Sign in

Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻

@datazoogang.de
417 followers 67 following 64 posts

Quantitative wildlife biologist based at IZW Berlin 🇩🇪 / datazoogang.de / #wildlife #ecology #demography #conservation #evolution #rstats #linux

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻
ASAB @asab.org · 09/07/2026
It's official: #Behaviour2027 is happening in Vienna next summer!
03917
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 24/07/2026
@marta-mosna.bsky.social presented this week at @isbe2026.bsky.social her great work "The legacy of privilege: Social inheritance reverses sex differences in reproductive inequality in the spotted hyena". The paper came out today in Science Advances: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Do check it out!
science.org
The legacy of privilege: Social inheritance reverses sex differences in reproductive inequality in the spotted hyena
The social transmission of privilege from mother to daughters reverses typical male-biased reproductive inequality.
062
Reposted by Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻
Ecological Dynamics Dept. | IZW Berlin @ecodynizw.bsky.social · 18/01/2026
Led by Viktoriia Radchuk, an international collaboration shows phenological shifts in response to changing temperatures allow populations to remain stable or even increase in numbers. Support from #sDiv @idiv-research.bsky.social
13217
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 09/08/2025
Enjoying my low carbon footprint form of travel toward #ecobhvr2025, I am re-reading some accounts of environmental/societal destruction caused by the extraction of rare natural products that dazzle most of us... My selection of illustrated stories: - 1. mammoth ivory: www.rferl.org/a/the-mammot...
rferl.org
The Mammoth Pirates
In Russia's Arctic north, a new kind of gold rush is under way.
110
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 08/08/2025
Just boarded a train with my bike in Berlin. If all goes smoothly I should reach Montpellier within 21 hours, with plenty of time before the launch of #ecobhvr2025. Only one change in Paris... So, time to unpack the laptop and check my slides (perhaps after an episode of Wednesday #2...).
230
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 12/07/2025
I have just read the Anti-Autocracy Handbook and I think everyone else should too: sks.to/autocracy Thanks to @lewan.bsky.social and others for putting this together!!
sks.to
The Anti-Autocracy Handbook: A Scholars' Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding
The Anti-Autocracy Handbook is a call to action, resilience, and collective defence of democracy, truth, and academic freedom in the face of mounting authoritarianism. It tries to provide guidance to ...
0115
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 15/06/2025
😱😱😱
030
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 18/05/2025
I just wrote a tutorial about how to use #Rstats & RStudio using a container system (podman): gist.github.com/courtiol/ce0... I did this for myself (a linux user), but it may be useful to others too. Let me know what you think of it.
gist.github.com
using R & Rstudio using podman.md
GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.
040
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 09/05/2025
Do Spix's macaws really behave as they do in the animated films Rio? To find out, read our new preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
010
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 05/05/2025
Our paper on how climate change impacts bat hibernation is out🎉 It was a long journey paved with many desk rejections despite a huge amount of work put in collecting and analysing the data, but we are proud of the result and very happy with the one journal that did review it: doi.org/10.1111/ele....
doi.org
Shorter and Warmer Winters Expand the Hibernation Area of Bats in Europe
Our study pioneers a methodology integrating empirical physiology measurements with climate models, enabling accurate predictions of the distribution of hibernating animals under projected climate ch....
011
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 29/04/2025
Working in or with Marine Protected Areas?🌊 We need your help! In this video, Christine Ward-Paige, introduces our workforce survey: youtu.be/M3Nm5KuyN_Q?... This is an effort involving Blue Nature Alliance, MCI, IUCN, @rewildorg.bsky.social, Leibniz-IZW and others. Please share!!
youtu.be
MPA Workforce Study 2025 — Overview | 🌊eOceans®🦀
YouTube video by eOceans
110
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 12/01/2025
Our paper on ducks in the city is out! Using 16 yrs of data (>1000 breeding events) collected by NABU Berlin (berlin.nabu.de), we looked at why many ducks nest on buildings. The landscape doesn't matter much, it's more an individual choice and the appeal of the breeding site: doi.org/10.1093/jue/...
