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Tomos Potter @tomospotter.bsky.social · 1d

And maybe ‘highly motivated’ is overrated. Isn’t there some (possibly apocryphal) quote from Bill Gates about giving the hardest problems to the laziest coders, because they will find the easiest way to get the job done?

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Tomos Potter @tomospotter.bsky.social · 5d

youtu.be/zl-wAqplQAo?...

Can confirm this is great. Like a skate/bmx/climbing road-trip film but about birding. Recommend.

LISTERS: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching

YouTube video by owen reiser

youtu.be

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Tomos Potter @tomospotter.bsky.social · 5d

Apparently the Romans had glass windows in 100AD, and I bet they threw people through them, and I bet someone wanted to tell people about it. I wonder how long after the word (or its ancestor) was coined?

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Reposted by Tomos Potter

Vaughn Cooper @vscooper.micropopbio.org · 5d

Straight out of the Cambrian explosion

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution @whoi.edu · 5d

Meet the “squidworm” 🦑🪱

Discovered by WHOI biologist Larry Madin and colleagues, this 4-inch-long animal was just one of roughly 6,000 new species uncovered during the Census of Marine Life, a decade-long global effort involving more than 2,700 scientists to explore and document ocean life.

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Tomos Potter @tomospotter.bsky.social · 17d

Good work, much more efficient.

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Tomos Potter @tomospotter.bsky.social · 17d

Always open to constructive criticism of my sloppy code!

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Reposted by Tomos Potter

Timothée Poisot @ctrlalttim.com · 18d

In community ecology, this is called the "Appendix XVII of a Peter Abrams paper" effect

José Cerca @naturalselection.bsky.social · 18d

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Tomos Potter @tomospotter.bsky.social · 17d

See also: Antonovics

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Tomos Potter @tomospotter.bsky.social · 17d

spoiler alert: youtu.be/w0N4twV28Mw?...

Ini Kamoze - Here Comes The Hotstepper (HQ)

YouTube video by youpi444

youtu.be

Tomos Potter @tomospotter.bsky.social · 17d

I have updated and improved the is.na() function in #Rstats.
You're welcome.

na.vibe.check <- function(x){
ifelse(table(is.na(x))["TRUE"]>0,
browseURL("https://tinyurl.com/muhjvec6"),
print("all good"))
}

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Tomos Potter @tomospotter.bsky.social · 19d

New book arrived! Looking forward to learning more about the bonkers life of JBS Haldane. I also note that he sports the same hairstyle that is (sadly) traditional among men in my family. Seems like we will have that in common at least!

A photo of the book “A Dominant Character” by Samantha Subramanian, on the life of JBS Haldane. The cover shows a photo of JBS with a distinctly bald head.

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Reposted by Tomos Potter

Dr. Elizabeth Santos @lizmillermacroevo.bsky.social · Aug 21

I am recruiting graduate students to begin August 2026. Apply by Nov 15th!

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Tomos Potter @tomospotter.bsky.social · 29d

To truly understand Tinbergen's behaviour here, you have to address four questions, starting with (1) what is the function of him making his own fish food? (2) how did his fish food making evolve... etc, etc

Arvid Ågren @arvidagren.bsky.social · 29d

Another fun Morris memory:

Tinbergen was annoyed when grad students bought fish food instead of making their own. To him, it lacked the dignity of labour.

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Tomos Potter @tomospotter.bsky.social · Sep 5

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Tomos Potter @tomospotter.bsky.social · Sep 2

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Reposted by Tomos Potter

Silu Wang (she/her)🇨🇦 @siluwang.bsky.social · Aug 30

Why do speciation rates vary across the tree of life?
Some of the best yet most underappreciated places for this investigation are natural hybrid zones.
This preprint takes you to the hybrid zones in the origin of species to find a clue. 👉 shorturl.at/N7FXE
#Speciation #Evolution #hybridization

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Reposted by Tomos Potter

Erik Postma @erikpostma.bsky.social · Aug 21

Unfortunately, our invited speaker @colingarroway.bsky.social is stuck in Canada, but on the upside you will get to hear more about the work by Timothée Bonnet, who is taking over his slot, and from Lizy Mittell about her super relevant work on the invisible fraction! You won’t want to miss this!

