Conservation is turning to markets for funding, but are the funds sufficient to cover the costs of restoring habitats? In our new study we looked at the financial feasibility of blue carbon to support mangrove restoration. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... (DM or email me if you need a copy)

Can AI really help protect the planet — and the people defending it? A new op-ed warns that while COP30 leaders tout AI’s promise for conservation, ethical risks remain. It argues Indigenous experts must guide AI’s development to reflect their priorities and protections. ** Views are authors'.

Great article on where over emphasis on publication metrics has led us to

Substack is the new home for thoughtful writing on the internet, and I'm trying it out. Check out my latest post on coastal habitat restoration substack.com/inbox/post/1... #biodiversity #nature #coastalhabitats #restoration

AI generated Santa wish list

New post open.substack.com/pub/bluecolo...

State of the world’s kelp forests study now open access (via Aaron Eger) www.cell.com/one-earth/fu...

Giant kelp is a productivity powerhouse—about 40x more productive than the kelp that’s replaced it on Tasmania’s east coast. Our new study found that if we restore giant kelp it boosts fisheries like abalone and rock lobster 📖 Read more: doi.org/10.1002/aqc.70242

EEB Postdoctoral Fellowship @ U.Toronto app deadline Jan 15 2026. Opportunity for independent research, encourages collab across labs/disciplines. Lots of great folks to interact with, Come join us! eeb.utoronto.ca/employment-2/

How do we monitor fisheries to know if seafood is sustainable? It turns out WHERE we monitor is just as important as HOW MUCH we monitor. We argue the “where” needs to be codified in fisheries policies: Report: www.nature.org/content/dam/... Blog: www.seascapemodels.org/posts/2025-1...

Classic paper titles “This research is important for the conservation and Management of Sharks”: A proposed framework for ensuring that this is actually true

I'd really like to get the "AI water is being hyped up as a problem by the labs because it's so obviously stupid it invalidates AI critics' more serious complaints" people and the "Andy's in the pocket of the labs because he's questioning the AI water issue" people together in the same room

🧵1/9 There are 35,000+ fish species, but we have formal social-behaviour classifications for a tiny fraction. Most knowledge lives in the experience of researchers, fishers, divers, aquarists, naturalists, and Indigenous communities, but almost none of it is centralised. So we built ShoalBase.org.

Teaching stats next year, I’m planning to make it interactive - Stats can be more than numbers and R code, Gelman and Vehtari’s book has lots of ideas for interactive classroom stats activities

New post on making science infographics with Gemini Pro 3 (Nano Banana), my experiences so far www.seascapemodels.org/posts/2025-1...

The new Gemini image model (AKA nano banana) is pretty impressive, does very accurate infographics based on web-search, can do basic reasoning, including generating images of code and resulting plots (without running that code the image comes out of the AI) www.seascapemodels.org/posts/2025-1...

Two years ago we got together in a beautiful mountain to learn and develop #rstats packages for ecology After {labeleR} (ecologyr.github.io/labeleR/) and {BlueCarbon} (ecologyr.github.io/BlueCarbon/), {mappestRisk} is now officially out! See thread by lead author @dario-ssm.bsky.social 👇

Disgraceful & tragic what governments have done to this once science powerhouse! www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11... "Federal Science Minister...Tim Ayres said the cuts were aimed at refocusing the efforts of the CSIRO towards research priorities, such as critical minerals, iron & steel...in Australia."

Should I post a pre-print? - a short guide of pros and cons written with my students and collaborators, thanks all www.seascapemodels.org/posts/2025-1...

Must read paper if you do conservation science "Twenty-five years of misinterpreting the biodiversity hotspot approach" www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We had fun with Rstats and genAI at the Centre for Marine Socioecology R workshop the past two days. Sharing these prompting patterns we developed in the workshops, that help an AI agent work through different statistical modelling tasks with a researcher step-by-step. github.com/cbrown5/GLMs...

TLDR; The PSF has made the decision to put our community and our shared diversity, equity, and inclusion values ahead of seeking $1.5M in new revenue. Please read and share. pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-... 🧵

How to plot interactive effects from GLMs the easy way #rstats www.seascapemodels.org/posts/2025-1...

Quick web quizzes are easy to DIY now with vibe coding. Love this chartle idea. I’m going to make my own version for my next stats class

Highlighting a few well informed articles about the environmental impacts of large language models. Maybe not as bad as we've been led to believe by the mass media but definitely still needs consideration: www.seascapemodels.org/posts/2025-1...

This is an alarming finding from AI company Anthropic. What they mean is: the models guess when they are being tested for ethical decision making, and modify their responses to appear more ethical. So the ethical tests probably underestimate bad behaviour assets.anthropic.com/m/99128ddd00...

