Matthew Holden ๐Ÿณ๏ธโ€๐ŸŒˆ
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matthholden.bsky.social
Matthew Holden ๐Ÿณ๏ธโ€๐ŸŒˆ
@matthholden.bsky.social

Mathematician working in Ecology, Biodiversity Conservation, Fisheries, Natural Resource Management, Wildlife Trade, and Sustainability. Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland. President of the Resource Modeling Association #LGBTQSTEM he/they .. more

Matthew Holden Jr. was an American political scientist.

Source: Wikipedia
Environmental science 52%
Geography 13%
Pinned
My new paper on the #math of #wildlife friendly #agriculture. Reduce pesticides by using attractive "trap" plants to divert pests. But how many traps maximize yield? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #MathSky #MathsToday #iteachmath ๐ŸŒ Accessible to undergrads @smbmathbiology.bsky.social

Beautiful math predicts lingering periods of equilibrium dynamics when stochastically knocked close to the stable manifold of a saddle. Wonderful talk by shandelle Henson at #JMM2026 @jointmath.bsky.social on recognising saddles and cycles in ecological data.

Are you presenting on your students work at #jmm2026? remember to properly credit it and promote your student! Yun Kang did this really well in her awesome talk on the math of social insects! @jointmath.bsky.social

How do we achieve a better life while reducing emissions and energy consumption? Math! By Alexander Vaninski at #JMM2026 @jointmath.bsky.social. come join us 8am-5pm today in room 149 A for more math ecology, econ, disease and environmental talks.

Awesome talk on modeling illegal smuggling of wildlife and plant products at #JMM2026 @jointmath.bsky.social by Becky Epanchin Niell

Great talk by Suzanne Robertson on competition of mosquito disease vectors #JMM2026 @jointmath.bsky.social at the special session on modeling natural resources.

Come to our special session on modeling natural resources (ecology, diseases, environment, econ) at #JMM2026 room 149A today 8am-5pm @resourcemodeling.bsky.social @jointmath.bsky.social @amermathsoc.bsky.social first up climate + mosquitos + disease + ODEs by Michael Robert

For those who have never had Ethiopian. It's amazing. Lots of stews, eaten with a fermented flat bread called enjira. It's like a sourdough pancake made from a mix of teff & wheat flour. This place has a mild one that isn't as sour as the Eritrean version I'm more familiar with from back home.

Looking for food at #JMM2026. I recommend Family Ethiopian Restaurant, I visited last night. 5 min walk from convention centre. Vegetarian entrees start at $12! Fish Dulet, pictured, was excellently garlicky maps.app.goo.gl/B1bj2BGHCTop... @amermathsoc.bsky.social @jointmath.bsky.social

Looking for food at #JMM2026. I recommend Family Ethiopian Restaurant, I visited last night. 5 min walk from convention centre. Vegetarian entrees start at $12! Fish Dulet, pictured, was excellently garlicky maps.app.goo.gl/B1bj2BGHCTop... @amermathsoc.bsky.social @jointmath.bsky.social

Goals for day 1 at #JMM2026 1) eat good Ethiopian food 2) learn new #math 3) see cool math & street art 4) get over jetlag from Australia 5) acclimate to subzero temps. Accomplished 3/5 @jointmath.bsky.social @amermathsoc.bsky.social

You might be surprised how much impact an in person conversation with your representative can have. Take advantage of being in DC and do this!
Hey if you're in DC, you can just stop by your reps' offices. If you're leaving before the Hill Day after #JMM26 but want to go to the Capitol anyway, grab a few pals and go!

Take green/yellow to L'Enfant Plaza then blue/orange to Capitol Hill South.

Reposted by Matthew Holden

Hey if you're in DC, you can just stop by your reps' offices. If you're leaving before the Hill Day after #JMM26 but want to go to the Capitol anyway, grab a few pals and go!

Take green/yellow to L'Enfant Plaza then blue/orange to Capitol Hill South.

It's baffling why the Go8 (a group of 8 leading universities in Australia) endorsed a position to weaken environmental laws. Not only do we, the researchers at these universities, disagree, but our research shows it is a bad idea. In just one day, 90 Go8 researchers documented our opposition.
We have no answers from our institutions as to why Go8 universities endorsed BCA's regressive EPBC recommendations

But 90 of us have signed an 'Independent statement on the Group of Eightโ€™s position on EPBC Act reforms'

๐Ÿ™ Prof Justine Bell-James for writing & coordinating the independent statement
We have no answers from our institutions as to why Go8 universities endorsed BCA's regressive EPBC recommendations

But 90 of us have signed an 'Independent statement on the Group of Eightโ€™s position on EPBC Act reforms'

๐Ÿ™ Prof Justine Bell-James for writing & coordinating the independent statement

Cute little spikey echidnas have massive poos! The size of a go card! The ๐Ÿ’ฉ can also be detected by dogs. Let's turn ๐Ÿ’ฉ into conservation solutions. Great talk by Kate Dutton-Regester at @uq-cbcs.bsky.social @brisbanetimes.bsky.social @qld.greens.org.au @hugepossum.bsky.social

Don't post your preprint on SSRN (option at many journals). Google scholar often delists papers that have an SSRN preprint. Arxiv preprints are more prominent in scholar. @elsevierconnect.bsky.social @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social @academic-chatter.bsky.social eg. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Expand or better manage protected areas: A framework for minimizing extinction risk when threats are concentrated near edges
Several international agreements have called for the rapid expansion of protected areas to halt biodiversity declines. However, recent research has shโ€ฆ
www.sciencedirect.com

Love this Nesbit lecture by prof Ben Andrews on using the diffusion equation as a tool to understand geometry.