doi.org
Breeding site fidelity in the concrete jungle: implications for the management of urban mallards
Abstract. Understanding the selection of breeding sites in cities is key for the effective management of urban bird populations. We analysed 16 years of da
010
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 02/12/2024
Anonymizing an #rstats 📦 for a submission to Methods in Eco Evo, I replaced names in DESCRIPTION, README, vignettes, doc... But calling packageDescription("pkg.tar.gz") revealed that the computer name is used as metadata 🤨 Solution: build your tar.gz in a terminal using R CMD build --user=anonymous
130
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 08/07/2024
Landed in Budapest. About to spend a week with the Finnish national team of horseback archery! 🏹🐴🇫🇮
010
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 02/05/2024
Why a growing population is not necessary a sign of its environment getting better? Check out our latest preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2024... -> huge amount of work from former postdoc Liam Bailey, now data wizard for WWF. It is also the result of the amazing data collected by hyena-project.com
doi.org
Effects of environmental change on population growth: monitoring time-varying carrying capacity in free-ranging spotted hyenas
bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution
011
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 19/11/2023
I've just created a feed called "wildlife photography". It catches posts with pictures that are about wildlife through a collection of hashtags that I will continuously refine to improve the feed. It was easy thanks to skyfeed.app Please pin/save and let me know what you think. #wildlifephotography
120
Reposted by Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻
The Hunting of the Snark @snarkhunt.bsky.social · 18/11/2023
I took that photo in Tokyo (Higashi-Yukigaya 2002). The birds sometimes install such nests on power lines of Japan Railways and need to be removed in order to avoid power outages.
44310
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 19/11/2023
IsoriX v0.9.2 -- an #rstats 📦 for building isoscapes using mixed models and inferring the geographic origin of samples based on their isotopic ratios -- is now on CRAN. The main change between v0.9.1/v0.9.2 and earlier versions is that it no longer imports {raster} & {sp}, but {terra}. More 👇
110
Reposted by Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻
Posit @posit.co · 14/11/2023
R? In the browser? What?!  #WebR makes it possible to run #RStats code in the browser without the need for an R server to execute the code: the R interpreter runs directly on the user’s machine. George Stagg shares an overview of the 0.2.0 release on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpq9...
youtube.com
webR 0.2 Overview: R in the browser | George Stagg | Posit
WebR is a version of the statistical language R compiled for the browser and Node.js using WebAssembly, via Emscripten.WebR makes it possible to run R code i...
05126
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 13/11/2023
Visiting the website of Even Rouault (a core developer behind GDAL and other spatial libraries used by many packages in #rstats, #python...), I bumped into this mini opinion about "Fighting misconceptions about Open source": www.spatialys.com/en/opinions/
000
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 12/11/2023
I just rediscovered that `lintr::lint_package()` is a great solution to check #rstats code in your package. lintr.r-lib.org
020
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 11/11/2023
Just discovered the root of a #rstats bug emerging only every 100,000 iterations 👇... (coercing is always dangerous, but I had not seen that one coming)
292
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 09/11/2023
Tempted to measure how the correlation between 2 variables varies over time? If the answer is YES, you may find my #rstats 📦 **timevarcorr** (newly on CRAN) useful: courtiol.github.io/timevarcorr/ I implemented the method described in this paper: link.springer.com/article/10.1... Enjoy!
1131
Reposted by Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻
Gabor Csardi @gaborcsardi.org · 05/09/2023
pak 0.6.0 blog post about the new (more) automatic system requirements installation: www.tidyverse.org/blog/2023/09... Change log: github.com/r-lib/pak/re... Installation: pak.r-lib.org/reference/in... #rstats
tidyverse.org
pak 0.6.0 - Tidyverse
pak installs R packages from various sources. pak is fast, safe and convenient. This post shows the improvements in system requirements support on Linux, in the just released pak 0.6.0 version.
121
Reposted by Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻
Gabor Csardi @gaborcsardi.org · 26/10/2023
The new evercran project (github.com/r-hub/evercr...) helps you run old (or ancient) versions of R, together with old (or ancient) snapshots of CRAN. #RStats
083
Reposted by Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻
Posit @posit.co · 06/11/2023
We are excited to announce that Wes McKinney has joined Posit! When we changed our name to Posit our goal was to unify efforts around creating great tools for data science, regardless of language, and working with Wes is a huge step forward in realizing that dream.
Headshot of Wes McKinney
03110
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 05/11/2023
If you develop #rstats 📦 and don't know about r-universe.dev , give it a try, it is really good! For example, r-universe.dev/search/ allows you to identify the #rstats 📦 you contributed to. They have even created a page for every maintainer listed by CRAN, e.g. for me: courtiol.r-universe.dev
000
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 03/11/2023
After using GitHub for years, I just got around to create a profile page: github.com/courtiol I just wanted to create an organized list of my repos. I find it helpful already as it helped me do some cleaning. It alleviates the cost of storing all one's repos at the root, which everyone seems to do.
110
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 02/11/2023
Must seen: amazing Escaped Sapiens Podcast with @shanefarnsworth.bsky.social and Olivia Judson about the co-transformation of #Life and #Earth over time: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgN5...
youtube.com
A 3.77 Billion Year Construction Project | Olivia Judson | Escaped Sapiens #60
This conversation is about the history of life and earth. I speak with evolutionary biologist and author Olivia Judson, who is best known for her book 'Dr. T...
