iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I think somehow I got away unscathed but was sad to not see you the entire conference haha

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Genuinely cannot wait to hang out 🤩 it's been too long!

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Did a fun little write up about this book, which (spoiler alert) I enjoyed and recommend

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

To the #Evol2026 folks, I am recruiting MSc/PhD students (with or without their own funding) - please send people my way if you know of anyone interested in blending ecology & evolution!

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Thank you for the shout out, you're so kind 😊 Would love to connect if you're around today - poster session??

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

hmu if you're going to Evolution in Cleveland ✨️

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

What are best practices for citing R packages in papers, given that citations cut into word length? For one we used 17 packages. A separate supplementary package citation list would be nice.

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Five of us are headed to CSEE next week - come hang out with us!

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

My fav memory was a road trip with @tessgrainger.bsky.social and Natalie Jones from San Diego to the Victoria meeting, and running out of gas (like, pedal stopped working) while driving in the fast lane of a highway. How many PhDs does it take to remember to fill the gas tank 🤔

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Who here is going to CSEE in Toronto???

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

March in Northern California - plant phenology is advanced by about a month!

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

A graph articulating my thoughts on hybrid meetings

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

Our paper on how to use niche theory (MacArthur's minimization principle) to understand eco/evo limits to diversity got a shout out from Quarterly Review of Biology: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... The paper is hard to access but a copy can be found here drive.google.com/file/d/14EGZ...

journals.uchicago.edu

Speciation. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology. Edited by Catherine L. Peichel, Åke Brännström, Daniel I. Bolnick, Ulf Dieckmann, and Rebecca J. Safran. Cold Spring Harbor (New York): Cold Spr...

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Reposted by Rachel Germain

Aerin Jacob, PhD @aerinj.bsky.social · 09/11/2025

[8 Nov 2025] Another roundup of #ConservationJobs, mostly in 🇨🇦. All postings include salary. I am not involved in these positions. Please share to help others — working to conserve nature is rewarding and needed! www.linkedin.com/posts/aerinj...

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

This fellowship offers a great deal of research freedom + leadership experience. Salary = $77,000/year + benefits and $7,000/year in research funds - expertise in bioinformatics will be desirable for one of the two positions

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

Looking for a paper for lab meeting/a discussion group? Look no further!

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

I wish there were more (any??) graduate fellowships that are based more on improvement or recent record of success, ignoring an initial rough start

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

We use annual plants, flour beetles, and duckweed in the lab, greenhouse, and field to test how processes of community assembly interact and how they feedback with evolution Check out our website & lab instagram page (email and website deliberately not posted here to prevent spam)

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

🚨postdoc opportunity at UBC🚨 applications are now open for the Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship, due internally Oct. 15 - www.postdocs.ubc.ca/award/killam... I can nominate 1 person and give feedback on that nominee's materials - if interested plz email me by Sept. 10 - join us!

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

I can't remember the last time I successfully logged into NSERC or the CCV portal without needing support to manually unlock my account, due to being unable to remember which childhood best friend I used as a security question when I made my account 15 years ago

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Today in lab meeting we are going to do a workshop for each student to develop an organizing conceptual schematic for their thesis (e.g., to be used for the thesis introduction or exit seminar). Anyone here willing to share theirs for inspiration? Here's mine as an example of what I mean 👻

Projects are arranged based on timescale (x axis) and spatial scale (y axis)

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

Oo looks really cool! I'd definitely need a deeper read before being able to answer your question with any confidence - I'll check it out this week

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

Ecologists are obsessed with linking process and pattern, but quantifying the core processes of community assembly (and their interactions) in a natural setting is extremely hard. But we've done it! Using a fun new method. Very proud of this paper and of Emilie and Megan's leadership 🥳

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Reposted by Rachel Germain

Lee Sweetlove @leesweetlove.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Lots of excellent advice in this piece. The core message - only through writing do you really think and order your thoughts into logical sense. Makes a case for not using AI for 1st draft because you bypass the thinking step www.nature.com/articles/s41... @naturebiotech.bsky.social #PlantScience

nature.com

An open letter to graduate students and other procrastinators: it’s time to write - Nature Biotechnology

Nature Biotechnology - An open letter to graduate students and other procrastinators: it’s time to write

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Each day we creep closer to the handmaid's tale

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Reports of USA border officials demanding access to people's devices and denying entry due to evidence of political leanings...this post alone will probably get me banned 😆

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

I think this is the answer - I suspect people compare them often without realizing, but at least the two models yielded identical fits

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

I simulated a fake dataset with a binomial distribution and used that fake data in a glmmTMB with A. a binomial error distribution and B. a beta error distribution (to test the consequences of my choice) The beta distribution had a hugely lower AIC. Anyone know why??

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

Also one more thing, i think it's helpful when people give an idea of the time/leadership commitment of various activities (eg volunteer). Some people have massive lists and i can't tell if they're a bunch of one offs or if someone dedicated year to leading something

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

That includes time management, but also my time as a salad bar attendant means I can cut up a cantaloupe in ways you could only dream of

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

Same is true for work experience. You might not think working at a grocery store is relevant but it can be both for assessing uncommitted time to research and also because a number of skills are practiced in formal work settings

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

Hot tip for fellowship applications (imo): I see a lot of people being vague about their TAing load/other activities that take up time. Reviewers sometimes use this information to weight productivity. e.g., if two people have the same output but one person TAed way more

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

$3400 cad to publish a paper with the currency conversion 😬 i.e., 10% of my nserc

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

The default smiley on outlook changes the vibe in a way I don't love - it's almost dead in the eyes, can't put my finger on it

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

Peer review is nothing compared to 300 students carefully scrutinizing every sentence, word, symbol, choice of formatting in a midterm exam

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

Gotta love that the reason for threatening tarriffs keeps changing over time 🤔

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

This looks great!! Do you cover diagnostics/troubleshooting? That's where I'm currently stuck...things looking not bad but unclear if good enough (eg pp_check etc)

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

Maybe this is more of a PSA for instructors. YouTube recently changed their policy so all PowerPoint embedded videos now have ads, even of they didn't a year ago. This means your class could get interrupted by an ad for an R rated movie etc. YouTube is aware of the issue but has no plans to fix.

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Rachel Germain @gerlame.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

Problem of the day: how to get a youtube video to play in lecture without first playing an ad for pants

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