Just registered for my favorite conference -- the Unifying Ecology Across Scales Gordon Research Conference (www.grc.org/unifying-eco...). Can't wait for a week of some best ecology discussions you will find anywhere!

Long cat.

My first east coast nudibranch!

Another gem when screening papers this evening: doi.org/10.1111/eth....

Just came across this paper in the journal "Insects" that is mostly about birds eating isopods (which are not insects): www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/16.... Apparently, the journal "Insects" has a section called "Other Arthropods and General Topics." More reasons to distrust MDPI ...

I'm covering disease ecology in class tomorrow, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to trigger everyone's COVID PTSD with all this talk of R_0's and transmission rates and what not. Luckily we will wrap up with a discussion of this fun disease ecology paper: doi.org/10.1890/08-2...

I have written my first R-package for feeding experiments! BayesFR allows fitting functional responses by providing dynamical prediction models for use in #brms. Includes models for classical type 2 and type 3 responses, and also prey mortality or predator interference (more to come) #Rstats (1/3)

I sure do love putting questionably relevant images into my problem sets ...

It's resource-based competition week! Going to unleash ZNGIs and consumption and supply vectors on the students.

Probably a stretch, but I'm looking for deep-well projection slides. Picture attached. Carolina used to make these, but it looks like they don't sell them anymore? Maybe not surprising since they were made to use with slide projectors ... I'd be happy for any leads.

Like most cliches, that adage about not truly understanding something until you have to teach it sure is true. I'm covering some classic life history models this week (not my forte), and my previous understanding really was surface level ...

Hey #PopGen #EEB #PUI friends! Do you have a cool paper demonstrating the power 💪 of "modern" PopGen that would be exciting to upper-level undergrads? I feel like students leave the PopGen unit thinking it's some kind of dead science b/c we're limited to introducing simple models in Evol classes. 😢

As a biologist, I love that I can be looking at a bunch of pictures of sea turtles in my office and that's just totally normal.

Crowd-sourcing my #EcoEvo Friends! What, in your mind, makes a "good" & fundable research proposal idea? I'm talking with my upper-level evolution class about this tomorrow (undergrads only) in preparation for them writing a NSF GRFP-style proposal as a semester long project. Thanks!

Trying some old school lecturing this semester. Just me, the white board, and my notes (+ some R vignettes).

Saw my first Bohemian waxwings today in a spectacular fashion. A flock of 100s descended on campus!

Truly settling into Assistant Professor life sending a reference letter at 11pm.

New paper with @mhab.bsky.social @jdyeakel.bsky.social and @thilogross.bsky.social out now in @pnas.org! We show when and why you can know something about an entire network, just by knowing the behavior of it's building blocks: doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

New Preprint with Francis Biagioli and John DeLong: Predator interference imposes similar foraging time costs compared to handling time across taxa www.authorea.com/users/925774... (1/x)

Attending the Unifying Ecology Across Scales GRC was one of the highlights of my PhD, and this year's edition is going to be excellent! All biologists interested in integrating diverse approaches to further our understanding of the natural world are welcome. Register early! shorturl.at/rIjWx

I had a great time today introducing my Honor's thesis advisee to Bayesian statistics and implementing a hierarchical model for phenological changes.

We are hiring a Visiting Assistant Professor in Neurobiology in the Biology Department at Colby! See the ad here: apply.interfolio.com/179919. I can try to answer any questions that interested folks might have, and please share if you know someone who might be interested! 🧪 🧠📈 #NeuroJobs

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.