Tessera

Folgen

Reuben O'Connell-Booth

@rocb-ento.bsky.social

PhDing insect conservation at Darwin College Cambridge. reo29@cam.ac.uk

31 Posts235 Follower 259 Folgt

Reuben O'Connell-Booth @rocb-ento.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Just out in issue! Wondering which moth trap to pick? Or if different bulbs collect different species? We look at these questions and more using 100,000 trap nights from the amazing @gardenmothscheme.bsky.social. With @katatrepsis.bsky.social and Bill Kunin #teammoth #mothsmatter

Effect of bulb type on moth trap catch and composition in UK gardens

We analyse 10 years of records Garden Moth Scheme (GMS) to estimate the effect of bulb and trap type on the number of moths caught by moth traps. We find that brighter, higher wattage bulbs collect ...

resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Reuben O'Connell-Booth @rocb-ento.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Lovely site on Orthosia identification www.eakringbirds.com/eakringbirds...

Daniel 🕹️@strengejacke.de · 5mo ago

Just interpret it as a probability interval (link.springer.com/article/10.1...)

Frequentist statistical inference without repeated sampling - Synthese

Frequentist inference typically is described in terms of hypothetical repeated sampling but there are advantages to an interpretation that uses a single random sample. Contemporary examples are given ...

link.springer.com

Laura Dee @lauradee.bsky.social · 5mo ago

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...

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...

nature.com

Reuben O'Connell-Booth @rocb-ento.bsky.social · 5mo ago

New form of conflict pollution in Ukraine: drone fibre optic cables. bou.org.uk/blog-morelan...

Fibre Optic Drones - British Ornithologists' Union

Plastic pollution from fibre optic drones may threaten wildlife for years

bou.org.uk

Reuben O'Connell-Booth @rocb-ento.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Challenge for ecologists: can we draw BACI as a DAG?

Andrew Heiss@andrew.heiss.phd · 5mo ago

spending my sunday evening once again attempting to draw a DAG for diff-in-diff

$DAG representing the causal structure of a standard difference-in-differences design with two locations and two time periods—units in one location in the post-period receive treatment. $L$ = group or location indicator (treated vs. untreated location); $T$ = time indicator (pre vs. post period); $U$ = unobserved time-invariant confounders (e.g., GDP per capita, general health status, public health infrastructure). $X \leftarrow T \rightarrow Y$ represents a common time trend affecting both locations equally. The causal effect of $X$ on $Y$ is identified by conditioning on $\{L, T\}$, which corresponds to using location and time indicator variables in a regression like `y ~ location * period`.$

Green Alliance @green-alliance.org.uk · 5mo ago

“This is an incredibly ambitious transition away from area-based payment into a system where all payments are dependent on public goods, and there will be difficulties along the way”. @lydiacollas.bsky.social in @theobserveruk.bsky.social on imminent reforms to the SFI scheme.

Dyson among the rich farmers harvesting green subsidy mil...

Inventor’s company was paid £2.2m in post-Brexit scheme that critics say unfairly rewards wealthiest landowners while small farmers miss out

observer.co.uk

Mikko Jimenez @mikkojimenez.bsky.social · 6mo ago

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...

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...

nature.com

Jolyon Troscianko @jtroscianko.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Eye-opening findings on how light suppresses moth activity. Light attracts moths, but what if we've been missing a much more pervasive effect where even sky-glow light levels make them freeze? Paper: doi.org/10.1098/rspb... @uniexecec.bsky.social @esbriolat.bsky.social @kevinjgaston.bsky.social

Moth perched on a streetlamp. Our work suggests that light suppresses activity in moths, so once attracted to a light they are prevented from escape.

