Duncan O’Brien
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duncanobrien.bsky.social
Duncan O’Brien
@duncanobrien.bsky.social
Research associate at the University of Bristol and NINA. Critical transitions, dynamics, and conservation action in aquatic ecosystems. #Rstats, ecology, tipping points

Website: http://duncanobrien.github.io
Reposted by Duncan O’Brien
PhD position at the University of Bristol (with me!) entitled 'The legacy impacts of extreme climate events on animal behaviour, physiology, and fitness'.

Fully funded and is available for UK-domiciled students of black heritage. Please reach out with any questions.

tinyurl.com/5n7s8yp9
Funded PhD open to UK-domiciled, home fee applicants of Black African, Black Caribbean or other Black or mixed Black heritage - The legacy impacts of extreme climate events on animal behaviour, physio...
PhD Project - Funded PhD open to UK-domiciled, home fee applicants of Black African, Black Caribbean or other Black or mixed Black heritage - The legacy impacts of extreme climate events on animal beh...
www.findaphd.com
October 21, 2025 at 9:00 AM
Reposted by Duncan O’Brien
🧊 Did your model freeze in time? Let’s bring it back to life!
Join our hands-on workshop “Building Near-Term Iterative Forecasting Workflows” at #TIBS2026 – Aarhus, 6 Jan 2026 🌍
We’ll explore how to turn static predictions into dynamic, self-updating forecasts. @paniw.bsky.social
October 27, 2025 at 10:41 AM
I would highly recommend this group (it’s mine...) and city!

Very happy I to chat about being a postdoc with @expecocons.bsky.social
🌍📢 Postdoc alert | 3-yr starting 1/1/26

Understand how ecosystem stability is changing across space and through time using niche modelling, pinpoint at-risk species/regions, and build tools that drive conservation action🌿🧭📈

👉 tinyurl.com/2w2we5z8

#Ecology #Jobs #Biodiversity #RStats
October 1, 2025 at 8:58 AM
Reposted by Duncan O’Brien
Join a UK-wide environmental monitoring community at #NEMC2025 to help shape the future of evidence-based environmental action.

Session proposals welcome on habitat condition, plastics, forever chemicals, impacts on people & wellbeing & urban monitoring.

Find out more:🔗 tinyurl.com/5369kwhf
National Environmental Monitoring Conference - British Ecological Society
The NEMC returns for its second year focusing on: From insight to impact: building the UK environmental monitoring community
www.britishecologicalsociety.org
July 31, 2025 at 2:06 PM
Reposted by Duncan O’Brien
Join us at BTO! Discover jobs and apply at www.bto.org/jobs
July 13, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Duncan O’Brien
Interested in doing a PhD? We have a paid opportunity to join us for a Research Experience Placement - a ~2 month project with some fun data collection and analysis on Manx shearwaters. You need to be a registered undergraduate to apply. Deadline 25th June, starts in July. Get in touch, link below!
June 14, 2025 at 11:03 AM
Reposted by Duncan O’Brien
🚨 We're hiring!🚨

Looking for someone interested in modelling biodiversity trends to work on the interface between academia and policy.

careersearch.westofengland-ca.gov.uk/jobs/job/Dat...
Data Analyst - Ecological Modelling | 02 April, 2025 | Jobs and careers with West of England Combined Authority
Jobs and careers with West of England Combined Authority - The West of England Mayoral Combined Authority (MCA) is seeking to appoint on a fixed term basis (until September 2026) a data analyst/scient...
careersearch.westofengland-ca.gov.uk
March 26, 2025 at 10:14 AM
Reposted by Duncan O’Brien
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
January 31, 2025 at 10:53 AM
Reposted by Duncan O’Brien
Exciting PhD opportunity with @neeltjeboogert.bsky.social , @padpadpadpad.bsky.social (Exeter) and myself (Bristol) on gulls, their microbiomes, and role in transmitting disease.

Details below - deadline 13 January!
January 6, 2025 at 5:43 PM
Looking forward to what is (in my opinion) the most under appreciated component in ecosystem management/conservation - time lags #BES2024
December 12, 2024 at 3:35 PM
Reposted by Duncan O’Brien
Heading up to #BES2024 today in Liverpool. Hopefully see lots of you there, and if you are going to be around why not drop in and see some of the group's talks (on #resilience, #seabirds, and #rewilding)

@britishecolsoc.bsky.social
December 10, 2024 at 9:20 AM
Reposted by Duncan O’Brien
I highlighted this in the paper for ordered beta regression, but I think many don't know this:

you can estimate ordbetareg *just fine* without obs at the bounds (0 or 1).

Maybe your current sample doesn't have 0/1s... but future samples could! Ordbetareg works fine for *any* bounded data.

#rstats
What's even more amusing is that, after sipping from this, the last of the data I'm working with came in. I plotted it up to look at the distributions and....... there are actually no 1 values in it. It's just 0 inflated! Ah well, I'll still drink from and love the mug!
December 8, 2024 at 6:33 PM
Reposted by Duncan O’Brien


¿Porqué no los dos?



It’s time for mixture models.

HTML: betanalpha.github.io/assets/chapt...
PDF: betanalpha.github.io/assets/chapt...
Mixture Modeling
betanalpha.github.io
November 11, 2024 at 2:26 PM