Erik Postma @erikpostma.bsky.social · Aug 21

If you are at #ESEB2025 and you are interested in predicting evolution 🧬📈 - retrospectively and into to the future - then you are in luck! Symposium 42 organised by @joelpick.bsky.social and Lizy Mittell is on today, and S24 by myself and @sevans.bsky.social tomorrow!

Erik Postma @erikpostma.bsky.social · Apr 11

What do you think, can we forecast evolution❓

@sevans.bsky.social and I would love to hear your thoughts, so if you are going to #ESEB2025, submit a talk to our symposium (S24: Forecasting evolution in natural populations) and join @colingarroway.bsky.social and Patrik Nosil!

Deadline April 25.

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Reposted by Tomos Potter

Gaurav Athreya @gauravathreya.bsky.social · Aug 16

hello to everyone going to #ESEB2025! want to hear about the consequences of age-dependent plasticity in reproducing via sex vs. asex? I will give a talk at 11:15am on Thursday in S15.02. come for the pretty Hydra illustrations, stay for the novel evolutionary insights on facultative sex!

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Reposted by Tomos Potter

Uthara Srinivasan @utharasrini.bsky.social · Aug 17

Eagerly awaiting possibly, the most eco-evo-packed experience of my scientific career so far, at #ESEB2025!! Come by to my Poster P01.216 on 18/08, if you want to know about some previous work about population genomic inference of life history traits (1/2)

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Tomos Potter @tomospotter.bsky.social · Aug 17

#eseb2025 come see bob's talk!

bob week @bweek.bsky.social · Aug 17

hai eseb people ! come to my talk introducing the quantitative genetics of microbiome mediated traits :) 2:30-2:45 at S07.02

btw our ppr just got accepted at evolution ! amazing and challenging reviews ::)) revised pre-print here

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Quantitative Genetics of Microbiome Mediated Traits

Multicellular organisms host a rich assemblage of associated microorganisms, collectively known as their “microbiomes”. Microbiomes have the capacity to influence their hosts’ fitnesses, but the condi...

www.biorxiv.org

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Tomos Potter @tomospotter.bsky.social · Aug 17

What if your family members turn out to be your worst enemies? Come see my talk at #eseb2025 on using pedigree and mark-recapture data to explore how relatedness structures competitive interactions, and whether this maintains variation! Thursday, 11am, S48.02, meeting room 122+123

The title slide of the talk I'll be giving. It reads: Are mitochondrial sisters their own worst enemies? Testing for negative frequency-dependent selection via resource competition in Trinidadian guppies. There is a depiction of a guppy family tree.

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Reposted by Tomos Potter

Shikhara Bhat @shikharabhat.bsky.social · Aug 16

Hey #ESEB2025 folk! I'll be presenting my work on describing evolution in finite populations at 11:30 am on Tuesday in S-03. Drop by to learn how taking ecology and variable population size seriously changes classic pop gen descriptions like the Price eqn, revealing novel directional eco-evo forces.

An illustration with populations on the left and mathematical representations of these populations in terms of birth-death processes on the right

Stochastic differential equations for trait frequencies, mean value of a trait, and the variance of a trait in the population

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Tomos Potter @tomospotter.bsky.social · Aug 12

dt <- as.data.table(data-frame)
dt <- dt[order(x)]
dt[!is.na(x), y[1], by=g]

Tomos Potter @tomospotter.bsky.social · Jul 29

I haven’t personally seen Wolf Hall, but my dad (who has) confirms the accuracy of Mark Rylance’s expression described as “that of a ferret saddened by developments in France”

Sarah Dempster @dempster2000.bsky.social · Jul 29

I’ve written about TV’s best and worst historical epics

The Guardian @theguardian.com · Jul 29

TV’s best (and worst) historical epics: from Wolf Hall to I, Claudius

Reposted by Tomos Potter

Gaurav Athreya @gauravathreya.bsky.social · Jul 23

Interested in host-symbiont interdependence, eukaryogenesis, and evolutionary transitions in individuality? my first paper just came out! With @gokhalecs.bsky.social and Pete Czuppon, we study when & how individuality emerges in a host-endosymbiont collective doi.org/10.1086/737588 a short thread🧵:

figure 1 from https://doi.org/10.1086/737588 describing (a) our conceptualisation of an evolutionary transition in individuality, (b) an interpretation of the traits that we consider in our mathematical model, and (c) a graphical representation of the population dynamics in the model.

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