Austin Cruz

Back in 2023, members of my lab came together to write a review on recent applications of machine learning in biological research. I'm excited to share that the paper is now out in BMC Biology! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Cooperation is a universal feature of complex systems, from the origins of life and microbiomes to societies. What universal patterns can be found in these systems? Here's our new @pnas.org paper. @jordipinero.bsky.social @artemyte.bsky.social @sfiscience.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....

Check out our recent work led by austindelacruz.bsky.social
Assessing the allometric scaling of seed mass and fruit mass and tests several hypotheses about the influence of evolutionary history and seed dispersal mode on these patterns royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... #allometry 🧪🌐

Excited to see this out! In our new paper, @bjenquist.bsky.social and I investigate seed mass and fruit mass scaling using a global plant dataset, and test several hypotheses about the influence of seed dispersal mode and evolutionary history on these patterns. Read more below (open access).

What is the origin of diversity in allometric laws scaling across species? Check our new paper led by Andrea Tabi where
we propose a new theory of metabolic scaling grounded in thermodynamics and stochastic fluctuations at the cellular level.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Rigorous validation of ecological models against empirical time series - Nature Ecology & Evolution Validating theoretical models against empirical data presents challenges. Here the authors present an assumption-light method to validate ecological models against time series data, along with a dedic...

Ecology faces an accumulation of models but not an accumulation of confidence. Our new paper w/ Jonathan Levine www.nature.com/articles/s41... in @natecoevo.nature.com introduces a rigorous test rooted in queueing theory to falsify inadequate models and build confidence in useful ones.

Bridging the gap between individual specialization and species persistence in mutualistic communities Mutualistic interactions among organisms are fundamental to the origin and maintenance of biodiversity. Yet, the study of community dynamics often relies on values averaged at the species level, igno...

What sustains biodiversity? 🌿🌸🐝🐦‍⬛ It’s not just about species, it’s also about individuals.
 
Our new paper in @esajournals.bsky.social Ecol. Monogr. shows how the way individuals specialize on their mutualistic partners can scale up to shape species persistence.
 
🔗 doi.org/10.1002/ecm....

🧵Why do early embryonic cell cycles speed up with temperature almost like simple chemical reactions, but not quite? 🌡️

Across frogs, fish, worms, and flies we found a shared scaling law, and uncovered why deviations from Arrhenius behavior emerge.

👉 doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-62918-0

In Defense of Type I Functional Responses: The Frequency and Population Dynamic Effects of Feeding on Multiple Prey at a Time | The American Naturalist Abstract Ecologists differ in the degree to which they consider the linear type I functional response to be an unrealistic versus sufficient representation of predator feeding rates. Empiricists tend ...

Novak et al. derive a functional response model that unifies Holling’s classical forms. The model clarifies when linearity can be a mechanistically-reasoned description of predator feeding rates and the impact it has on predator-prey dynamics.

Read now!
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Consistent energy-diversity relationships in terrestrial vertebrates Ecologists have long proposed that environments providing more energy can support more species, yet empirical evidence frequently contradicts this expectation. We argue that such inconsistencies resul...

In ectotherms, temperature-species richness relationships matched predictions of metabolic theory 🧪🌐 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Temperature is so important for plants that they have come up with many independent temperature sensors.

Curious? Read more in this review by former WeigelWorld members Sridevi Sureshkumar & Suresh Balasubramanian.
#plantscience
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Scaling COVID-19 rates with population size in the United States | Journal of The Royal Society Interface Using county-level data from the United States, we assessed allometric scaling relationships of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases, deaths and age structure within and across the first four major wa...

Check out our new publication - How do pandemics scale with population size? Led by PhD student Austin Cruz @austindelacruz.bsky.social how did #COVID-19 cases and deaths scale across counties in the U.S.—from big cities to small towns - across 4 major variant waves?
📄 doi.org/10.1098/rsif... 🧵1/ 🧪