New paper led by my (now former!) PhD student, Dr. Stephen Hoover, showing some amazing applications of AI and reinforcement learning to food web ecology. A 🧵...

It is one of the great joys in my life to share my lab's first successful PhD defense. Congratulations, Dr. Hoover!

My first PhD student is defending in 2 weeks and he just showed me his beamer slide deck 👉🏽😎👉🏽

If you like matrices + microbes, have I got the paper for you. Work with @janamassing.bsky.social, @jdyeakel.bsky.social, and @thilogross.bsky.social out today in @royalsocietypublishing.org! We study dynamics of cooperative bacteria without specifying a conventional model: doi.org/10.1098/rsif...

This should be an important result for ecology. Higher-order interactions are becoming increasingly popular to study, but that appears to be... not good

New on the arxiv: “Graphs are maximally expressive for higher-order interactions” arxiv.org/abs/2602.16937 We clarify central misconceptions in the recent literature on "higher-order networks". w/ @piratepeel.bsky.social , @manlius.bsky.social, and @thilogross.bsky.social Explainer 🧵: 1/N

Bring together a group of researchers to collaborate at NITMB! Our Focused Research Group Awards program welcomes small groups from multiple institutions to gather at NITMB to focus intently on independent, ambitious joint research projects Learn more - www.nitmb.org/research/foc...

Paper alert! Our study about functional motifs is out in PNAS. We use food webs as an example to discuss how small subgraphs drive the dynamics in complex systems. While motifs that determine overall stability are rare, when it comes to reactivity, we show that small groups dominate system behavior.

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...

Very cool-looking paper! Pseudo-persistence through reactivity.

NSF is open again! A few comments: *Please be patient. During a shutdown NSF employees cannot open computers or respond to emails. *Merit review will continue. However panels won’t resume until after Dec 8th. *POs remain excited and committed to advancing science and the scientific workforce.

We are doing spatial patterns in class tomorrow. So please enjoy my simulation of Pokemon battles on a lattice. Pokemon attack a random neighbor and winners are based on the game's hierarchy (water > fire > ice ...). Some amazing spatial patterns emerging from 7-way rock-paper-scissors!

Do you want to do a postdoc in animal behavior/ecology at the beach? Consider applying for our prestigious university postdoc fellowship together with me: www.fau.edu/science/post...

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

You've heard of Bacon numbers, Erdos numbers. Who is it for ecology? I bet most have a Levin number < 3.

Our paper made the cover of Trends in Microbiology! doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...

New paper in Ecology! We show how to incorporate basically any animal behavior into ecological networks models: doi.org/10.1002/ecy....

This paper looks pretty neat!

New open access review paper out now in Trends in Microbiology: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

With sadness and respect, we honor the legacy of Dr. Jim Estes, who passed away this week. A pioneer of marine ecology, Jim’s groundbreaking work transformed our understanding of ecosystems and the essential role of keystone predators like sea otters. He is an icon in sea otter research. 🧵👇

Today's lesson: if you want to model agents with bodies, probably add physical constraints to their bones

New paper led by @janamassing.bsky.social, with @jdyeakel.bsky.social and @thilogross.bsky.social, on dynamics of cooperative bacteria: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

When animals' decision-making processes are disrupted, models predict that small mistakes like false alarms will be magnified, spreading contagiously on a grand scale

My department is looking for an Assistant Professor in the broad area of 'biological systems.' Would be great for a theoretical or quantitative empirical ecologist. Any system/taxa are ok. Come work with me! fau.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/FAU/de... #facultyjobs #ecology

New paper! (arxiv.org/abs/2503.14093) I haven’t been this excited about one in a while, and I think the theory @mhab.bsky.social develops here will be a big step forward for the field. Why? Let me explain 🧵...

Once again experienced the 'Abrams Effect': thinking you've had an original idea in theoretical ecology but it's actually an esoteric Peter Abrams book chapter from the 80's with no electronic copy online. Time to update the references list...

Really proud of our little school by the beach gaining R1 status: www.fau.edu/research/r1/

[Ayo!]: I have a 2-year #postdoc available for an ecologist Florida Atlantic University. Apply by Dec 1, here: t.co/XwMgMKnUYJ