Question for ecologists: Why aren't we seeing big advances in theoretical ecology, given that LLMs are revolutionising maths? Is theory already at the (relevant) maths frontier? Do existing problems lend themselves more to numerical solutions? Are advances mostly happening on narrower topics?

Interested in doing a postdoc in plankton ecology, on topics of community assembly, trait-based ecological resilience, stressor interactions, harmful algal blooms and others? Contact me to discuss developing a proposal for MSU's EEB Presidential Postdoc Fellowship (Nov 1 application deadline).

Lars Brudvig@lars-brudvig.bsky.social · 2d ago

Join us through the Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship in EEB! Conduct your own research, mentored by 2+ EEB faculty. $65k salary + research/moving $. All areas of EEB welcome. Apply by 11/1 I co-chair this search and am happy to field questions Spread the word! eeb.msu.edu/initiatives/...

I've been baffled by this figure. Why is Europe low when the big European countries show more - sometimes record - levels of fire this year? It turns out this pattern is entirely driven by Russia, which I didn't realise was counted as Europe in these datasets. ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumu...

Mridul K. Thomas@mridulkthomas.bsky.social · last wk.

Odd wildfire fact: 2026 has seen the least European territory burned of any year in the last 15. Caveat: this runs till a week ago and so misses the big ones of the past few days. And I don't know the source dataset myself, I am relying on OWID. ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumu...

Odd wildfire fact: 2026 has seen the least European territory burned of any year in the last 15. Caveat: this runs till a week ago and so misses the big ones of the past few days. And I don't know the source dataset myself, I am relying on OWID. ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumu...

I'm sure there is a valid use of the term 'digital twin', but I have only ever seen it invoked to make 'model' sound fancier.

I think there's plenty of scope to improve how we do science and enjoy debating this. But this is one of the more puzzling essays I have read. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

An interest in cuisine pairs oddly well with one in etymology. (Stumbled on this reading about the origin of phyllo dough)

FYI: a small electric fan costs less than 1 euro cent per hour to run. A recent Guardian article reported people in France not using electric fans because of electricity cost fears. French friends of mine confirmed this misguided concern. www.reuters.com/business/env... bsky.app/profile/mrid...

Europe recorded 10,000 excess deaths during late-June heatwave, data show

Scientists have said the late-June heatwave would have been "virtually impossible" without human-caused climate change, ​which is making heatwaves more frequent and intense.

reuters.com

Mridul K. Thomas@mridulkthomas.bsky.social · 3w ago

Since we're in a heat wave: Despite apparently popular belief, running an electric fan helps even when it is hotter than 35C / 95 F. Humidity matters but 35C is a bad rule of thumb. Take it from someone who has spent a LOT of time above 35C.

Since we're in a heat wave: Despite apparently popular belief, running an electric fan helps even when it is hotter than 35C / 95 F. Humidity matters but 35C is a bad rule of thumb. Take it from someone who has spent a LOT of time above 35C.

A Shiny app to calculate and evaluate Bayesian optimal experimental designs, for common nonlinear functions in biology. Mathematical optimisation leads to some unintuitive designs! Play with priors, true values, and measurement error. See how these shape the optimal design and how well it performs.

Mridul K. Thomas@mridulkthomas.bsky.social · last mo.

(iv) Calculate an optimal design and compare it against a uniform design and your own. www.mridulkthomas.com/bayesian-opt... NOTE: to run quickly, this uses a simplified D-optimal design, not the SIG-optimal method that we recommend and use in the preprint & repo. See those for details. (20)

A Shiny app to simulate data and fit a Bayesian nonlinear regression for several common functions in biology. This is intended to get a feel for Bayesian nonlinear regression and how much different experimental designs matter based on your assumptions.

Mridul K. Thomas@mridulkthomas.bsky.social · last mo.

(iii) Try out a design by performing a Bayesian fit www.mridulkthomas.com/bayesian-non... (19)

It seems oddly appropriate that academics are choosing to honour the memory of a colleague by hitting reply-all on emails about his memorial.

A Shiny app to help understand why some treatment levels matter more than others for common nonlinear functions in biology. I found that this helped me develop better intuition about experimental design. bsky.app/profile/mrid...

Mridul K. Thomas@mridulkthomas.bsky.social · last mo.

(ii) Identify good candidate experimental levels using parameter sensitivities www.mridulkthomas.com/parameter-se... (18)

A Shiny app to visualise and define Bayesian priors for common nonlinear functions in biology: growth responses to nutrients, light, temperature, and toxins. Lognormal priors are often a good choice but are horribly unintuitive. So I made this to visualise them and the curves that arise from them.

Mridul K. Thomas@mridulkthomas.bsky.social · last mo.

I explain the entire workflow with four interactive Shiny apps: (i) Define your Bayesian priors www.mridulkthomas.com/defining-bay... (17)

We can help make your experiments better! 🌊🧪🌎 🧮➕📏 @raviranjan.bsky.social and I have been thinking about how to improve experimental design. We have a preprint with maths, simple rules-of-thumb, and R code and Shiny apps ready to help you. 

