With @saramitri.bsky.social, @sonjalehtinen.bsky.social and L. Lehmann we’ve launched the UNIL Center for Theory in Ecology and Evolution @unil.bsky.social🇨🇭
To kick things off, we’re offering short visiting fellowships for theorists in ecology & evolution. Apply & pls RP 😀
tinyurl.com/2wem36zz
🤩PREPRINT OUT! Using our causal model of 👫 growth, we test if model can estimate growth trajectories of pops. of 🚸 of uncertain age using cross-sectional data. Results: our model provide accurate estimates providing a solution for bioarcheological and other contexts!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
📣 Call for Applications: The University of Vienna invites applications for more than 40 fully funded doctoral positions across a broad range of disciplines in Life Sciences and Natural Sciences. 👨🔬👩🔬 #PhDSky #PhD #univie
📅 Application period: 2 March – 27 March 2026, 12:00 CET
More information: ⤵️
Building a decision function over a Bayesian posterior
A neat blog post walking through implementing Bayesian Decision Theory in @pymc.io with code!
#statssky 📈📉
daniel-saunders-phil.github.io/imagination_...
![2. Install the diagram extension in a Quarto project. Create a new Quarto project. From the terminal, run this to install the diagram extension:
quarto install extension pandoc-ext/diagram
3. Tell your document to use the extension. Add this to the YAML header of a Quarto document:
filters:
- diagram
4. Add a .tikz block to your document. Add a tikz code block to your document like this:
```{.tikz}
\begin{tikzpicture}[>={stealth}]
\node (x) at (0,0) {$X_{t}$};
\node (y) at (2,0) {$Y_{t + 1}$};
\node (z) at (1,1) {$Z$};
\path[->] (z) edge (x);
\path[->] (z) edge (y);
\path[->] (x) edge (y);
\end{tikzpicture}
```
5. Render! Render the document to PDF and you should see a diagram. Render it to HTML or .docx or Typst and it should use inkscape to convert it to SVG. Magic.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2zcfjzyocp6kapg6jc4eacok/bafkreifut33lozgqgp3ualtpkyze47rtkjoysfginsohfykakfibqzetyu@jpeg)
2. Install the diagram extension in a Quarto project. Create a new Quarto project. From the terminal, run this to install the diagram extension: quarto install extension pandoc-ext/diagram 3. Tell your document to use the extension. Add this to the YAML header of a Quarto document: filters: - diagram 4. Add a .tikz block to your document. Add a tikz code block to your document like this: ```{.tikz} \begin{tikzpicture}[>={stealth}] \node (x) at (0,0) {$X_{t}$}; \node (y) at (2,0) {$Y_{t + 1}$}; \node (z) at (1,1) {$Z$}; \path[->] (z) edge (x); \path[->] (z) edge (y); \path[->] (x) edge (y); \end{tikzpicture} ``` 5. Render! Render the document to PDF and you should see a diagram. Render it to HTML or .docx or Typst and it should use inkscape to convert it to SVG. Magic.
New blog post! After years of annoying shenanigans, I discovered that nowadays it's *really* straightforward to get tikz diagrams in #QuartoPub to automatically turn into SVGs in HTML, docx, and Typst! Install Inkscape, install a Quarto extension, and you're done. www.andrewheiss.com/blog/2026/02...
If we are making lists of non-ignorable "complexity" in biology, how about the interaction of selection and development? Many biologists find it boring (unnecessary complexity) or threatening (old naive adaptationism called into question). @mauriciogforero.bsky.social does good work in this area!
Interested in using my textbook, Modeling Social Behavior, but wishing code was in a more general programming language than NetLogo? The incomparable Ben Fried has translated all modeling code into JULIA, utilizing the excellent Agents.jl package. github.com/BenjaFried/m...
Reading a paper in the beautiful KLI garden. Late summer, early autumn.
KLI figs ready to be distributed to the KLI fellows
Title slide of my PhD defence presentation: "The causal analysis of animal social networks"
Lake Constance in winter
Some personal news: after spending half a year at the wonderful @kli.ac.at in Vienna, I defended my PhD thesis back in Göttingen, and just moved to Konstanz to (soon) start a postdoc at @livingingroups.bsky.social to work at the interface between theory & data analysis in behav. ecology!