Our new paper: If you get a bit more conservation $ should you expand a protected area or improve management? Past work suggests management is often more cost effective but we show when threats are concentrated near edges we find expanding may be optimal doi.org/10.1016/j.bi... ๐ŸŒ
Redirecting
doi.org
the answer to the trolley problem is not to pick who to sacrifice, itโ€™s to dismantle the system that led to an unsafe trolley crossing.

if any part of your morality strategy involves picking a group to let die on a hill, throw the entire strategy out. itโ€™s wrong.

Reposted by Hugh P. Possingham

New blog: As a grant peer reviewer I consider Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) even if the scheme doesn't list EDI criteria. Key is to tie the selection criteria to EDI. This is how I do it mathemagicalconservation.wordpress.com/2025/09/23/a... @katehelmstedt.bsky.social @hugepossum.bsky.social
As a grant reviewer, how do you request Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, even if it isnโ€™t an explicit selection criterion
Many funding schemes now include equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) as an explicit selection criterion. But what happens when it isnโ€™t written into the rubric? Should applicants still consider โ€ฆ
mathemagicalconservation.wordpress.com

Happy 4^ / 3^2 / 5^2 day!!! (3^2/ 4^2 / 5^2 for us weird Americans) Not too many days satisfy the Pythagorean thm. @amermathsoc.bsky.social @austms.bsky.social @stevenstrogatz.com @monsoon0.bsky.social ht Peter Baxter for noticing. Looking forward to coming back to the US for joint maths in Jan.
Ooh arXiv paper from @matthholden.bsky.social @katehelmstedt.bsky.social about embedding sustainability in undergraduate maths with case studies ๐Ÿ‘€ Looks very actionable!

arxiv.org/abs/2508.07594
Embedding Sustainability in Undergraduate Mathematics with Actionable Case Studies
There is a growing need to integrate sustainability into tertiary mathematics education given the urgency of addressing global environmental challenges. This paper presents four case studies from Aust...
arxiv.org
Excited for our annual conference on modeling for ecology, biodiversity, sustainability, environment, water, energy, climate, fisheries, forestry, & ag. Love all the cool #math & stats used to save the world. Join us in Stellenbosch 2026. ๐ŸŒ#MathSky @hugepossum.bsky.social @katehelmstedt.bsky.social
Announcement: The World Conference on Natural Resource Modeling 2026 will be in Stellenbosch, South Africa, set in the heart of Africaโ€™s Cape Winelands (30 min uber from Cape Town Int. Airport) June 30 โ€“ July 3. Propose a special session & bring your friends here resourcemodeling.org/wcnrm2026-st...
WCNRM#2026 Stellenbosch, South Africa - Resource Modeling Association
resourcemodeling.org
Announcement: The World Conference on Natural Resource Modeling 2026 will be in Stellenbosch, South Africa, set in the heart of Africaโ€™s Cape Winelands (30 min uber from Cape Town Int. Airport) June 30 โ€“ July 3. Propose a special session & bring your friends here resourcemodeling.org/wcnrm2026-st...
WCNRM#2026 Stellenbosch, South Africa - Resource Modeling Association
resourcemodeling.org
getting in an arms race with LLMs over em-dashes by using dashes so long โ€”โ€”โ€” so very long โ€”โ€”โ€” that they have never appeared in training data

Great work classifying ecosystems around the world to create an IUCN red list of ecosystems presented by Prof Emily Nicholson. Shows a small global decline in ecosystems but with extreme variation with some declining rapidly. ๐ŸŒ
@aciucn.bsky.social @uq-cbcs.bsky.social

Just saw this amazing science article - Beetle grows replica โ€˜termiteโ€™ on back to steal food www.science.org/content/arti.... Despite it being in Australia it wasn't one of the 1,168 species in our Brisbane home but we did find 6 species of rove beetle doi.org/10.1002/ecy....
Beetle grows โ€˜termiteโ€™ on back to steal food
Puppet helps insect trick real termites into feeding it
www.science.org

Yes, where nuclear plants exist they should continue and be maximised to produce relatively clean energy. Of course, in Australia, and other sunny locations building new nuclear plants is extremely costly compared to solar, even accounting for storage and would be wildly irresponsible.

The latter (sorry character limits created the ambiguity). Agree with you, given that accounting for species protection only adds 2-3%cost, it would be interesting to see what the cost contribution of the renewables are alone. Would help to put that 2-3% in context.