🤖 Big update to the LLMs + R guide > 10 packages added plus other tools and interested reads luisdva.github.io/llmsr-book/ As usual, all the content is available in English and Spanish. #rstats

The SA and Federal governments $102.5M Algal Bloom Summer Plan is rolling out, with grants up to $150K, fee relief, and new R&D funding to help fisheries and aquaculture recover and build resilience 🐟 Read more: seachangeaustralia.org/south-austra...

I made a Connections style app to quiz my students, using genAI to do the code of course. Try it here: www.seascapemodels.org/connections-... Get the code here: github.com/cbrown5/conn...

Sheep paddock restored to wetland bringing back fish nursery habitat www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...

Australia's much loved wildlife and places sorely need greater care and legal protection. Our latest for @aunz.theconversation.com. theconversation.com/labor-is-clo... With good friends and colleagues, @drphilmccormack.bsky.social & @yungenchee.bsky.social.

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10... "The government was unlikely to side with the Greens to see the laws passed...Coalition wants to ensure the final say on projects rests with the minister, not the EPA...Senator Watt said it was "unlikely" the government would include a (climate) trigger in the law..."

Announcing Positron Assistant: Your AI co-pilot for data science workflows within #Positron! This AI client brings deep LLM integration for chat & inline code completions. Generate code, refactor, debug, get smart project suggestions, all in your IDE. Learn more: positron.posit.co/assistant.html

The new Wiley journal review system is an absolute nightmare. Editorial assistants have been replaced by a clunky, AI-enabled website that makes it harder to find and invite reviewers. Associate editor workloads have increased. I'm not convinced the invitations to reviewers are even going through.

Its really hard to navigate genAI use in the classroom, both for students and teachers www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...

AI used to write $440,000 report with hallucinated references. “Perhaps instead of a big consulting firm, procurers would be better off signing up for a ChatGPT subscription.” www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Marine & Freshwater Research is officially on bluesky! We’ll share peer-reviewed articles about ecology and management of aquatic environments, marine and freshwater. Make sure to follow to stay up to date with latest articles! #MarineFreshwaterRes www.publish.csiro.au/mf

@simonwillison.net prompt injection attacks can be solved with delimiters apparently? “…delimiters ensure that the user input is treated strictly as data to be processed rather than executable logic.” I can’t see how this would be reliable www.cell.com/patterns/ful...

AI chatbots caught being malicious and deceptive- makes sense when you think about all the great literature that was ripped to build these large language models. Great literature is full of deceptive characters theconversation.com/ai-systems-c...

Anyone else getting frustrated with being sent “AI workslop” to edit? “Employees are using AI tools to create low-effort, passable looking work that ends up creating more work for their coworkers. “ hbr.org/2025/09/ai-g...

Ran a gamified learning workshop with the Tassie science communication network tonight. I had attendees design a game about sustainable fisheries, then used genAI to make it live. Here’s the results. Fun to get instant results www.seascapemodels.org/research/202...

I created a draft paper with an AI agent and one (very long) prompt. It includes analysis in R, introduction through discussion and real references Here’s the results www.seascapemodels.org/rstats/2025/...

I know everyone has their favourite AI platforms for chatbots, coding, literature reviews..., but mine is R with Openrouter. With R code you can access everything from there with only one account. Here's how: www.seascapemodels.org/rstats/2025/...

AI is not a flotation device Great advice for data scientists for the new Databot tool, but same can be said of any AI agent posit.co/blog/databot...

Facilitating meetings is a core career skill but most of us get no training. My team and I are rotating through facilitating lab meetings to practice. Here’s our guidelines: www.seascapemodels.org/research/202...

Reminder to sign up to our upcoming hackathon! We'll be discussing and testing a protocol to assess whether data/code associated with published literature is actually reproducible, and if not, why. Registration closes on the 15th September 🕤 Find out more and register here 👉 buff.ly/XTON0lV

How to integrate @quarto.org with AI agents to assist scientific writing. Many ways to use this including getting the AI to use real references from a bibtex library www.seascapemodels.org/rstats/2025/...

SA’s algal bloom crisis is hitting fishers, aquaculture & marine life hard. Prof Gretta Pecl joins @biodivcouncil.bsky.social experts with a 7-point action plan: urgent, long-term support & habitat protection to secure seafood & coastal futures. 🔗 www.abc.net.au/news/105563974 #SeaChangeAustralia

Ecological models will get less accurate in rapidly change ecosystems (most of the world now?), because we are predicting to conditions outside the envelope of training data. New study: besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Something to watch out for if you are using #chatGPT and #genAI for statistical advice: it doesn't ask enough questions. A good human statistician will ask lots of questions about context before it gives advice ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...