Matern Type III repulsive point processes in NIMBLE. Pretty cool approach and does not require a birth-death process for estimation, so it is fast and mixes well. Can add SCR observation model. github.com/benaug/Mater...

Fun with multimodal posteriors

Can't believe no one thought to make rules about skinning bears in the dorm kitchen 😂 www.cornellsun.com/article/2025...

Got generalized Matern Type III thinning process for point repulsion working using data augmentation. Cool approach, but pretty slow.

Term extended for a full year. Whew!

Figured out how this data augmentation approach to is related to that presented by Schofield and Barker (2014). Theirs can be specified with bugs code, which is very slick! As coded, mine runs 2x as fast with better ESS/iteration. Cool stuff. More formal details soon. github.com/benaug/SCR-N...

Setting up final run for SMRing ground squirrels. Mb for marking process, negative binomial for sighting process, both sex-specific.

I have two moods, "everything is cool" and "there is a bug in my code". Everything is cool again.

It's Term Renewal Day! Do I still have a job? Who knows! Not my supervisors.

The WildCo Lab @wildco.bsky.social is recruiting 2 postdocs in quantitative ecology to work on mammal population estimation and monitoring from camera trap data. 🐺🐻🦌📷📈 Please share the word or apply to join us at UBC in lovely Vancouver, Canada! wildlife.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2025/0...

The overdispersion is strong in the SMR data set

The "Marginal Unmarked Trilogy" github.com/benaug/Unmar... github.com/benaug/Rando... github.com/benaug/Spati...

Spent 3 hours looking for a bug in my code or algorithm today, gave up to go mow the grass, then figured it out there. 😆

Marginal version of SMR with interspersed marking and sighting and all sample types is pretty slick.

Split out all my SMR models marginalizing over latent IDs with Herliansyah et al. (2024) efficiency trick into their own repository. Premarked, interspersed marking/sighting, natural marks. single and multi session, Dcovs, habitat masks. Count prior data augmentation. github.com/benaug/Spati...

Top 5 things I want to write up from my Github repositories. Someone hire me for a while and we can pump these out. Will describe some more later.

😂

Put some more work into the data augmentation approach I've been using. Have 3 ways to do the N/z updates now. I think "count prior data augmentation" is a good name for it (besides data benaugmentation 😆). I've sloppily said this is RJMCMC sometimes in the past, but it is def data augmentation.

I am looking for a postdoc position! I have experience in host-parasite interactions, animal behavior, sexual selection, science outreach, and science education. Plus, I'm a photographer and illustrator which could come in handy! Please reach out if you have any positions open or know someone.

A few months until the end of my postdoc contract. Norway has defunded a good part of the academic system, so opportunities are limited. I will try to apply for my own funding, but pending potential failure, if someone has a job opportunity that might suit me I would be happy to have a chat!

🐆🐆 Aaaaand we have another M.S. position available!! This position represents an opportunity to study ocelot genomics in the context of an active reintroduction effort. Deadline is June 1 for an August start 🐆🐆 Position posting is here: shorturl.at/o4dTA

🐆🐆 TWO M.S. POSITIONS AVAILABLE IN MY LAB!! Focus will be bobcat and coyote dynamics in an ocelot pre-reintroduction landscape. Come join the fun. Deadline is June 1 for an August start 🐆🐆 Position posting is here: tinyurl.com/5y3uhbf3

This looks promising approach for repulsion between individuals based on space use overlap instead of distance. Generalized Matern Type III Process thins a Poisson point process as a function of space use overlap, where space use is BVN.

We are hiring a chair/professor in our Ecology and Environmental Modelling group at @uniofstandrews.bsky.social. Scotland is a lovely place to work, and my colleagues are fantastic! Reach out if you are interested in joining the CREEM family ☺️ vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/I/...

For those of you who do any type of ecology stats consulting, how do you find clients? I'm considering switching to my LLC full time after my next postdoc ends, but the uncertainty of income leaves me a little nervous. Any tips?