I am hiring a research assistant (vampire bats), a Panama fieldwork coordinator (vampire bats), and also considering postdoc apps (social behavior, any species): socialbat.org/2026/02/19/h...
New (competition funded) PhD opportunity with me,
@iaciac.bsky.social and @dralgernon.bsky.social
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
Higher-order networks and animal communication. Suited to someone keen on network science theory/computational modeling and keen to adapt this to ecology & evolution.
What’s a multiverse good for anyway? Julia M. Rohrer, Jessica Hullman, and Andrew Gelman Multiverse analysis has become a fairly popular approach, as indicated by the present special issue on the matter. Here, we take one step back and ask why one would conduct a multiverse analysis in the first place. We discuss various ways in which a multiverse may be employed – as a tool for reflection and critique, as a persuasive tool, as a serious inferential tool – as well as potential problems that arise depending on the specific purpose. For example, it fails as a persuasive tool when researchers disagree about which variations should be included in the analysis, and it fails as a serious inferential tool when the included analyses do not target a coherent estimand. Then, we take yet another step back and ask what the multiverse discourse has been good for and whether any broader lessons can be drawn. Ultimately, we conclude that the multiverse does remain a valuable tool; however, we urge against taking it too seriously.
New preprint! So, what's a multiverse analysis good for anyway?>
With @jessicahullman.bsky.social and @statmodeling.bsky.social
juliarohrer.com/wp-content/u...
The University of Helsinki seeks a postdoctoral researcher in Statistical Ecology. Apply by Feb 28, 2026. Salary €3800-4000/month. Details: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/faculty-science/faculty/mathematics-and-statistics. #postdoc
This time I try to explain group-level confounding and some ways to deal with it. Lecture B04 of Statistical Rethinking 2026 - fixed effects, Mundlak machines, latent Mundlak machines, intro to social network analysis and the social relations model. Full lecture list: github.com/rmcelreath/s...
Fig. 4. of Kraus 2026. Normal mammalian cardiogenesis and ambiogenic events hypothesized to be required for proper outflow tract development during placentation, along with associated developmental and phylogenetic phenotypes.
💐 Congratulations to our 2025 KLI fellow, Nina Kraus @ninakraus.bsky.social, on her new publication in the Journal of Experimental Biology on
"Environmentally dependent developmental induction as a potential driver of heart evolution"!
👏👏👏
📃 doi.org/10.1242/jeb....
Expressions of interest: Director at MPI EvolBio (f/m/d) — We invite expressions of interest from distinguished scientists in evolutionary biology with a bold, long-term research vision that complements our Institute. More information: www.evolbio.mpg.de/3856225/Dire...
Simulation examples. Scenarios A–D above correspond to agent behaviour sequences in rows A–D below. The sequences indicate 12 time steps, one per box, which proceed horizontally (i.e. the leftmost box is t1, the rightmost box is t12). In the lower rows, beak direction is depicted with a triangle such that head rotations are visible (e.g. in row B, there is a head rotation each time step). The circular area connected to the triangle represents a top view of the scrub-jay head (filled circle with unfilled sectors). Circles with two unfilled sectors show the default foveal position bilaterally, and circles with four unfilled sectors show further foveation during a fixed head position. Unfilled row squares indicate that the scrub-jay has high uncertainty about whether a hawk is present due to lack of sensory evidence (no hawk shape is visible and no hawk call is audible). Filled row squares that progress from dark (orange) to light (yellow) represent the strength of the belief that a hawk is present, beginning with low uncertainty during three time steps when the hawk shape is visible and an increasing belief that the hawk is no longer present once the shape is no longer visible. Upper half: the filled circle indicates the scrub-jay’s proximal surroundings. In the top left (A), a single hawk suggests low background predation risk, which elicits a head rotation every two time steps (row A). (Dotted lines indicate possible but not actual approaches.) Three hawks are shown in B, indicating high background predation risk, which elicits a head rotation every time step (row B). Rectangular cover in C presents a skewed distribution of possible hawk approaches. This leads to a head rotation pattern that proportionately increases the time monitoring exposed areas (row C). In the upper right (D), two actual hawk approaches are shown (solid lines extended by dotted lines). The dark orange solid segment corresponds to the dark orange boxes in row D, when the hawk shape is visible.
