Do you run or participate in a code club at your institution, or are you interested in starting one but don’t know where to begin? @cecibaldoni.bsky.social and I are leading an ‘unconference’ discussion at @sortee.bsky.social’s virtual conference on October 16 - come share some tips and ideas!

I’ve always thought 1970 was a particularly odd baseline - that was the year the US EPA was founded, and just before the DDT ban, so not exactly a high point in bird conservation..

If conservationists work from a compromised baseline, our notions of abundance, scarcity, and ecological wellbeing will keep getting defined downward: "The researchers show that using the 1970s as a baseline tends to normalize an already severely degraded state." phys.org/news/2025-10...

From policy to practice: Progress towards #data- and #code-sharing in ecology and evolution #ProcB @asanchez-tojar.bsky.social @eivimeycook.bsky.social tell us more in our blog royalsociety.org/blog/2025/09...

Some lovely things on the Aussie #urbanNature scene this week! First up - the work and creativity of friend-colleague @drkyliesoanes.bsky.social has been beautifully profiled by the ABC. If you use TikTok or Insta I highly encourage you to add Kylie to your feeds!🌏 www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

Register now for #SORTEE2025 conference! We thank our sponsors (@asn-amnat.bsky.social, @cdnsciencepub.com, @datadryad.bsky.social, @peercommunityin.bsky.social, @royalsociety.org, @sse-evolution.bsky.social, @biologists.bsky.social) who are eligible for free registration.

Any recommendations for talks from last week’s posit::conf? Timezones weren’t ideal for Australia so I’ve got some recordings to catch up on this week 👀

Our latest #SORTEE-led paper is out now in #ProcB! We reviewed data/code-sharing policy clarity, strictness & timing across 275 EcoEvo journals We also worked with #ProcB & #EcologyLetters to assess initial compliance with sharing mandates. Huge team effort! 👉 doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

📣 Hot off the press at #ProcB! 🔍 Our study checked data/code-sharing policies in 275 eco/evo journals and compliance in Proc B (n=2,340) & Ecology Letters (n=571). Policies exist, but clarity and strictness vary, affecting reproducibility. 🔗 doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

What a steal! SORTEE out here doing God's work for increasing rigor and transparency in research. Plus it's a super fun group of people. You're gonna want to check it out

Yikes 😬 shouldn’t even get through most pre-print servers…

interested in causal inference and ecology? join our Slack to exchange ideas, papers, get feedback, ask and answer questions - let's start a community #causalsky

Are you at the #EOU2025 and interested in #OpenScience? Matthieu Paquet and I are hosting this roundtable to chat about the topic with you 😀 @eounion.bsky.social @sortee.bsky.social #ornithology

Really excited that our #causalinference for climate change paper is out today! @dudney-joan.bsky.social, @lauradee.bsky.social , @econservation.bsky.social, @katherinesiegel.bsky.social were such an awesome team, and I hope this is a useful one for researchers in the field!

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🎉New preprint! "TADA! Simple guidelines to improve code sharing" tinyurl.com/8rmnwjrk We present simple guidelines to help researchers of all coding levels improve the transparency and reproducibility of their analytical code, TADA! Transferable, Accessible, Documented, Annotated.

🎉Registration for the SORTEE Conference 2025 (15-16 Oct) is now open!🎉 Register here: www.sortee.org/upcoming The conference is FREE for members, so consider joining us! www.sortee.org/join/ Let’s recognize great open science work - nominate a project for a SORTEE Award! www.sortee.org/awards/

Want to move beyond simple forecasting algorithms for modelling real world time series? The {mvgam} #rstats 📦 has you covered nicholasjclark.github.io/mvgam/

Coming up later today!

Our next workshop will be on May 12th 8:00 am UTC. An introduction to Quarto, the open-source scientific publishing system. We'll discuss how Quarto can help us write reproducible analyses and lead a brief workshop on the basics! Register at: events.humanitix.com/sortee-works...

Content submissions for the 5th SORTEE Conference (15-16 Oct 2025) are now OPEN. Submit your proposal for an unconference, hackathon or workshop by June 2nd via sortee.org/upcoming The conference will be FREE for members, so consider joining us (sortee.org/join/).

Join me on May 28th to talk about Scrollytelling 🥳😍

@sortee.bsky.social is also hosting a webinar next week on NOAA’s DisMAP tool for marine species distributions! Sign up here: events.humanitix.com/dismap-a-vis...

@sortee.bsky.social’s next edition of the workshop & webinar series is next week - we’ll be discussing how Quarto can support open science and reproducible analyses, followed by a demonstration of the basics of the publishing system. Sign up here! events.humanitix.com/sortee-works...

You've heard of the many analysts projects, right? Scholars give the same dataset/question to a bunch of researchers & they still get different answers. Why is that? Data cleaning! This is consistent with Gelman's "garden of forking paths." Small coding decisions often drive results.

