Becks Spake
@spakey.bsky.social
Ass Prof #Ecology interested in forests and deer and other things. Learning about causal inference. 🦌🌳 treelabecology.weebly.com
Combining science and activism.... does it damage public trust? Or could it be the only thing powerful enough to combat the disinformation and passivity that is holding back urgent action on existential threats such the Climate Emergency? More from us in @nature.com today: rdcu.be/fzcmS
Today I was delighted to discover the meme gallery on the marginaleffects website 😂 marginaleffects.com/bonus/meme.h...
Check out @olross.bsky.social's new preprint on matching methods for field ecology! In our efforts to randomize plot selection, we've overlooked a more fundamental issue: the treatments themselves—e.g., disturbances—are rarely randomized! PSM provides a solution 🧪🍁 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Today we wrapped hundreds of saplings in sheep wool, to see if they reduce deer herbivory. 🦌🌱 So nice getting out in the field. 🌳 Took f ages 😃
New paper out now 🥳 When psychologists discuss generalisability, they often refer to vague notions of representativeness. We provide an accessible intro to the total survey error framework as a tool to reason about this more rigorously. w @taymalsalti.bsky.social @ruben.the100.ci >
This looks useful. A typical meta-analysis in ecology mixes experiments with observational studies, mixes coefficients with different controls and therefore different causal meanings. I would not normally say "hey the folks in medicine are doing it right, imitate them" but in this case maybe
Alfredo Sánchez-Tójar@asanchez-tojar.bsky.social · 4w agoAre our ecological conclusions built on shaky foundations? Our latest paper in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social highlights that Risk of Bias (RoB) assessment, crucial for ensuring the internal validity of research, is almost never used in #systematicreviews in eco & evo 📉 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/2041...
Really excited and proud of this new initiative, funded by the New Forest Biodiversity Forum It has been fun helping students draw DAGs under the trees 🌳🌲 We took some totally candid, completely natural photos of us in action 😂 www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/2627446...
New research programme launched to protect wildlife in the New Forest
A new environmental research programme has been launched to help protect rare wildlife.
dailyecho.co.uk
Gave an interview to @news.sky.com earlier this evening about heatwaves. I said I gave a very similar interview 10 years ago (that time to BBC) about heatwaves. Politicians have failed to act. Societies have failed to adapt. And here we are. We are in dangerous climate change.
Abbey@abbeyarletto.bsky.social · 2mo agoWhen reality surpasses fiction! Top: fictional forecast for August 2050, broadcast by French TV in 2014 to warn about the consequences of global warming. Bottom: Real French forecast for yesterday, June 22, 2026.
Now that's what I call a spicy opeing: Understanding mechanisms is not a research question.
Georgia Tomova@georgiatomova.bsky.social · 3mo agoWhy we should rethink causal mediation, and what to do instead? Come to hear the answer from Vanessa Didelez at the next CIIG seminar! The seminar will be hybrid. If you are in London, come join us in person at UCL! Otherwise, you can join on Zoom as usual. Registration links in comment below.
Around 3 years ago, we started writing papers during our weekly lab meetings. This is the first one from our new lab at @ualberta.bsky.social Location-Scale Models for Ecologists! preprint: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v... tutorial: ayumi-495.github.io/Eco_location... Enjoy! #glmmTMB #brms
Interested in simulating the kind of data that you might commonly find in evolutionary and ecological studies? Then we have the R package for you - squidSim!! Check our new preprint: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...
squidSim: a flexible R package for structured and reproducible simulations in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
ecoevorxiv.org
Managed to record this male blackbird mimicking the sound of me calling my pet turkey, Maggie! For weeks I thought a neighbour was making fun of me, until I realised it was this guy! Can you hear it?? 🐦🦃
*screaming at Eigenvector 1* I thought you were a real dimension! my life is a lie!
Epidemiologist Donna Spiegelman sez: SUTVA is “mostly not necessary for valid causal estimation and inference most of the time” statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2026/06/03/e...
Epidemiologist Donna Spiegelman sez: SUTVA is “mostly not necessary for valid causal estimation and inference most of the time” | Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu
Had the best day kicking off our project 'Precision Ecology for a Changing World'. I learned (and laughed) a lot today @jmbecologist.bsky.social @r-cooke.bsky.social
A nice summary of how different causal inference approaches can be used in habitat fragmentation research in light of necessary data and assumptions
James Bullock@jmbecologist.bsky.social · 3mo agoIndeed. We need to consider the loss & fragmentation process(es) rather than treating it as a statistical game of playing one predictor variable off against another www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...
This is a classic example of why some debates go 'unresolved'. Sometimes, we are simply arguing about different estimands! Similar to Lord's famous 'paradox' (not actually a paradox!) ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/causin...
Lord’s Paradox Revisited – (Oh Lord! Kumbaya!)
Among the many peculiarities that were dubbed “paradoxes” by well meaning statisticians, the one reported by Frederic M. Lord in 1967 has earned a special status. Although it can be viewed, formally,
ideas.repec.org
Becks Spake@spakey.bsky.social · 3mo agoThinking causally about the habitat fragmentation debate has led to both clarity and confusion for me! Some studies find negative effects of fragmentation on biodiversity, others positive. Differences in findings occur because studies are typically targeting different estimands #causalinference
Thinking causally about the habitat fragmentation debate has led to both clarity and confusion for me! Some studies find negative effects of fragmentation on biodiversity, others positive. Differences in findings occur because studies are typically targeting different estimands #causalinference
Evidence-based approaches to conservation have 2 problems 1) Generalised evidence doesn’t take account of context 2) Specific information isn’t transferable Precision Ecology addresses these problems And we’re now starting a grant to test PE & provide guidance! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Precision ecology for targeted conservation action - Nature Ecology & Evolution
The fields of medicine and marketing use large data volumes and computational power to target individuals. This Perspective argues that applied ecologists should draw on such approaches to provide dec...
nature.com
Finally figured out that there is a blackbird living in my garden who has learned to mimic the shrill sound of me calling my turkey's name!! 🐦⬛🎶🎵
Gardening today and noticed this little dude was drowning in the ducks' water bowl! Hopefully it's mum is close by 🙏
Why is the old debate about whether smoking causes cancer relevant to settling the controversy surrounding over-crediting in forest carbon offsets? Read our paper in natureecoevo.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A carpet of oak seedlings in a New Forest ancient woodland! 🌳🌱 Planning to trial the effectiveness of wool at deterring herbivory 🦌
We presented the iDeer Tool as part of the IALE UK Landscape Connections series 🦌🌳 If you're interested in deer impacts to woodlands, here is a link! youtu.be/AZ_-wo923Wg?...
Landscape Connections - May 2026 - Becks Spake & Amy Gresham, iDeer
YouTube video by Landscape Ecology UK
youtu.be
