Rob Boyd

Science isn’t about new tech Science is about innovative thinking & robust investigative approaches New tech might help, but so might traditional methods - depending on the question

A reminder that the KU Leuven #AISafety Lab is currently accepting applications for visiting fellowships, with a deadline at the end of October! 📆 Fellows will spend 3️⃣ months in beautiful Leuven (March–May 2027). Don't miss this opportunity! 👇 www.aisafetylab.eu/open-calls/ #philsky #AI #HPS 🧪

Job alert for theoreticians! 2yr NERC-funded postdoc to model coevolution of learning & social structure. With Bram Kuijper, @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social @andyradford.bsky.social @ljnbrent.bsky.social Based @uniexecec.bsky.social in beautiful Cornwall Deadline Dec 14. Apply: tinyurl.com/3ym39cuv

Job Alert! I am recruiting for a post doc in my group. The position will focus on establishing how changes in climate cause population change in birds and mammals. @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social

I’m excited to share a PhD opportunity in my group, focussed on ecological forecasting of blue tit population responses to climate change as part of the e5-dtp.ed.ac.uk @edinburghbiology.bsky.social.

It happened in a seminar yesterday at my institute that somebody bullied a phd student to change an analysis, because two of the predictors were correlated. Multicollinearity is a brain worm, isn't it? It never makes sense to choose control variables based on pre-model correlations.

Well that's a wrap! 🍁 Thank you for having me @itchyshin.bsky.social !! I loved visiting the amazing COSSEE Lab team, and giving my seminar 'Meta-analysis without a target: what exactly are we estimating?". Was great to meet incredible wildlife biologists at @ualbertapress.bsky.social

📢 PhD opportunity at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia 🦋 We are looking for a motivated domestic/international PhD student to work on citizen science and insect conservation. Please share with anyone interested! 🌐 shawanchowdhurylab.com #PhD #Ecology #Conservation #CitizenScience #Insects

📣 New paper alert. Latest study by @mingrui-li.bsky.social as part of his PhD @uniexecec.bsky.social on the impact of public access to land on #CitizenScience butterfly recording. 🥾⛔️📋🦋 @savebutterflies.bsky.social @ukceh.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...

The #KunmingDialogue is taking place in Kunming, China, this week. Three days of multi-stakeholder consultations will focus on the first Global Review of collective progress in implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in the lead-up to #COP17.

Don't forget to register for our next MEE live! Antica Čulina will introduce the concept of Risk of Bias (RoB), and discusses why RoB assessment matters for producing reliable systematic reviews and meta-analyses 🌍🧪 Find out more and register👇 buff.ly/8Hj79o9

New blog post!🚨 Antica Čulina tells the story of how a something that bugged them 15 years ago was finally formalised in a paper on a Risk of Bias assessment in ecological and evolutionary meta-analysis 🌍 🧪 Read the blog here 👇 buff.ly/si6MLJq

Delighted this huge team effort is out! By surveying >20,000 people from >100 countries, we used to butterflies to show that aesthetic biases distort scientific research & environmental policy. Understanding this bias is a key step towards more balanced decision-making 🦋 www.doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

What makes a multispecies abundance indicator "wrong", and what can be done to fix it? Read our new paper in Ecography to find out! @sacrevert.bsky.social @spakey.bsky.social @susanjarvis.bsky.social, Gary Powney and Xiao-Li Meng @uniexecec.bsky.social @ukceh.bsky.social doi.org/10.1002/ecog...

🦋 I’m recruiting a fully funded PhD student at the University of Helsinki: understanding how butterflies respond to climate change across Europe. Apply by 30 Sept: Full details: jobs.helsinki.fi/job-invite/5... Please share! #ecology #job #phd

📖Published📖 This new review article proposes several main steps towards increasing the use of Risk of Bias (RoB) assessment in ecology and evolutionary biology and highlights the important role of the synthesis community, but also of journals and funders 🌍 🧪 Read here 👇

The Journal of Mathematical Philosophy is now open for submissions! It is fully open access, with no fees for authors or readers. Please help spread the word, and do consider sending us your work. Very happy to be part of the inaugural editorial board. mathematicalphilosophy.org/mathphil

Current butterfly occurrence data largely reflect where citizen scientists can go, rather than solely where species occur 🚶‍♀️ Accessibility metrics can be used to inform citizen science survey design and aid interpretation of data. @mingruiliuml.bsky.social @robboyd.bsky.social tinyurl.com/2tbw3jf3

Why DAGs aren't just for causal inference and should often represent the observation process Check out our new paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.co... @r-cooke.bsky.social, Gary Powney and @sacrevert.bsky.social @ukceh.bsky.social @uniexecec.bsky.social

Are our ecological conclusions built on shaky foundations? Our latest paper in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social highlights that Risk of Bias (RoB) assessment, crucial for ensuring the internal validity of research, is almost never used in #systematicreviews in eco & evo 📉 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/2041...

