Mike Fowler
LightNews LightNews
banner
theorecol.bsky.social
Mike Fowler
@theorecol.bsky.social
1.4K followers 740 following 610 posts
Theoretical & Quantitative Ecologist. Dad. Whisky lover. Football coach. Relearning the drums. Not necessarily in that order.
See also @theorecol@ecoevo.social
He/him
Posts Replies Media Videos
theorecol.bsky.social
Come for the exchange of knowledge, stay for the views!
Arthur's Seat, waking up to autumnal sunshine, from the Bayes Centre. Arthur's Seat bathed in autumnal afternoon sunshine, from the Bayes Centre. Solving some temperature dependent problems during a coffee break: plots and diagrams on a chalkboard. A rainbow, erupting from an extinct volcano in Edinburgh.
October 22, 2025 at 4:41 PM
theorecol.bsky.social
On my way to exchange some knowledge with some rewilders at an @icms-edinburgh.bsky.social knowledge exchange event in beautiful Edinburgh today!
A building in Edinburgh advertising, amongst other things, fancy leather goods and woodenware, in faded paint on sooty sandstone. The old eye pavillion in Edinburgh, with bright spots appearing between the evening clouds and a damp, rippled pattern appearing on a street lined with soggy autumn leaves.
October 20, 2025 at 9:35 PM
theorecol.bsky.social
Somewhere, in the distance, Don Henley softly rises from a radio.
Dylan Thomas raises an eyebrow.
A sunflower, denuded of its petals, basks in the early autumnal sunshine.
September 25, 2025 at 8:34 AM
theorecol.bsky.social
Just snapped these on my way home in Wales!
I love having tree lined streets, and the trees more than pay for the additional maintenance required by reducing temperatures and pollution, etc.
But we take it all for granted ☹️
A pavement cracked by tree roots. Organic rubbish bin included for scale. A pavement cracked by tree roots.
September 18, 2025 at 4:53 PM
theorecol.bsky.social
Autoreply from a colleague who I can only assume has been hitting that institutional admin brick wall once too often.
Screenshot stating "I am currently on a phased return from work due to concussion. My replies will be delayed."
August 27, 2025 at 3:11 PM
theorecol.bsky.social
Some art is just a load of rubbish.
A sculpture of the word "Art" behind a large communal rubbish bin on a well-to-do residential street in Zürich, Switzerland. Photographed in July 2025.
August 9, 2025 at 8:36 PM
theorecol.bsky.social
Scotland is a land of contrasts.
I can get an electric bus that picks me up in an Edinburgh suburb, 5 mins walk from my childhood home, then drops me off in Dundee, and feels like I'm living in the future.
Then I walk past the Victoria Bar on the way to Tannadice. Instantly transported back in time.
Teams heading onto the pitch at Tannadice Park for Dundee United v UNA Strassen in a UEFA Conference 2nd round qualifier. Supporters arms held in the air, waiting in anticipation for a thrilling 1-0 win for the Terrors against a mediocre team from Luxembourg. United were honking. It's as if the manager doesn't actually want us to win games. Loved it anyway!
July 24, 2025 at 10:18 PM
theorecol.bsky.social
When citation stats go rogue.
Screenshot of a research paper that has collected six hundred and sixty six citations to date.
July 15, 2025 at 10:25 AM
theorecol.bsky.social
Where does one go when fitting that big, complex General Additive Model is just too much hassle?
A Swansea street sign, Little Gam Street.
June 26, 2025 at 10:00 AM
theorecol.bsky.social
Needed a new podcast recommendation, so thanks!
One man's disturbing nightmare is another's dog walking companion!
A beautiful border collie in a garden, who is two neurons short of a recall response.
June 6, 2025 at 10:58 AM
theorecol.bsky.social
I eat meat, but is your claim really any different from this? Industrialisation of livestock for food/dairy – through breeding, medication, antibiotics, growth hormones, etc – is also a global mega-business. Seems odd to suspect one is worse than the other.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Comparison of the size of chickens from 1957-2005. Chickens have trebled in size over this timespan.
March 10, 2025 at 2:05 PM
theorecol.bsky.social
Ceci n'est pas un diagramme du Venn.
Two partially overlapping circles with text in each. One circle states "All the things". The other states "All the things that shouldn't be in a Venn diagram". I know. It's a joke. The set-up is the pipe reference.
February 27, 2025 at 1:28 PM
theorecol.bsky.social
Happy to announce that JF Arnoldi (Theoretical and Experimental Ecology Station, CNRS, France) will present the next #ResponseDiversityNetwork Seminar, Wednesday 26th Feb 15.00 CET.
"Linear functional ecology: Rethinking species contributions to ecosystem functions"
Zoom link via rb.gy/3pf8dh
Details of the Response Diversity Network seminar, given by JF Arnoldi, including a Zoom link and Abstract: Ecosystem functions describe processes like biomass production, respiration, or nutrient cycling, that can be key to the livelihood of humans and other life forms. These functions are collectively performed by the many species that constitute an ecosystem; trees in a forest, plants in a grassland, or bacterial strains in a microbiome. Here, I will use linear algebra to show that generically, there is a sense in which a rare species can have as much importance as an abundant one. The reason why this claim is not obvious comes from the fact that in functional ecology, under the mass-ratio hypothesis, species contributions should be well predicted by their effect traits and abundance. I will illustrate using soil-microbiome data that this hypothesis has merit, even for complex functions related to nutrient cycling. Yet the mass-ratio hypothesis has an awkward corollary: functions are typically performed by just a few dominant species, so that most of an ecosystem's diversity appears redundant, or even useless. To understand why rare species can be important, one has to take a perturbative approach, looking at the sensitivity of a function to say, added mortality (a pathogen) on a given species. Doing so reveals a completely different picture than the one the mass-ratio hypothesis depicts. Via direct and indirect interactions between them, species can have large impacts on a given function, even if those species are rare or if they do not possess traits that relate to the function. 
February 24, 2025 at 1:15 PM
theorecol.bsky.social
Content alert: I will be using intemperate language shortly.