010
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 31/10/2023
Have you ever found #rstats rowwise computations cumbersome, slow, or memory greedy? If so, do give a try to **lay** -- a small 📦 from @romainfrancois.bsky.social and myself. Check courtiol.github.io/lay/ for examples, alternatives and benchmarks. You can use **lay** alone, or with **dplyr** 👀👇
1114
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 27/10/2023
Embracing FOMO: my first trial of GitHub AI Co-pilot integration within @posit.co RStudio for #rstats... Will I hate it or love it? 🤔
030
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 27/10/2023
Check out the update on the planetary boundaries framework, which evaluates 9 processes "critical for maintaining the stability and resilience of Earth system": www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... We had entered the danger zone for 3 of the 9 processes by 2009, 4 by 2015, and the new number is 6 🫣
Current status of control variables for all nine planetary boundaries.
Six of the nine boundaries are already transgressed. In addition, ocean acidification is approaching its planetary boundary...
010
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 25/10/2023
Using #ubuntu and #Rstats, but not r2u? You must try it! - current R release even on oldish LTS - immediate package install via binaries of all CRAN pkgs - update in R or via apt with same results All that, just 2 lines of codes away: chmod +x ./add_cranapt_jammy.sh sudo ./add_cranapt_jammy.sh
github.com
GitHub - eddelbuettel/r2u: CRAN as Ubuntu Binaries
CRAN as Ubuntu Binaries. Contribute to eddelbuettel/r2u development by creating an account on GitHub.
051
Reposted by Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻
Cédric Scherer @cedricscherer.com · 17/10/2023
📢 Next week I am giving a talk for the Berlin R User Group! Join us for a session about data visualization with ggplot2 — and how you can create even more exciting graphics thanks to all the wonderful Rstats extension packages! Sign up here 👉 www.meetup.com/de-DE/berlin...
The announcement graphic for my workshop for the Berlin R User Group entitled "(Even more) exciting data visualizations with ggplot2 extensions" that is going to take place Tuesday, October2023, 6-9pmCEST at Le Wagon in Berlin. The graphic features an Open Peeps drawing of me holding a coffee cup.
1146
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 19/09/2023
We are hiring an engineer to tame linux computers and help with data science within a wildlife research institute. Please let me know if you have any question! #job #wildlife #Berlin #conservation
tinyurl.com
engineer for scientific computing / data science at Leibniz-Institut für Zoo- und Wildtierforschung
We're looking for: engineer for scientific computing / data science (Full Time) • Berlin, Deutschland
000
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 19/09/2023
I just fixed a corrupted docx file by hand 🥳. I unzipped the docx, opened word/document..xml, loaded the file in jsonformatter.org/xml-viewer, beautified it so as to unpack the megaline of XML code into chunks, removed the troublesome blocks, zipped everything back and renamed as docx, et voila!
Error message shown by LibreOffice before fixing the file. Clicking on Yes to let the software fix the file did not work... hence I had to do it manually.
000
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 13/09/2023
"The only way to reduce eco-anxiety in the general population is to increase the eco-anxiety of politicians" Caroline Hickman, giving a talk at the PhD symposium organized by Leibniz-IZW.
caroline-hickman.com
Caroline Hickman – Psychotherapy to navigate the depths
Caroline Hickman is a practicing psychotherapist and leading researcher into eco-anxiety and climate psychology
031
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 11/09/2023
I did not expect to admire a hunter and republican lawyer from the US, but I recently bumped into G. Shiras III who invented camera traps (June 1891) and became the 1st serious #wildlife photographer. Check: - archive.org/details/hunt... - www.nhbs.com/camera-hunte... and the NatGeo coverage for 🖼️
nationalgeographic.com
Meet Grandfather Flash, the Pioneer of Wildlife Photography
Last month National Geographic archivist Bill Bonner shared a beautiful book with me, In the Heart of the Dark Night, dedicated to the work of photographer George Shiras. As a newer photo editor at th...
000
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 06/09/2023
The PhD students of our #wildlife research institute are inviting all of you to a free conference (in Berlin and online) on Sept 13-14th: www.izw-berlin.de/en/6th-leibn...
000
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 29/08/2023
You live in #Berlin? You like Tempelhofer Feld? --> sign the petition to make it a UNESCO world heritage site: weact.campact.de/petitions/te...
064
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 29/08/2023
I just managed to use the domain name I had already purchased from GoDaddy as my handle. In GoDaddy, I selected DNS records > Add new record > Type = TXT, Name = _atproto, did=did:XXXXX (whatever Bluesky tells you in Settings > Advanced > Change handle > "I have my own domain". Easy!!
010
Alex Courtiol 🐘🦇🦅👨‍💻 @datazoogang.de · 29/08/2023
For those interested in the pre-registration of studies, you may want to watch the webminar "Registered Reports 2.0: Introducing the Peer Community in Registered Reports which will take place on Sept. 21st at 4pm CET (until 5.15 pm) via Zoom. Registration: univ-cotedazur.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
040