Dr Cassandra Raby

A very apt workshop for these times! Abstract submission has been extended to Aug 15:

Tweet from 2023 saying: 'I resigned as an Associate Editor for a Frontiers journal because of the way their automated system took away much of my editorial autonomy. some details that might also explain odd reviewer/author experiences:' (1/7)

Originally posted on Twitter in 2023—reposting after a chat with a colleague about possibly publishing in an MDPI journal (whose review practices are similar to Frontiers). Not sure if either has since addressed the issues raised, but I feel process should be public knowledge.

Ecstatic, during cooling (11°C) swim, after @rspb.bsky.social Volunteer Monitoring of Farm Wildlife at a Legge Farm in Norfolk Fens, to meet my 1st ever European/Common Carp (Cyprinus carpio), complete with barbels at the mouth. Big beauties. bsky.app/profile/nume... #MySwim #carp #commoncarp 1/6

Always a privilege to be teaching out at Mpala Research Centre
Our MSc Biodiversity and Conservation students are having a great time so far

Oh goodness. I'm not sure I needed to go through any of this faff. I could have manually calculated UDOI when it was in raster form.

Ah ha! I think I might have cracked it 🤞

I love seeing the tube mice! What a cutie

Post a warning

Map of two habitats in black and white, looking pixelated. Some home ranges in yellow and purple are shown in the black habitat.

I'm currently trying to crop utilisation distributions by habitat type (without recalculating the UD). I've done it before, but I can't seem to replicate it well enough for me to make the conversion back to an estUDm for the UDOI calculations

If you live in Leeds or Bradford, please complete our Parks survey- whether you use parks or not! As a thank you, you can win a £100 voucher!
bit.ly/m/GreenAWARE

PhD opportunity with me (RSPB) at Sheffield Hallam combining ecology (building-nesting birds esp. Swift) + building design & planning (Net Zero goals & retrofit). We need a strong student interested in both! Is that you? url.uk.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/cNyjCR636C... Please repost.

Thermal image of a hen

Hi Bluesky, we are looking for a PhD student for an interdisciplinary project on thermal imaging & welfare in hens. Applicants from diverse scientific backgrounds welcome -if you're interested in welfare, physiology, machine learning, imaging tech..get in touch :-) www.plymouth.ac.uk/study/resear...

There are concerns that Bluesky's impact has faded since the initial hype. This is false.

That impression results from reading headlines about social media instead of the hard data.

The five HIGHEST points of Bluesky posts mentioning research all occur in the last 2 weeks.

How to use a histogram as a legend in {ggplot2} | Andrew Heiss Land isn’t unemployed—people are. Here’s how to use R, {ggplot2}, {sf}, and {patchwork} to create a histogram legend in a choropleth map to better see the distribution of values.

Really useful tip highlighting the flexibility of map visualisations in R and use of the excellent Patchwork package.
www.andrewheiss.com/blog/2025/02...

In an extraordinary display of public support, heads of state, heads of government, and foreign ministers from all over Europe and Canada are posting in support of Ukraine in response to the Oval Office meeting with Trump, Zelenskyy, and Vance.

I’m very struck by the fact that kids who grow up in the TFL zone have basically free and highly efficient transport over a huge area whereas in other parts of the country our kids have to pay a lot of money for infrequent and unreliable transport. The impact that has on your horizons must be huge.

Are big bad badgers driving hedgehog declines in Britain? Hot off the press.. short answer is no says @richardyarnell.bsky.social. Very weak -ve relationship between the species but absolutely dwarfed by other factors, esp. road casualties. Read whole paper here: doi.org/10.1002/ece3... #hedgehogs 🦔

📢 VACANCY

Could you be our next Social Media Support Officer?

We're looking for a social media whizz to support our output across multiple platforms

Check out the details & apply: bou.org.uk/about-the...

#ornithology 🪶

Using 3D Photogrammetry to Quantify Usable Space in Zoo‐Housed Primate Habitats Studies of zoo animal space use typically use ground-level measurements as a proxy for “usable space,” but this method ignores above ground areas that are behaviorally relevant to arboreal species. P...

Several years ago I worked with Terry Maple to quantify usable space in zoo exhibits, but we were limited by what was technologically possible for us at the time. I'm very excited to see this new paper successfully using 3D photogrammetry to build the models more efficiently
doi.org/10.1002/ajp....

Amazing - both the photos and the place. I'll have to give it a visit some day

Are these your photos? They look incredible! What a beautiful place to do fieldwork

Selfie of me in the bottom left of the photo, with a baboon sat nicely on a rock in the top of the photo. The baboon is doing a great job at looking cute for a selfie

Throwback to my PhD fieldwork as I join the Tsaobis group meeting today

Love hearing about what these baboons have been up to since I was last out there

Aaaah a very happy (belated) birthday and a huge congratulations!!!

Hey #RStats here are some great new terms to add an R to to make a package name if you want to fuck with US science.

Bird nests made from anti-bird spikes?! 🤯

Hi, I'm a nest researcher 👋 and new here on BlueSky, sharing the craziest #bird nests I've ever found. 👀 Today, I’m sharing my discovery of rebellious birds that build nests out of anti-bird spikes. And honestly, it's like telling a joke...

A thread. 🧵

But now the ultimate finding, as we discovered that there are birds who build their nest using anti-bird spikes!! 🤯 So last year I published a paper describing this behaviour: the ultimate adaption to city life! 🏙️
(shout out to my co-author @schilthuizen.bsky.social! 👋)

Well the award for most cowardly, boot-lickingest academic society has squarely gone to the American Society of Microbiology, who has taken down features of various non-white scientists. Absolutely pathetic behavior. Those articles are now coming up as “under review”. Truly sickening cowardice here.

I think it’s really important we collectively tomato the shit out of them until they reinstate these articles to show other academic societies that complying in advance with fascists is not going to be tolerated among the scientific community. Leadership should be ashamed of themselves.

A woman in a white lab coat conducts an experiment in a laboratory.

Hello, Bluesky👋 We’re the Faculty of Biological Sciences @universityofleeds.bsky.social.

Follow this account to keep updated on the latest news and research stories from our community.

A logo for the University of Leeds parasite conservation survey featuring 5 coloured hexagons containing icons of different parasites such as ticks, worms and protozoa.

Hey #WildlifeDisease & #conservation folk, please check out our survey on attitudes to parasite conservation.

Are parasites important for biodiversity, would you remove them to protect host welfare, or something more nuanced? We want to hear all views to improve guidance for practitioners 🪱🧪🌍🧵1/n