Paper out today on @royalsocietypublishing.org:
"Alerting and orienting attention in anti-predator vigilance: neurocognitive modelling and behavioural evidence"
royalsocietypublishing.org/rsif/article...
🧪🌎🪶 #corvids #OpenAccess
predominantly ‘Jewish’ human psy chol ogy with a new psy chol ogy that was ‘properly German.’ ”51 Lorenz joined the Nazi party in June of 1938. By 1940, he was appointed to the Kant Professorship of Psy chol ogy at the Albertus University of Königsberg in East Prus sia, which came along with the directorship of an Institute of Comparative Psy chol ogy. Adapting his domestication theme to the Nazi context, Lorenz wrote two articles in 1940 making explicit connections between Nazi racial hygiene and his own studies of animal be hav ior; the second of these was published in the official Nazi journal for biology teachers.52 Lorenz quickly became part of the Nazi war machine. In Oc- tober 1941, just eight months after assuming his Königsberg position, he was drafted into the German Army, first as a military psychologist in Poznan, a city in western Poland taken over by the Nazis after their inva- sion of Poland in 1939. In Poznan, as a member of the Nazi Office of Race Policy, Lorenz administered mental tests aimed at sorting “mixed Poles and Germans into German- like people that could be rehabilitated and Poles who could not,” and who were subsequently sent to concentration camps.53 When such psychological testing was discontinued, he worked as a physician and psychiatrist at the reserve hospital in Poznan.54 Along with these practical activities, Lorenz continued to support Nazi ideology through intellectual labors. In 1943, he published another article extol- ling the virtues of race purity, and warning of the disruptive effects of do- mestication on animals’ instincts.
I am reading "Killer Instinct: The popular science of human nature in 20th century America" by Nadine Weidman, and I am learning a lot. I was aware that Konrad Lorenz (father of field of ethology, winner of 1973 Nobel prize) was a Nazi, but didn't know he was so enthusiastic about it.
Postdoc in statistical ecology & evolution! Develop models bridging evolutionary theory with empirical data on sex differences in immunity and life history. Apply now!
#postdoc #statistics #evolution #academicjobs #ecology jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...
Join our first KLI Colloquium in 2026!
Title: Embodied Rationality: Normative and Evolutionary Foundations
Speaker: Enrico Petracca
🕒 8 Jan 2026, 3:00 PM CET
🗺️ at KLI, join online via ZOOM (link & info: www.kli.ac.at/en/events/ev...)
Please repost: 🚨Field assistant position 🐧
We offer a 14-months field assistant position through the French Polar Institute to work on king penguin ecophysiology and behavioral ecology.
Requirements: EU citizen < 30yo having experience with harsh fieldwork & wild bird/mammal handling/sampling.
Béla Tarr, 1955-2026 🤍
thanks so much Dan 😌
Another day, and another reference to these bangers. Contemporary causal inference has fundamentally changed the way I think about control variables and mediation analyses. These can show you why:
doi.org/10.1177/2515...
doi.org/10.1111/spc3...
doi.org/10.1177/2515...
The 2026 Guarda Summer Course in Evolutionary Biology is now accepting applications. Amazing place, amazing course, amazing opportunity for early grad students.
tb.ethz.ch/education/gu...
course schedule as a table. Available at the link in the post.
I'm teaching Statistical Rethinking again starting Jan 2026. This time with live lectures, divided into Beginner and Experienced sections. Will be a lot more work for me, but I hope much better for students.
I will record lectures & all will be found at this link: github.com/rmcelreath/s...
Fifty years to the day since the death of Hannah Arendt. This is (still) such a fantastic interview:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVSR...
Our preprint is out! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Peter Skovorodnikov and I are excited to present FERAL: a new video-understanding toolkit that maps raw video directly to behavior, no pose estimation required.
It works across species, from lab to field, and even in collective systems. (🧵1/n)
Biological Theory is now on Bluesky!
We have a new team of editors and a new editorial board.
We will soon be posting about all our articles.
Find out more about the journal at link.springer.com/journal/13752
Make sure you don’t miss our key dates for abstract submission and registration!
Are you working on a project where you need to infer whether individuals are socially learning? pathways, correlates of, and individual variation in sensitivity to social transmission? Consider joining the hand-on STbayes workshop to learn about the latest update to the NBDA framework
