Ecology faces an accumulation of models but not an accumulation of confidence. Our new paper w/ Jonathan Levine www.nature.com/articles/s41... in @natecoevo.nature.com introduces a rigorous test rooted in queueing theory to falsify inadequate models and build confidence in useful ones.

That's right, folk! THREE TENURE TRACK JOBS IN BIOLOGY AT UMASS BOSTON! You might even be a good fit for more than one! Check 'em out! We'd love to have you!

Shaved Buster being a weirdo.

Buster got his biennial shave.

Buster is getting high.

We are hiring an immunologist in the Biology Department at Colby! apply.interfolio.com/173466 Please apply or share!

New academic year, new ecoevojobs site. Already >200 faculty / permanent jobs! ecoevojobs.net

Interested in theory and looking for a postdoc or grad school? Come talk to me at #ESA2025! resiliencelab.github.io/join/

Just an upside down Buster apparently dreaming about food.

Made it to Maine. Now to get finish preparing for the Fall semester!

I'm running a seminar in the fall for senior undergrads in Evolutionary Ecology. I'm hoping to curate a reading list mixing classic and new papers that illustrate how combining ecological and evolutionary perspectives can lead to new insights. Do you have a favorite I should consider?

Today was the last day of the Ecology and Evolution class I taught out at UNL's Cedar Point Biological Station. The students were so wonderful. Unfortunately, this will be my last time teaching the class, but hopefully not my last time out at this gem in western Nebraska.

Now that it is very real (I guess I'm on the website), I've got some news. I'm starting as an Assistant Professor this fall at Colby College!

I thought I saw a twig hanging on my car today. It was this caterpillar.

New preprint "Warming increases the strength of trophic Cascades" led by PhD student Francis Biagioli: www.authorea.com/users/925774...

Sad to hear that legendary ecologist Jim Estes passed (www.elakhaalliance.org/elakha-allia...). I met Jim when he visited Oregon State while I was a grad student. I remember being impressed by how warm, friendly, and humble he was despite being a world-famous ecologist.

Finally caught Buster yawning on camera.

There is something so satisfying about fitting ODE's to population dynamics data when it works ...

New paper 'Simple, universal rules predict trophic interaction strengths' out in Ecology Letters with Mark Novak and John DeLong: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Took a little break from everything this weekend to watch some prairie chickens lek.

Paper accepted! Not a bad way to end the week.

Minor revisions on a paper that's been rejected from four journals! Something to feel good about.

Postdoc fellowship opportunity here in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Nebraska: employment.unl.edu/postings/95137 The department here is absolutely wonderful. Extremely friendly, collaborative, supportive.

Very interesting article about a new take on the Type I functional response by Mark Novak, @kecoblentz.bsky.social and John DeLong, with excellent @peercommunityin.bsky.social Ecology editorial work and recommendation by @fredbarraquand.bsky.social ecology.peercommunityin.org/articles/rec...

A very zen picture of Buster.

This week I figured out a way to measure the growth of individual paramecium cells over time in a high-throughput way. Very excited about some future applications, but the first is to ask about how paramecium respond to the cues of their copepods predators 🦠🦐.

New paper out at Proc B: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... . This our first paper using a new database of global raptor diets! We find that the evenness/entropy of many raptor diets is consistent with raptors sampling from prey communities with log normal relative abundances. BUT (1/3)

Giving a practice job talk to my cat prepares me well for the inevitable senior faculty member falling asleep during my talk.

Somehow, one year can make such a difference. I already have the number of Zoom interviews scheduled that I had all of last cycle. What a world.

Spent a while this afternoon just watching this beautiful Stentor.

Make that four ...

I did it! 666 citations on Google Scholar. No one is allowed to cite me anymore.

Damn. My favorite paper I have written has now officially been desk rejected by three journals. On to the next one!

Excited about the epidemiology of emerging viruses? We're looking for one or more postdocs in - count em - FOUR areas. Join us right as we move into the Public Health Modeling Unit, a beautiful office full of brilliant and kind colleagues from across Yale's campus. apply.interfolio.com/153039

Job alert! Looking for a quantitative postdoc to see how dynamic species interactions affect stability - in theory and in marine food web data. Looking for someone versed in modeling and theory or marine food webs. Apply by Sept 30. Deets here: resiliencelab.github.io/files/Dynami...

New paper out in Functional Ecology!: doi.org/10.1111/1365...

First job application of the 2024-2025 season submitted! I'm hopeful and excited, but also very sick of applying for permanent jobs ...

I love this quote from a recent Nature Microbiology editorial, "life on Earth is predominantly microbial and dominated by an enigmatic and little understood majority." Link to the editorial: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New preprint with Mark Novak and John DeLong: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... We develop simple theory to predict trophic interaction strengths and show it is predictive of predator functional responses and their allometric scaling.

Student evaluation comment: "Kyle = GOAT. Good Scientist. Good Teacher. Cool Dude." 😂. I'm going to find a way to put that one in my job applications.

New paper out at Global Change Biology doi.org/10.1111/gcb.... We developed a framework for understanding climate change effects on populations through non-compensatory changes in rates that ultimately determine population growth rates.

New preprint with Mark Novak and John DeLong: biorxiv.org/content/10.1... We show how a Type I functional response can arise from the non-exclusivity and predator handling and searching times. We also find evidence for this response in data and examine its dynamical implications.

Outstanding new paper by Stella Uiterwaal and John DeLong: Foraging rates from metabarcoding: Predators have reduced functional responses in wild, diverse prey communities 🧪🕷️🔓 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Over the past couple of weeks, we measured thermal performance curves for 20 outcrossed lines of Paramecium. Today we took over 100 videos to also look at their phenotypic plasticity across temperatures. Can't wait to see what the data hold, but also glad we're done.

To be snowy owl and be able to make ends meet while sleeping 19 hours a day ...

Postdoc fellowship opportunity here in Lincoln, Nebraska in the UNL School of Biological Sciences (employment.unl.edu/postings/89729 ). Population biology (very broadly defined). A really great department with very collaborative faculty working on a variety of cool systems.

New preprint. We used outcrossed lines of Paramecium to ask how movement and morphological traits altered predation risk while also estimating the heritabilities of traits: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Some grad students have been making emo jokes recently, so I'm now putting together an emo (and adjacent) playlist and it is really bringing me back to high school. Can't wait to indoctrinate them.

Nominations now open for the Dobzhansky Prize, which recognizes the work and promise of an outstanding early career evolutionary biologist. This award comes with a 5000 USD prize, and the recipient will speak at #Evol2024. Apply now! rb.gy/vxpar

Come to the Unifying Ecology Across Scales GRC this summer! I'll be giving a talk on a general framework for understanding the consequences of asymmetric effects of climate change.