Gavin Simpson @gsimpson.bsky.social · 6mo ago

🚨 GAMs have moved on—so it’s time for an update. On March 3, 2026 (17:00–19:00 CET) I’ll be livestreaming an updated introduction to Generalized Additive Models in R 📺 YouTube livestream link: youtube.com/live/A9U8e1K... #RStats #mgcv #GAMs #gratia #statistics 🧪

What's new in the world of Generalized Additive Models

YouTube video by Bottom of the Heap

youtube.com

RES Publications @respublications.bsky.social · 8mo ago

New #OpenAccess work by @rocb-ento.bsky.social, @katatrepsis.bsky.social & W. Kunin in #RESInsectConsDiv explored the effect of bulb type on moth trap catch & composition in UK gardens doi.org/10.1111/icad.70050 #GardenMothScheme #Biodiversity #ALAN @manusaunders.bsky.social @wileyeco.bsky.social

Reuben O'Connell-Booth @rocb-ento.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Interested in moth trapping? Wondering which trap to use? Or if different bulbs collect different species? Using 100k samples from @gardenmothscheme.bsky.social our new paper looks at these questions and more! With with Bill Kunin and @katatrepsis.bsky.social #mothsmatter #teammoth

Effect of bulb type on moth trap catch and composition in UK gardens

resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Reuben O'Connell-Booth @rocb-ento.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Effect of bulb type on moth trap catch and composition in UK gardens

resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Sicily Fiennes 🍉@sicilyfiennes.bsky.social · 8mo ago

One of my PhD chapters: 'Designing user-centered technologies to address the illegal wildlife trade' is OUT NOW in the @society4conbio.bsky.social journal Conservation Science and Practice! Please check out the graphical abstract and give it a read: conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Graphical abstract on a paper on designing user-centred technologies to address the illegal wildlife trade. The image depicts four visual parts of the study, 1. the geographic location where the research was conducted, in Indonesia, 2. Some of the methods, including a needs assessment where members of conservation law enforcement ranked the effectiveness of features that would assist them in their jobs together with a correct species identification, such as the IUCN or protection status, the 3. part shows a prototype of an app on a mobile phone screen, which is the use case we are considering. It shows a picture of a bird taken in a wildlife marketplace followed by the percentage accuracy that the artificial intelligence model has assigned the classification of the image. The 4. section discusses some implications of the study, i.e. that technology results wouldn't be admissible in court (i.e. this species was correctly identified by a tool and not a person) and that bird trade is socially acceptable, which compromises the efficacy of enforcement.

Guy Shrubsole @guyshrubsole.bsky.social · 10mo ago

4/ Using evidence gathered from old postcards, maps and the accounts of shepherds and botanists, I want to rebuild a picture of the chalk downland that existed until the 1940s - and in doing so, help efforts to restore it. Please get involved here: ghostsofchalkcountry.org/2025/09/14/h...

How old postcards reveal the destruction of chalk downland

This post is by Guy Shrubsole. Rifling through boxes of old postcards in junk shops is, admittedly, not my coolest pastime. But it’s something I’ve started doing of late, because some o…

ghostsofchalkcountry.org

Vilgot Huhn @vilgothuhn.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Learning that ”the relationship remained significant after adjusting for (unreliable) confounder” is an inference criteria that becomes worse when you have more power has been very formative for how I read the literature.

Statistically Controlling for Confounding Constructs Is Harder than You Think

Social scientists often seek to demonstrate that a construct has incremental validity over and above other related constructs. However, these claims are typically supported by measurement-level models...

journals.plos.org

Darren Dahly@statsepi.bsky.social · 10mo ago

It is *impossible* to "adjust for socioeconomic status" in a regression model. Discuss. And good morning! 🌞

Reuben O'Connell-Booth @rocb-ento.bsky.social · 10mo ago

This is outrageous “Reform [UK] voters don’t think climate is important and the Mail and Sun [newspapers] complain that Starmer has spent a record number of days overseas” on.ft.com/4nOy28P Keir Starmer has no plans to attend COP30 climate summit in Brazil

Keir Starmer has no plans to attend COP30 climate summit in Brazil

Final decision has yet to be made amid ‘big fight inside government’ over trip by prime minister

on.ft.com

Reuben O'Connell-Booth @rocb-ento.bsky.social · last yr.

Heath's moth trap design, from the original publication. Heath, J., 1965. A genuinely portable M.V. Light Trap. Ent. Rec., 77: 236-238. www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/39266893

Moira O'Donnell @naturelark.bsky.social · last yr.

Your annual reminder of how to tell Field Scabious, Knautia arvensis, and Small Scabious, Scabiosa columbaria, apart with a quick glance. Have a look under the flower heads. Field Scabious has a double row of leaf-like bracts, and Small Scabious has a single row of narrow, bristle-tipped bracts.