 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... (1)

For all you birdwatchers, here's an interactive plot showing species whose colours cannot be accurately shown on screens. Courtesy @moultano.bsky.social , who very kindly shared his data compilation. www.mridulkthomas.com/undisplayabl...

Undisplayable birds

Mridul K. Thomas

mridulkthomas.com

Mridul K. Thomas@mridulkthomas.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This is a gorgeous piece. There is simple beauty around you that we cannot yet show. One of my most vivid childhood memories is of seeing flameback woodpeckers for the first time. They are an intense, luminous gold - framed in red, black and white - that I couldn't believe existed in real life.

It's either going to be +36 or -12 °C today. (Interesting visualisation problem - wide gradient with fine resolution needed for a part of it)

Look, if you accidentally mislay your giraffe, maybe you should consider a different line of work. Something that doesn't rely on attention to fine detail. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

Gracie the giraffe who wandered off in Texas found safe – for real this time

Animal who went missing from private ranch for nearly two weeks had been falsely reported as found earlier in the week

theguardian.com

This is a gorgeous piece. There is simple beauty around you that we cannot yet show. One of my most vivid childhood memories is of seeing flameback woodpeckers for the first time. They are an intense, luminous gold - framed in red, black and white - that I couldn't believe existed in real life.

Ryan Moulton@moultano.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I spent the last month obsessed with finding colors that can't be displayed on a conventional screen. This is what I found. moultano.wordpress.com/2026/06/19/w...

Do better, French and German birds. Czech birds have left sexism in the past, learn from them. besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Universities need to teach students practical subjects like phytoplankton ecology. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Algae thwart Trump’s $14.2m attempt to turn reflecting pool ‘American flag blue’

Green algae have proliferated amid warm weather after Lincoln Memorial pool renovation turning water green

theguardian.com

Out today in @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social our paper “Second Thoughts about First Principles in Biology.” www.cell.com/trends/ecolo... . We are in favour of first principles approaches in biology but we think that we need to do better in how we use them.

Second thoughts about first principles in biology

First-principles approaches, based on physics or chemistry, are key pillars of biological theory. Despite their value, there are recurrent problems with many first-principles approaches in biology: th...

cell.com

1 week left to apply for scholarships ! If you are based at an institution in an ODA recipient country (e.g. Brazil, South Africa, India, Mexico; full list: tinyurl.com/5dv7vvs8), you can get all expenses covered to attend the summer school in Lausanne for a week.

Charles Mullon@charlesmullon.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Applications now open for the UNIL Summer School on Modelling for Evolutionary Biology (31 Aug–5 Sep 2026, Lausanne)! For PhD & postdocs interested in formal approaches to evolutionary ecology (incl. social evo, life-history, species interactions). Scholarships available, Pls RP! shorturl.at/fo1GA

Our new review article “Calibration, Sensitivity and Uncertainty Analysis of Complex Ecological Models—A Review” now online and freely available in #EcologyLetters dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele.... #Ecology #EcologicalModelling #SensitivityAnalysis #UncertaintyQuantification 🌐

Calibration, Sensitivity and Uncertainty Analysis of Complex Ecological Models—A Review

We provide a unified framework connecting sensitivity analysis, uncertainty analysis and model inversion or calibration, discuss their complementary roles in understanding and reducing uncertainty in....

dx.doi.org

R 4.6.0 has implemented a %notin% operator - it's the opposite of %in%. So our code need no longer be blighted by !(x %in% y) Thank you #R devs!

We need more long-format journals. Brevity is good. But there are topics that would benefit from more space than tight word limits allow. And there's a cost to summarising methods or shunting them to appendices. For science to be reproducible, we need to be able to clearly describe what was done.

Claude seems fantastic at writing Shiny apps. You can in principle go from knowing nothing about how to create one to having one online in minutes (obviously, best to spent more time checking it!). Fabulous for sharing ideas quickly and an excellent accompaniment to papers and lectures.

Our colleague needs your help keeping a 1,200-year dataset alive! If you have botanical expertise or are based near Arashiyama, Kyoto — DM her or email tuna@ourworldindata.org.

Tuna@antea04.bsky.social · 4mo ago

I'm a data scientist @ourworldindata.org and I need help from a botanist or someone local to Kyoto, Japan! 🌸 We present one of the world’s longest climate records: 1,200 years of peak cherry blossom dates in Kyoto. The researcher who maintained it, Prof. Yasuyuki Aono, sadly passed away last year.

It has been brought to my attention that not everyone has seen every birdwatcher's favourite video. (Sound on) www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY43...

American Woodcock Shine

YouTube video by steelels1

youtube.com

Paul Ehrlich is remembered for a bet that he lost, and a population prediction that went wrong. Many environmental scientists seem to remember him warmly for 'raising awareness'. They should not. His legacy is both stupid and vile beyond imagination. (1)