Interesting

Scientists using LLMs (AI) to write/modify text & to précis the literature is a slippery slope Scientific training is about learning how to: write clearly & succinctly, assess the literature, develop our own knowledge, & be critical thinkers Using LLMs to do these undermines scientific integrity

We’re hiring! We invite applications for an Ecological Statistician to join our team. Work at the interface of cutting-edge biodiversity science and statistics. DL 27 May @jarnovanhatalo.bsky.social @rececochange.bsky.social @erc.europa.eu jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...

"The real threat is a slow, comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing. Not a dramatic collapse. Not Skynet. Just a generation of researchers who can produce results but can't produce understanding."

Fantastic that our paper using @ukbms.bsky.social data led by @robboyd.bsky.social @ukceh.bsky.social has been shortlisted for the best paper of the year prize! @savebutterflies.bsky.social

🏅 Shortlisted for the 2025 Robert May prize! 🏅 In his blog post, @robboyd.bsky.social talks about his paper 'Using causal diagrams and superpopulation models to correct geographic biases in biodiversity monitoring data' 🌍 🧪 Read the blog and find the full article 👇 buff.ly/a7UROJJ

🏅 Shortlisted for the 2025 Robert May prize! 🏅 In his paper, @jsmartin.bsky.social proposes a statistical model for detecting how complex, continuously varying environments shape the expression of and association among multiple organismal traits 🌍 Read more here 👇

In a sea of opinions about the role of LLMs in academics I offer my own. Apart from being harmful, exploitive plagiarism machines, LLMs rob us of the opportunity to experience the gift of friction in writing, which changes how we think. We must not give away that gift. doi.org/10.1002/fee....

We're pleased to announce the shortlist for this year's Robert May prize! 🌟 Each year, we award the Robert May prize to the best paper in the journal by an early career author 🧪 🌏 See the full list below 👇 buff.ly/SosksZF

Published 📖 Generalized graphical mixed models connect ecological theory with widely used statistical models GGMMs connect ecological theory with statistical models that are applied for inference, prediction, and causal analysis throughout ecology 🖥️ 🌍 🔎

As well as the FIT Count survey, we run a more systematic survey using insect traps in a set of 1 km squares across the UK. If you live near one of the red squares on the map and are interested in taking part please contact us for more details ukpoms.org.uk/one-km-squar...

CFP: Society for the Study of Measurement will be held at the University of Edinburgh June 22-25, 2026. Submit proposals for papers, symposia, & poster on any topics in the theory, history, philosophy, & application of measurement by January 15, 2026 app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/80364... #HPS

New paper on adaptive sampling for ecological monitoring published in @oikosjournal.bsky.social nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/.... Premise is to aim for proportional allocation across strata. Success depends on choice of stratifying variables. Oli Pescott’s brainchild

Science-integrity project will root out bad medical papers ‘and tell everyone’ Thrilled to announce this new $900,000 project headed by @jamesheathers.bsky.social

Ecologists’ endless quest for automatic inference statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/05/28/e...

Our new paper combines wildlife surveillance data and spatial risk modelling to map suitability for TBEV in GB. We identified key drivers linked to TBEV exposure in deer and produced risk maps, which can guide future surveillance and interventions. www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2...

DAGs are nice way to think about sample selection biases, Ecology edition. besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

It is only by understanding what causes sampling bias that we can correct it... Check out our new Blog post by @robboyd.bsky.social here! 👇 https://buff.ly/3PVHA30

This paper just out using data from the UKBMS to demonstrate different ways to think about bias in datasets.

📖Published📖 Our new research article demonstrates how you might combine expert knowledge with causal diagrams and superpopulation models to mitigate geographic biases in biodiversity monitoring data 🌎 🧪 Read it here 👇 https://buff.ly/3C2ZKws

What have causal diagrams got to do with sampling bias? Find out here! Great team @richardfoxbc.bsky.social @davidroybrc.bsky.social + oli Pescott, Colin harrower, Emily Dennis, Ian middlebrook and Marc Botham. @ukceh.bsky.social @ukbms.bsky.social

🚨 Interested in using #AI to help develop real-time early warnings of human-wildlife conflict? Apply for a fully-funded #PhD supervised by Vicky Boult (University of Reading) and our own @robboyd.bsky.social Part of the AI-INTERVENE programme. Deadline 27 Jan: www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

💡 Can we use data science and AI to make citizen science more engaging for participants and improve biodiversity data quality? 🧪 Apply now for a competition-funded #PhD opportunity to explore - deadline 27 Jan. www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Still a couple of weeks left to apply for this #PhD. How are pollinating #insects changing in the UK? This project will develop indicators for #pollinators using #citizenscience data. A collaboration between @ukceh.bsky.social, University of Reading and JNCC. tinyurl.com/3ve5szrh