Fucking Travel Planet (our univ. mandated travel agent).
Sends an email following a train booking, titled
"Train ticket for the trip..."

Contains calendar invites, but no e-tickets. Also, the following text.

Get in the fucking sea.
Image of text in an email, stating "This email is not a travel ticket".
January 14, 2025 at 3:57 PM
theorecol.bsky.social
Some years after taking the huff at @stephenbheard.bsky.social for his reactionary & unfair dismissal of the disco genre, I realised I hadn't actually finished reading his otherwise excellent book.
I have now finished. Happy to announce his writing gave me much pleasure!
Get yer peepers roon' this!
Image of the front cover of Stephen Heard's "The Scientist's Guide to Writing". An excellent work! Some important text from the final page of Stephen Heard's "The Scientist's Guide to Writing". The key phrase is "You can announce your admiration of writing that has given you pleasure.". This book gave me pleasure!
December 31, 2024 at 6:20 PM
theorecol.bsky.social
Bones festes!
View of the Sant Andreu vs Torrent football game in Barcelona. View of the Sant Andreu vs Torrent football game in Barcelona. Local fans giein' it laldy! View of the scoreboard in the Sant Andreu vs Torrent football game in Barcelona. Sant Andreu won 4-0! View of the Sant Andreu vs Torrent football game in Barcelona.
December 22, 2024 at 7:07 PM
theorecol.bsky.social
I know a guy who hangs around in churches and knows a little something about hammering nails into awkward places...
Screenshot of a bluesky post about the 7.4% of UK universities that have accepted a portrait of King Charles, followed by a response stating that the respondent's church received one that they can't hang up due to the complications of planning permission required "to put a nail in the wall".
December 4, 2024 at 10:09 AM
theorecol.bsky.social
There's a few lads in Helsinki wid like a wird aboot yer muckle baws, likes.
Helsingin Rautatientori Asema. 4 miestä suurilla palloilla. Helsinki Railway Station. 4 guys wi big baws.
November 29, 2024 at 2:11 PM
theorecol.bsky.social
Continuous Professional Development opportunities.

Pretty effing sure that attending a three and a half hour Zoom training session ranks as number 8 or below.
Screenshot of a Zoom training session titled "The Seven Secrets of Highly Effective Researchers" scheduled to last for 3.5 hrs.
November 29, 2024 at 1:04 PM
theorecol.bsky.social
Was there 6 months ago. Right now, in the middle of a fully hectic term, I am missing it very deeply.
Enjoy!
Two monkeys in and in front of a tree A view across Kyoto from a macaque sanctuary.
November 1, 2024 at 9:38 AM
theorecol.bsky.social
Not saying I'm a contrarian, but it might not have been coincidence that this t-shirt made it off the shelf this morning.
Image of the post author's torso modelling a "Ghostbusters" t-shirt.
October 31, 2024 at 2:20 PM
theorecol.bsky.social
Post a PERFECT album from the 90s that isn’t Nirvana or Pearl jam or Soundgarden or Alice In Chains.

(Having a bit too much fun with this.)
October 24, 2024 at 8:41 AM
theorecol.bsky.social
Post a PERFECT album from the 90s that isn’t Nirvana or Pearl jam or Soundgarden or Alice In Chains.
October 23, 2024 at 8:28 PM
theorecol.bsky.social
Great record! Not sure if '86 is really close enough though. If it is, I'm definitely submitting this from 1987...
October 23, 2024 at 8:23 PM
theorecol.bsky.social
Post a PERFECT album from the 90s that isn’t Nirvana or Pearl jam or Soundgarden or Alice In Chains.
Album cover art from Deacon Blue's 1991 masterpiece "Fellow Hoodlums", designed by Jane Carrol and Alistair McCallum of Central Design.
October 23, 2024 at 1:33 PM