedded in them.

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Decision tree that has been sent to Program Officers at NSF

Decision tree that has been sent to Program Officers at NSF

Don't let anybody tell you what your academic-life balance is supposed to be You do you. And please stay healthy.

Your time for doing science waxes and wanes throughout your career. Don’t let anybody tell you that you’re doing it wrong. You get to decide what’s right for you (as long as you meet your basic commitments). 🧪

Reminder: if anyone, particular ECRs, is interested in helping to refresh the Data Management booklet, please get in touch ASAP. Details of how to get involved in the thread below. @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social @britishecologicalsociety.org.

TACO

Sucks how many spineless administrations already caved.

Here's a time-lapse from yesterday as thousands of people marched through downtown Minneapolis to protest ICE.

📷️: Sydney Lewis/The Minnesota Star Tribune

ICE detains 4 Columbia Heights students, including 5- and 10-year-olds sent to Texas Columbia Heights Public Schools leaders addressed the ICE surge into the district, saying the community is "shattered."

bringmethenews.com/minnesota-ne...

Dispatch from the occupation What life is like in Minneapolis now

New at Can We Still Govern?
"I am writing as an ordinary citizen of Minneapolis/St Paul...to share with the outside world what is really going on ─ the terror being inflicted upon a U.S. city and state by our federal government."
Please read, share, help. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/dispatch-f...

I kinda wonder if a lot of people never switched over?

What is missing from Bluesky to make it feel like the days of classic science twitter? You know before everything turned terrible.

ICE officer fatally shoots driver through car window in Minneapolis • Minnesota Reformer The driver then slowly backs up and appears to be leaving, when another officer fires three shots.

Watch video: ICE officer fatally shoots driver through car window in Minneapolis minnesotareformer.com/2026/01/07/i...

course schedule as a table. Available at the link in the post.

I'm teaching Statistical Rethinking again starting Jan 2026. This time with live lectures, divided into Beginner and Experienced sections. Will be a lot more work for me, but I hope much better for students.

I will record lectures & all will be found at this link: github.com/rmcelreath/s...

Sometimes the timing of things that happen can't be beaten. To mark transition and progression, the moveTraits paper was published just before year's end. A movement based trait database. dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele.... @larissabeumer.bsky.social @thomasmueller.bsky.social @animaltracking.bsky.social