Pop simulator with habitat and density effects on reproduction, survival, and movement. Females only. Grey indicates 95% HR. Survival: red dots adult deaths, gold, 1 or more dependent deaths. Movement, red is adult HR relocation, gold subadult dispersal. Reproduction: gold indicates a new litter.

Last call for expressions of interest in a Quantitative Ecology post-doc based mostly in South Africa. If you are interested, drop Lourens and me a line 👇 www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/jaxqx...

We are hiring an Assistant/Associate Prof of Quantitative Ecology! I'm on the Search Committee for this one. If you have any interest in the position & want to learn more about living in this v. cool part of the country, pls reach out! tinyurl.com/2h6bdece

Now have multi catch and single catch traps using competing hazards observation model. M0, Mb with and without spatial density covariates github.com/benaug/SCR_S...

The fastest way to Mb is to create first and subsequent capture histories and exposure matrices. Reduces data dimensions to equivalent of 2 occasions. Added this to my SCR Dcov repo. github.com/benaug/SCR-D...

Last single-catch thing for now. Using Mb here, trap-happy. Obsmod parameters weakly identifiable esp. first cap p0 and sigma. What happens is trap happy inds almost always get to traps first and mostly block first capture events.

The main problem with single catch traps is that you block more captures in high D areas than low D areas and underestimate Dcov betas using regular SCR. Can see that effect here.

Latent ID SCR approach to Efford 2004 Oikos single catch traps modeling observed captures conditioned on the captures that would have happened if traps did not fill up or prevent captured individuals from being captured at other traps on the same occasion. github.com/benaug/SCR_S...

I still have a conversation from 2019 where I was pointing out mistakes in someone's published MCMC code sitting at the bottom of my inbox. I'll get back to this one day 😅

Pretty sure I solved the Efford 2004 version of single catch traps without knowing capture times or order. Framed as latent ID SCR model with a complicated thinning process. Looks spot on, will test formally. Previously solved the version in Royle et al SCR book, but that is less realistic.

Multisession genotype SPIMming with zero-truncated Poisson hurdle obsmod, Mb, and observation model trimming (more work with latent ID compared to regular SCR)

Currently, I'm trying to compile a nimble model that uses a lot of RAM. If I am using, say, 5 GB or RAM in another R session and try to compile, I get "cannot allocate vector of size 98 GB". But If I close that other session, it compiles. I only have 64 GB of RAM, this doesn't add up!

The Peregrine Fund is looking to hire a Forest Management Specialist

No idea what happened, had to make a new one.

Why did my Google scholar profile disappear? Has this happened to anyone else?

Some Smokies elk SCR

The Peregrine Fund is seeking a GIS specialist. Join an awesome team that's making the world a better place. peregrinefund.org/sites/defaul...

A, B, or C? 🧐

🐺🐻PhD opportunity at NMBU (Ås, Norway)! 📈 The [Applied Quantitative Ecology Group](www.nmbu.no/en/research/...) is looking for a talented student to join our [PopFlow](www.nmbu.no/en/research/...) project and study movements of large carnivore in Scandinavia. www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

If you're not going to take my review seriously, why am I reviewing for your journal? 🤔

Put this repository up that takes a different approach to species interactions and allows both attraction and repulsion github.com/benaug/SCR-S...

First stab at a repository for SCR species interactions using a soft-core point process approach. Seems like you need heroic SCR trapping effort for this to have a chance of working well. github.com/benaug/SCR-S...

I modified the soft-core process approach to allow for imperfect sps2 exclusion at sps1 ACs by adding a "baseline exclusion parameter" and it's not clear 2 exclusion parms are identifiable at all because the mixing sucks here, but both parameters are sampling through the full range of the priors

Starting a personal boycott (😂) of reviewing for @journalofecology.bsky.social until they post the correction to one of my articles that I've been emailing them about for 6 months. They say they are short staffed. Tons of papers still coming out. Do they care about the accuracy of what they publish?