Reuben O'Connell-Booth @rocb-ento.bsky.social · last yr.

So cool - these moths navigate using starlight More great stuff from the Eric Warrant & the Lund vision group. Makes me wonder- could this be disrupted by skyglow? Yet another way artificial light can disrupt moths? www.nature.com/articles/d41...

These moths use the stars to navigate on an epic migration

Bogong moths migrate hundreds of kilometres and back each year using the southern night sky as their compass.

nature.com

Reuben O'Connell-Booth @rocb-ento.bsky.social · last yr.

Piped data.table... a beautiful thing (just me?) #rstats

Tony Juniper @tonyjuniper.bsky.social · last yr.

Natural England is delighted today to declare England’s newest National Nature Reserve: the Bradford Pennine Gateway NNR. 1200 hectares of priority habitats on the doorstep of tens of thousands of people, many with limited access to high quality natural areas. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Reuben O'Connell-Booth @rocb-ento.bsky.social · last yr.

Interesting paper, worth a read. Another complicating factor in untangling moth declines! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Guy Shrubsole @guyshrubsole.bsky.social · last yr.

REVEALED: only 5% of Forestry Commission grants for woodland creation have been spent on the natural regeneration of trees, while the remaining 95% is spent on tree planting. The government needs to change the rules. My FOI request & comment in the Guardian: www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Government ‘failing to support natural regeneration of trees in England’

Campaigners say targets for woodland creation are unlikely to be met because 95% of grants are for planting

theguardian.com

CSIRO Publishing @csiropublishing.bsky.social · last yr.

When lepidopterist Michael Braby spotted something odd on a rare butterfly specimen, an old case was re-opened: a heist involving Scotland Yard & a forgery that created a flutter throughout the taxonomic world. cosmosmagazine.com/nature/butterfly-heist-70-years-ago-is-still-causing-flutter/

Butterfly heist 70 years ago is still causing flutter

Braby has spent thirty-odd years researching butterflies and moths, so when alarm bells start ringing follows up

cosmosmagazine.com

@mayfieldbirder.bsky.social · last yr.

Locally here in the Sussex High Weald Hyacinthoides non-scripta are mainly blue, occasionally white but these definitely look purple… @naturelark.bsky.social @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Vincent Arel-Bundock @vincentab.bsky.social · 2y ago

I just posted a new notebook: Causal Inference with the 𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚐𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚕𝚎𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚜 📦 for #Rstats. It introduces the idea of G-Computation and tries to demystify the differences between ATE, ATT, and ATU. This is a first draft and I would looove any feedback! marginaleffects.com/chapters/gco...

8 Causal inference with G-computation – Model to Meaning

marginaleffects.com

Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · last yr.

Such a banger. The rain DAG has made its way around socials a few times, but check out the extremely lucid and incisive discussion section.

It is tempting to interpret instruments as being “used up” by multiple uses. However, it is important to distinguish the fact of whether an exclusion-restriction violation exists from our knowledge of that fact (which new research can change). This may seem unfair to authors who used the best available information, but the goal of this method is to assess empirical claims not to cast judgment on researchers.

Causal knowledge in social science has few easy shortcuts. Apparently simple solutions such as IVs still rely on strong substantive claims about the world. To build cumulative knowledge, we must engage directly with the messy causal web of the social world.

This paper shows that a widely used instrument is flawed because it systematically violates the exclusion-restriction assumption for most plausible applications. These findings suggest our standards for accepting instruments are overly lenient and atheoretical. The causal revolution in social science has revealed the wishful thinking underlying selection-on-observables. The same rigor must be applied to IV assumptions.

Jon Mellon@jonmellon.bsky.social · 2y ago

Out now open access at @ajpseditor.bsky.social. 194 potential exclusion-restriction violations for studies using weather as an instrumental variable onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Miles King @milesking.bsky.social · last yr.

Labour’s great nature sellout is the worst attack on England’s ecosystems I’ve seen in my lifetime | George Monbiot www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Labour’s great nature sellout is the worst attack on England’s ecosystems I’ve seen in my lifetime | George Monbiot

The horrifying planning bill, which rips up environmental protections, was drafted with CEOs in mind. We know because Keir Starmer told us, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

theguardian.com