We congratulate the ALP on their election victory. This term of government will be critical for nature. We encourage @albomp.bsky.social to grasp the nettle on protecting our ecosystems and tackle Australia's failing environmental protection framework.” biodiversitycouncil....

new preprint: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/view/9055 Code used in research is key to the methods and scientific output and we should ensure it’s not just "available" but easy to verify and build on. We present a practical tool to code review for scientists 🧪 work with @animalecol-nioo.bsky.social

This would be an unbelievable loss for ecology - the methods and tools that have come out of the USGS centres are absolutely essential for so much of the work we do

🚨 ESEB 2025, here we come! 🚨 We're thrilled to announce our symposium: "Enhancing Diversity & Transparency in Ecology & Evolution: Reliable Practices for Research & Organizations" 🌍✨ Featuring invited speakers: 🔹 Dr. Malgorzata (Losia) Lagisz 🔹 Dr. Joel Pick 📅 Aug 17-22, 2025 | 📍 Barcelona, Spain

A recent paper claims, opposed to what conservation science has known for decades, that there is no evidence that foxes and cats were a major driver of Australia's mammal extinctions. Turns out there are quite a few issues here. Strap in for a looong thread 🧪 academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...

NOAA just announced a long list of datasets that are going away🧪⚒️🌊: www.nesdis.noaa.gov/about/docume... Download what you need asap and send comments to: [email protected]

1. LLM-generated code tries to run code from online software packages. Which is normal but 2. The packages don’t exist. Which would normally cause an error but 3. Nefarious people have made malware under the package names that LLMs make up most often. So 4. Now the LLM code points to malware.

🚨🎉 New paper "Ten quick tips to get you started with Bayesian statistics", hope you'll like it 😇🤗 ✍🏽 w/ Andy Royle, Marc Kéry and Chloé Nater 🔗 dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour... @plos.org @cnrsecologie.bsky.social @cnrsoccitanieest.bsky.social @umontpellier.bsky.social

It's Transgender Day of Visibility, and I have mixed emotions. So I wrote something about it 😊 (this is the first in a series; the next one is in a few weeks and is about disinformation campaigns) pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/my-...

Our next workshop will be presented by SORTEE president Ed Ivimey-Cook: "Reproducible data analysis in R" Ed will introduce the basics of reproducible projects, data & code, and conduct a code review. Register at events.humanitix.com/sortee-works... #rstats #SORTEEtools #codereview

Question for any ecology peeps that might read my tweets (blues? Do we have a new word for this by now? 😅): Do you know of any courses teaching species distribution modelling techniques (correlative/causative) that you can recommend? Grateful for any advice (baby pike pic for attention) 🙏🧪

#rstats developers, what are the most useful GitHub actions you've implemented? Besides the usual ones for testing, coverage and CMD check?

When the same data tells a different story… 📊🔍 You’d think analyzing the same dataset would lead to the same conclusions, but our new BMC Biology study shows otherwise. Different methods - different answers! Why? It's complicated... My experience in the study → 🔗 the3dlab.org/2025/02/06/w...

Another video in my series on applied time series and forecasting with the {mvgam} #rstats 📦. This one introduces State Space hierarchical GAMs and GPs for tackling multivariate series youtu.be/2POK_FVwCHk?...

New study explored preprint use in ecology & evolution! A few interesting things: ▪️ Most preprints are by authors who published their first paper in the last 10 years ▪️ Median time between preprint & publication is ~8 months ▪️ Authors are reluctant to share data & code with preprints (<50% did) 🧪🌏

Check out our new contribution, a massive collaboration brilliantly led by @danielwanoble.bsky.social. Full of interesting insights such as "What's the average time between the first manuscript submission to its acceptance in a scientific journal?" Go figure that and more at doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

I'm delighted to share our opinion on #papermills published in Nature. Science is flooded with papers from paper mills.Certain steps can be taken, but this is a challenge that neither universities nor journals are ready to face.Some use paper mills to their advantage. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

We are reading this paper - again! - for lab meeting this week. It’s so good and essential that it requires periodic revisiting, esp. as new folks join my group. Generates great discussion and introspection. The authors also approach the topic with refreshing humility. doi.org/10.1002/ecy....

It’s great to see so many new faces on @bsky.app! If you’re interested in open and robust science in Ecology and Evolution, be sure to follow @sortee.bsky.social. There’s also a starter pack that @daxkellie.bsky.social created! go.bsky.app/44PpngU

I’ve been meaning to learn a bit more about causal methods for a while, this was such a clear and helpful starting point

Interesting and not surprising! Honestly, if I was forced to choose I’d usually rather see the code than the data, particularly with modelling papers. Tells you way more about the thought process and methods, yet it’s rarely available in any useable form..

Do you have a project that exemplifies open science in ecology and evolution? If yes, nominate the project for a SORTEE Commendation Award: More details about the SORTEE Commendation Award:

We end with guidance on how to improve data- and code-sharing policies across E&E. Shown here in this awesome diagram (made by Romy Zeiss and Kevin Bairos-Novak).

🎉🎉New Preprint!!🎉🎉 "From Policy to Practice: Progress towards Data- and Code-Sharing in Ecology and Evolution" doi.org/10.32942/X24... Myself and a whole bunch of awesome coauthors reviewed data- and code-sharing policies across 275 journals that publish ecology and evolution studies.