Tanya Strydom
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tanyadoesscience.bsky.social
Tanya Strydom
@tanyadoesscience.bsky.social

🇿🇦 | postdoc | food web weaver 🕸 (now with bonus 🦖) | fancy maths 🧮 | part-time doodler 🎨 | warm beverage fan ☕️ | she/they 💬 | 🏠 https://tanyadoesscience.com

Environmental science 47%
Biology 17%

Thanks @gracielle.science ☺️☺️☺️ I'm in my Gen-Z science comm era 🧬💻🦄

Shoutout time 📣: Big love to my co-authors @dralexdunhill.bsky.social , Jennifer Dunne, @ctrlalttim.com and @beckerhopper.bsky.social. Couldn’t have done it without you. 🙌💖

Bottom line: Networks are picky, assumptions are queen, and our framework is a cheat code. 🫡

4️⃣ A unified framework improves application and progress:
We built something of a 'network GPS' 🗺️🕸️ to help pick the right network for the right question. This keeps everyone from getting lost in the jungle of misinterpretation 🌳😵‍💫 and makes progress actually progress 📈🚀.

3️⃣ Explicit assumptions are essential for evaluation:
If you don’t know what assumptions went into making your network, you’re basically guessing 🎲❌🌱. Spell them out ✍️📝 so your analysis isn’t just chaos in disguise ⚡🕸️.

2️⃣ Network representations are not interchangeable:
There’s no one-size-fits-all 🤷‍♀️🧢. Your favorite network might be great for unicorns 🦄 but terrible for horses 🐴. Pick your network like you pick your Netflix shows 🍿📺—what you’re actually trying to watch.

1️⃣ Network representations encode different processes:
Different networks = different vibes. Some networks are about who eats who 🍴🦌🦅, some are about who hangs out with whom 🫂🌿. Knowing the network’s 'personality' is key to asking the right questions 🧠✨.

Preprint alert 🚨 (yes, I still go online, shocker)

Scaling from Metawebs to Realised Webs: A Hierarchical Approach to Network Ecology

TL;DR: Networks are like… weirdly finicky and if you want your network analysis to not be a sad chaos, check this preprint: [https://doi.org/10.32942/X2JW8K] 🏠💻

It should be illegal to have cool science brainwave moments after 16:00 on a Friday - if only to try and keep the work-life balance somewhat respectable

Peak vibes, no cap 🔥

@hadley.nz , you’re so real for this 😭🙌

Lowkey spent my whole day glowin’ up my code with the new `genzplyr` pack — it’s giving ✨clean syntax✨ fr.

hadley.github.io/genzplyr/ind...
dplyr but make it bussin fr fr no cap
`genzplyr` is an alternative syntax for `dplyr` that replaces boring old function names with GenZ slang. Your data wrangling is about to hit different.
hadley.github.io

Reposted by Tanya Strydom

Happy to announce the next edition of the @sortee.bsky.social Workshop & Webinar series on October 27 at 16:00UTC, ‘The Risks and Rewards of Large Language Models in (open) Scientific Research’ with @tanyadoesscience.bsky.social !! Sign up here:
events.humanitix.com/sortee-webin...
SORTEE Webinar: The Risks and Rewards of Large Language Models in (Open) Scientific Research
SORTEE Workshop & Webinar Series
events.humanitix.com

Whoever decided to host the poster session in the Natural history museum you are my hero! 🤩

Cat croissants! 🐱🥐

Stickers placed = conference mode loading 🤓🤓🤓

Looking forward to learning about DINOSAURS!!!

Best of both worlds? Start with the Smörgåstårta, followed by Fish n Chips (with mushy peas obvi), and round it out with the Prinsesstårta. Simple!

They've done it again... This time with adding (unnecessary) visual detail to the zero commit days. Inconsolable 😭😭😭
I feel like GitHub has (very subtly) modified the gradient they use for ones contributions calendar... I am going to need 2-4 business days to come to terms with this…

“Back in time for tea and medals”

Celebrating the end of a fun fieldwork campaign the British way™

I feel like GitHub has (very subtly) modified the gradient they use for ones contributions calendar... I am going to need 2-4 business days to come to terms with this…
New paper! (arxiv.org/abs/2503.14093) I haven’t been this excited about one in a while, and I think the theory @mhab.bsky.social develops here will be a big step forward for the field. Why? Let me explain 🧵...

I had a class of 4th graders and 10th graders! And yeah for sure! 🥰 Or they're asking 'big questions' and you're questioning why we as a field haven't thought of it yet!

Thanks @gracielle.science for passively convincing me to register! xx

I've just had two @skypeascientist.bsky.social sessions today, and honestly it might just be the most rewarding part of this job. 🥲 Highly recommended for anyone who has the bandwidth/time for some science outreach

Reporting from the trenches - i.e., emerging after a battle trying to use excel formulas and conditional formatting... Why does it all have to be one line though??
Get simulating! #Biodiversity / #foodweb dynamics with #julialang. Classic bioenergetic model, consolidation of lots of add-ons & super fast.

Very happy to share this, a result of amazing collaborators and a rich history of model development.

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
EcologicalNetworksDynamics.jl: A Julia package to simulate the temporal dynamics of complex ecological networks
Species interactions play a crucial role in shaping biodiversity, species coexistence, population dynamics, community stability and ecosystem functioning. Our understanding of the role of the dive...
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Current me: Right I’ve said yes to this review I’m going to get it done in the next few days and submit my comments nice and early

Me in a fortnight: Submitting my review the day before the deadline counts as early right?

The lack of post it notes is disappointing… :p

I recently made the jump to using Quarto (which you can host via GitHub pages). Quarto is also handy if you’re also keen on the reproducible reports (think Rmd manuscripts) space. It’s a bit of a learning curve but a fun one!

tanyadoesscience.com
Tanya Strydom – TanyaDoesScience
Postdoctoral Researcher
tanyadoesscience.com

I promise I’m a functional adult... Anyway if anyone wants to see me unspool the crazy catch me talking about food webs at poster session one tomorrow #BES2024

ORCID
orcid.org