Nathan Byer
testudinidude.bsky.social
Nathan Byer
@testudinidude.bsky.social
Had a real "shoe on the other foot" moment today! I logged onto a zoom webinar, while finishing up a phone call.

I wasn't muted.

It was a thesis defense.

Bye everyone, gonna go walk into the sea.
a man in a suit is walking into the ocean .
ALT: a man in a suit is walking into the ocean .
media.tenor.com
April 4, 2025 at 6:39 PM
A bit late in announcing this, but we have a manuscript out in Ecological Applications on breeding bird occupancy across urban-rural gradients! Open access link here: doi.org/10.1002/eap..... We also have an RShiny app for the dataset, available here: testudinidude.shinyapps.io/bbsapp/.
Breeding bird sensitivity to urban habitat quality is multi‐scale and strongly dependent on migratory behavior
Human-caused conversion of natural habitat areas to developed land cover represents a major driver of habitat loss and fragmentation, leading to reorganization of biological communities. Although pro...
doi.org
February 20, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Manuscript acceptance on a Wednesday afternoon 🥂 can't wait to share it with you all soon!
December 4, 2024 at 7:36 PM
Reposted by Nathan Byer
Growing up (during my PhD, 25 y ago), I was imprinted with Hurlbert ‘s 1984 paper on « Pseudoreplication and the design of ecological field experiments ».
This new paper is essential reading for all students in ecology (and beyond), digging deeper in terminology of design and design flaws 👇
I wrote (ranted) on experimental design as I was frustrated as an editor at how little guidance students were getting. I underestimated the interest in the issue: it has been downloaded 10,000+ times! Clearly it’s something we need to be talking about more. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Principles of experimental design for ecology and evolution
Here I argue that we do not discuss experimental design, often until it is too late. This editorial seeks to begin a conversation about how and where to replicate appropriately.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 24, 2024 at 9:10 AM
Also! In case you missed it, some of our UNH partners (Taylor Readyhough and Rem Moll) just published a paper on some of our deer management data! Check it out:

link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Unveiling drivers of fecundity in an urban white-tailed deer population over 20 years of active management - Urban Ecosystems
White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus; hereafter “deer”) are keystone herbivores that exert considerable ecosystem impacts. Quantifying drivers of urban deer demography, including fecundity (numbe...
link.springer.com
November 20, 2024 at 3:18 PM
Reposted by Nathan Byer
Interested in quantifying animal diel activity with hierarchical models? Check out this amazing how-to guide from @fa-bio-la.bsky.social , @science-action.bsky.social , and John Fieberg! 🧪

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
A ‘how‐to’ guide for estimating animal diel activity using hierarchical models
We illustrate how hierarchical models can be used to estimate animal diel activity whilst accounting for variability in activity levels and sampling effort. These models also allow researchers to mor....
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 19, 2024 at 5:01 PM
Reposted by Nathan Byer
btw these large scary math symbols are just for-loops
November 17, 2024 at 6:39 PM
Alright! First blue sky post! I'm a quantitative ecologist and Conservation biologist in Cleveland OH. I work on lots of fun datasets, but worked with turtles for most of my career!
November 19, 2024 at 4:54 PM