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Reposted by Liam U. Taylor

c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 17h

The global whaling industry experienced a boom c. 1840-1950 as technology allowed whalers to hunt the Southern Ocean around Antarctica.

Under standard models, we would have expected krill populations to have *exploded*.

Instead, they DROPPED exponentially.

Let's talk about the KRILL PARADOX.

Change in distribution and abundance of southern right whales. (A) Shows historical and contemporary wintering distributions (Figure 1 from Carroll et al., 2018), and (B) shows decline in abundance and subsequent recovery (solid line is the mean, dashed line shows upper and lower 95% CI). Modified Figure 1 from Jackson et al. (2008). Contemporary sightings are divided into regions where large aggregations are seen during winter: Argentina (ARG), Brazil (BZL), South Africa (SAF), southwest Australia (SWA), south central Australia (SCA), and New Zealand sub-Antarctic (NZSA) and regions where sightings are typically of small numbers of individuals per year. The large aggregations are IWC management units and correspond to historical whaling grounds, although another 5 whaling grounds show little sign of recovery. Summer feeding areas are poorly described and so not shown.

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Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 3d

meanwhile all my friends have started looking like Buck Meek in the KEXP live version of Not by Big Thief

Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 3d

Born to look like Adrienne Lenker in the KEXP live version of Not by Big Thief, forced to look like James Krivchenia in the KEXP live version of Not by Big Thief

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Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 6d

just let me hyperlink to truth tables in all my sentences

Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 6d

styles don't allow "and/or" because it's vague, but there's even more trouble when I try to add "XOR" to my manuscripts? get a grip

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Reposted by Liam U. Taylor

Josef Uyeda @pseudacris.bsky.social · 7d

Master's degree position at Towson University with Daniel Caetano on macroevolutionary and phylogenetic comparative methods! Daniel is an awesome human and a great mentor, share with your students!
caetanods.weebly.com/join-the-lab...

Join the lab

The Caetano lab at Towson University (Maryland, USA) is seeking a Master's degree student to start in Fall 2026. A Research Assistant (RA) position is available to the student during part (or all) of....

caetanods.weebly.com

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Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 7d

(fair enough if authors themselves think it's rad, though)

Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 7d

I genuinely do not mean to be controversial but please we don't need taxonomic authorities in the TITLES of papers that aren't about systematics

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Reposted by Liam U. Taylor

Isabel J. Kim @isabel.kim · 8d

ive been on-and-off trying to write a story about AI for a couple of years, and I think i finally cracked it with WIRE MOTHER, which is out in @clarkesworldmagazine.com (tw in the post below).

also hey, this issue is stacked??

clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_10_25/

Wire Mother by Isabel J. Kim

Clarkesworld Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine and Podcast.

clarkesworldmagazine.com

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Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 15d

There are horrors beyond life's edge that we do not suspect,

Mid terms are November 3rd 2026. Go register voters. @randvegan.bsky.social · 15d

I use leading commas for all my functions.

mtcars |>
filter(
TRUE
,vs==1
, mpg > 20
, am!=0
)

Libby Heeren @libbyheeren.bsky.social · 16d

Tell me something you do when you code that other people would tell you that you shouldn't do.

Tell me the rules you break!

I'll go first: I work in untitled files in the wrong project directories all the time. Like, all the time. Yes, I do tend to lose things 😂 #databs #rstats #python

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Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 15d

an important part of modern biology is picking appropriate proxies for fitness, which are carefully confirmed by anonymous peer reviewers by checking whether there is a tradeoff in those proxies

Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 15d

so it's true I'm optimized, as I always suspected

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Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 15d

Literally just the abstract to van Noordwijk and de Jong 1986

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Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 15d

In the 1980s biologists discovered the idea that an organism cannot be in two places at once, which was hailed as a major innovation at the time

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Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 15d

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Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 15d

my face when I read this sentence in 1000 papers 100000 times per day

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Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 15d

Understanding the tradeoff between the tradeoff between the tradeoffs between current and future tradeoffs between future and current reproductive success is critical for evaluating long term trends in tradeoffs between current and future reproductive success.

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Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 17d

This is sick, Dan!

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Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 17d

Now with pages in Conservation Biology

Clarifying the so-called gull problem in the Gulf of Maine: Response to Taylor et al. (2024)
doi.org/10.1111/cobi...

Incomplete progress toward reasoning about the gull problem: Reply to Diamond et al. (2025)
doi.org/10.1111/cobi...

#gulls

Clarifying the so‐called gull problem in the Gulf of Maine: Response to Taylor et al. (2024)

Click on the article title to read more.

doi.org

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Reposted by Liam U. Taylor

Sarah Dalrymple @sarahdalgulls.bsky.social · 17d

I'm sure anything that comes out of the Seagull Summit, and the reactions by everyone else to it, will be calm, measured, and sensible

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Inverness summit to look at problems posed by urban gulls

The Scottish government says the Inverness event will bring together community groups and experts.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 17d

I've drawn us a helpful diagram

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Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 17d

In general, though, I find my colleagues and I profoundly disrespectful of centuries of progress made in other disciplines (especially the humanities)

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Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 17d

like, Nancy Cartwright is the one to tell me whether I've found a *law* of evolution. I should shut up and measure birds. Not because I'm weak or dumb, just because I've thought a lot about birds, and she's thought a lot about laws

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Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 17d

I don't care that practicing scientists flounder foundational terms (say 'meaning' in signaling, 'law' in evolution, 'nature' in conservation) - that's too much to ask for their (our) skills/interests.

I do find it frustrating and unnecessary that they (we) constantly build *from* those terms

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Reposted by Liam U. Taylor

KaterFritz 🐔 🤔 🥚 @konkretbitte.bsky.social · 19d

🎨 Huang Yongyu (1992)

Vier stilisierte blaue Reiher mit langen Hälsen und gelben Augen blicken nach rechts; rechts chinesische Kalligrafie und rote Siegel.

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