Matthew Holden 🏳️‍🌈
@matthholden.bsky.social
2.3K followers 860 following 79 posts
Mathematician working in Ecology, Biodiversity Conservation, Fisheries, Natural Resource Management, Wildlife Trade, and Sustainability. Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland. Vice president of the Resource Modeling Association #LGBTQSTEM he/they
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matthholden.bsky.social
When do you need to collect more data? ... surprisingly, more data often has little value for decisions. Our new paper unravels why "Value of Information Analyses" can yield surprising results in #ecology doi.org/10.1111/2041... w @katehelmstedt.bsky.social in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social 🌍
3D plots showing how the value of information is often low and only high when an analytic condition is met. See the paper in link for a full description  Plots showing how the value of information depends on the number of actions and states, with more actions and states often leading to higher value of information. See the paper in the link for a full description
matthholden.bsky.social
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.
matthholden.bsky.social
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. 🌍#MathSky @hugepossum.bsky.social @katehelmstedt.bsky.social
resourcemodeling.bsky.social
Announcement: The World Conference on Natural Resource Modeling 2026 will be in Stellenbosch, South Africa, set in the heart of Africa’s Cape Winelands (30 min uber from Cape Town Int. Airport) June 30 – July 3. Propose a special session & bring your friends here resourcemodeling.org/wcnrm2026-st...
WCNRM#2026 Stellenbosch, South Africa - Resource Modeling Association
resourcemodeling.org
Reposted by Matthew Holden 🏳️‍🌈
benjaminpope.bsky.social
getting in an arms race with LLMs over em-dashes by using dashes so long ——— so very long ——— that they have never appeared in training data
matthholden.bsky.social
Please share: PhD scholarship opportunity in mathematical ecology on the value of information for improving ecological management, open to international students, with a great team @hugepossum.bsky.social, Katriona Shea, Kate Helmstedt, & me at UQ, Australia 🌍 🧮, study.uq.edu.au/study-option...
The value of information for ecological management
study.uq.edu.au
matthholden.bsky.social
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. 🌍
@aciucn.bsky.social @uq-cbcs.bsky.social
matthholden.bsky.social
Just saw this amazing science article - Beetle grows replica ‘termite’ 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 ‘termite’ on back to steal food
Puppet helps insect trick real termites into feeding it
www.science.org
matthholden.bsky.social
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.
matthholden.bsky.social
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.
matthholden.bsky.social
He accounted for infrastructure to go the longer distance from the network when avoiding threatened species. Don't think there would be a difference in storage requirements with the increased distance. Storage is mostly about the baseline cost of renewables the % increase is on top of that.
matthholden.bsky.social
Bycatch reduction interventions are effective for improving marine species populations but very few studies report the impacts on fisher safety, and other fisher objectives. This is a major barrier to adoption. Great talk by Cindy Vargas @arizonastateuni.bsky.social at #iccb2025.
matthholden.bsky.social
We can achieve 100% renewable energy in Australia & also protect threatened species impacted by wind and solar developments with only 2-3% increase in electricity bills compared to if we didn't consider threatened species. #iccb2025 great talk by A Rogers
Reposted by Matthew Holden 🏳️‍🌈
cfiesler.bsky.social
I really dislike this sentiment re: AI impacts on education: If an assignment can be completed by AI then it is clearly just busy work; educators need to create better assignments.

Absolutely not true. Just because AI can do something too doesn't mean that doing it doesn't have pedagogical value.
Reposted by Matthew Holden 🏳️‍🌈
sbagley.bsky.social
Every proof in every undergrad math class can be pooped out by the random sentence machine. The point is exactly to engage in the process of generating a proof.
cfiesler.bsky.social
I really dislike this sentiment re: AI impacts on education: If an assignment can be completed by AI then it is clearly just busy work; educators need to create better assignments.

Absolutely not true. Just because AI can do something too doesn't mean that doing it doesn't have pedagogical value.
Reposted by Matthew Holden 🏳️‍🌈
michaelplanknz.bsky.social
💯
lcsnz.bsky.social
The push for AI makes this even worse because we could very quickly end up in a situation where there are few or no early-career roles. Having computers do the easy stuff is all well and good until you realise *people* have to do the easy stuff to learn how to do the complex stuff.
matthholden.bsky.social
Please share. 2 tenure-track T&R math/stat jobs at the University of Queensland, Australia. Amazing weather, gorgeous campus & lifestyle. 17% employer retirement contribution, lots of leave. Strong global reputation. Supports diversity @stevenstrogatz.com uq.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/uqcare...
Reposted by Matthew Holden 🏳️‍🌈
ehekkala.bsky.social
🧪🧬🦠🌎🐍🐸🦅🐠🐡🐙
lordreptar.bsky.social
hi guys ik i don’t get political often, but this is super important and incredibly messed up. please like, repost, and fill out a comment

www.regulations.gov/commenton/FW...

#wildlife #ecology #conservation #biology #usa #habitatdisruption #preservation #development #earthday #government
On April 16th 2025, the federal government proposed to change the interpretation of the Endangered Species Act so that it no longer protects habitat

Scan to submit a public comment April 17th – May 18th
matthholden.bsky.social
My top tips for conferences 1) have fun, Skip some talks 2) go to the poster session 3) focus your talk/poster around one main message w email address on last slide 4) see who's attending in the program before you arrive and schedule meetings. @iccb2025.bsky.social
www.instagram.com/reel/DJQd0_h...
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matthholden.bsky.social
Amazing talk by Dr Helen Mayfield on building models to manage ecosystems by consulting experts in a systematic way (expert elicitation) ... and most importantly an evaluation of whether it worked. @uq-cbcs.bsky.social @martinemaron.bsky.social
Reposted by Matthew Holden 🏳️‍🌈
arc-tracker.bsky.social
The total Australian Research Council budget is $1bn.
grogsgamut.bsky.social
Always remember - budgets are about choices
www.theguardian.com/business/gro...
Charts showing cost of increasing Jobseeker to 90% of age pension base - $3.5bn; raising it to 90% of total age pension - $5.2bn. Cost of super concessions for the richest 10% - $9.9bn + $10.4bn, cost of capital gains discount for the richest 10% - $18.6bn, cost of fuel tax credit for mining companies - $4.8bn
matthholden.bsky.social
Great talk by @alicetwomey.bsky.social on solving the barriers for transdisciplinary research in conservation at the @uq-cbcs.bsky.social seminar. The methods exist we just need to use them. doi.org/10.1016/j.pe...