iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

Questions and inquiries welcome, my email is joshua.twining@oregonstate.edu

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Feel free to email me at Joshua.twining@oregonstate.edu with any questions!

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

It’s got everything you could dream of - loads of fieldwork, small mammal trapping and handling, simulations to inform sampling designs and hierarchical modeling, all in the beautiful Pacific Northwest!

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Are you looking to get a graduate degree in Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences? This funded MS project at OSU is focused on testing a range of non-invasive method for small mammals (enclosed camera trapping + thermal cameras mounted on drones) against SCR applied to live trapping data.

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Hi Dormiens, applications in my department (Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences) do not close as they are on a rolling basis term to term. See link below for more info: fwcs.oregonstate.edu/fisheries-an...

fwcs.oregonstate.edu

How to Apply

Graduate Certificate and Professional Science Masters Applicants: Graduate Certificate applicants may apply as follows: Graduate Certificate in Fisheries Management application (Ecampus), Graduate Cer...

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

ahah I am Gabby. Started just a few months back. Thank you!

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

I am recruiting two funded graduate students (1 MS, 1 PhD) to join the lab and the Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences program at Oregon State University! If you are into population ecology and a combination of fieldwork and modeling - then check this out! Please share/repost widely!

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Tapani Hopkins @tapani-hopkins.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

About time. Not that I'm a fan of ranking journals, and of course there are genuine articles published in those journals, but this is just stating facts. If it's in most of MDPI/Frontiers, we can't trust it's been properly peer reviewed.

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Taal Levi @taaltree.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

Our department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences at Oregon State University is hiring a new Department Head. Any full profs out there wanting to lead us?! jobs.oregonstate.edu/postings/162...

jobs.oregonstate.edu

Department Head

The Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences is seeking a Department Head. This is a full-time (1.00 FTE), 12-month, professional faculty position. The Department of Fisheries, Wil...

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Reposted by Joshua Twining

Jack Bamber @jackantbam.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

⏰New Research ⏰ We quantified the direct impact of diversionary feeding on capercaillie productivity. We show an increase in the proportion of hen with a brood in DF sites (37% -> 85%) and, as a result, a 131% increase in chicks per hen. Read more here: www.researchgate.net/publication/... 1/7

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Galatea H @galateainthewild.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

Advent Sci-Fact 9: Invasive squirrels do not avoid predator scent! Grey Squirrels (Invasive in the UK) do not avoid feeders with Pine Marten scent. Native Red Squirrels visit scented feeders less frequently, for shorter visits and are more vigilant! Paper: tinyurl.com/23u944wq #SciComm #SciArt 🧪🌍🐿

Two panel diagram. Left panel shows red (native) squirrel and grey (invasive) squirrel eating a peanut.
Right panel shows a peanut covered with Pine Marten (Native Predator) scent. The grey squirrel is eating the peanut, the red squirrel does not. Text shows it is avoiding the feeder and behaving more vigilantly.

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

Well this made my day! Thanks Galatea for the great sci comm. I love the graphic you made!

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

Forgive me, my responses were to a question about modeling plant interactions as opposed to impacts of habitat on animal abundance (the latter of which these models do - you can add any covariates that you hypothesize influence the state process (I.e. abundance) of your species of interest).

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

My inkling is that using this model with plant communities wouldn't be an optimal approach but I am uninformed on standard practices when it comes to thinking about plant interactions!

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

With mobile animals we have to contend with ubquitous issue of hetereogenity in detectability (so we explicitly address by modeling observation process.) I am niave to whether this is an issue, or even considered / worthwhile when sampling plants (which are stationary and simpler to survey?).

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

Thanks Alyssa! I think it *could* be applied to plant systems, but I imagine (I don't know) that there may be more information-rich models used in plant world which contain more info about underlying abundances (here we used detection/non-detection data, but with plants you could just count them?)

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Are you interested in species interactions and how we model them? Then this thread is for you! Our new paper in Ecology on the role of abundance in species interactions provides new statistical tools for modelling species interactions. shorturl.at/Sqz9m 🧵(1/13)🧵

shorturl.at

Abundance‐mediated species interactions

Species interactions shape biodiversity patterns, community assemblage, and the dynamics of wildlife populations. Ecological theory posits that the strength of interspecific interactions is fundament...

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Reposted by Joshua Twining

Sarah B. Bassing, PhD @sbassing.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Very cool model and paper!

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

I would love to join if possible! I develop and use hierachical models for estimating population sizes, distributions, and species interactions to inform evidence-based management and conservation of wildlife populations.

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Thanks Alexej! I hope you are well. We should catch up soon!

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

There are a bunch of interaction models out there, when should you think about using this one? Check out our flow diagram to help you decide! (13/13) Please share widely and contact me if you can't access the paper!

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

We then applied the new model to a case study of interactions between coyote, fisher, and marten in northern New York. We detect interactions between species that we did not detect using co-occurence models! (11/13)

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

We ran a bunch of simulation studys to explore inference of modeling interactions as a function occupancy vs abundance, and to explore when, and where the abundance-mediated interaction model works well! (10/13)

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

What I think is really neat here is the variable ecological contexts of use - from intraguild interactions to parasite- or predator- mediated competition through to trophic cascades. (9/13).

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

What if you are interested in interactions between more than two species? No problem, more species, more sub models. (8/13).

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Our solution was to develop a framework that explicit considers species abundance using detection/non-detection data, leveraging well established occupancy and Royle-Nichols models. (7/13).

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Modelling interactions as function of occupancy may be useful when interactions are so strong that the presence of one sp. predictably results in the exclusion of another, but this is v rare. What to do in the common scenario where interactions are mediated by abundance? (6/13)

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

But when is modelling co-occurrence of species useful? Check out these two scenarios thinking about interactions between foxes and coyotes. In which one might we get useful inference thinking about interactions as a function of occupancy? (5/13)

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

There are a number of methods which motivated by field observations of interactions can be used to model interactions. My fav is the Rota multi-species model. The heart of this co-occurrence model is a state model for estimating the latent occupancy state of a site. (4/11)

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

The difficulties of scaling up local observations of interactions between species to landscape-scales are exemplified when you consider that interactions vary in their strength and direction depending on habitat, community composition, and abundance of species of interest. (3/13)

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Ecologists spend alot of time trying to understand species interactions. Species interactions are key in driving species distribution and abundance patterns on both local and landscape-scales. But demonstrating the role of species interactions in ecosystems is non-trivial. (2/13)

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Joshua Twining @joshuaptwining.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

shorturl.at

Abundance‐mediated species interactions

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