I am currently modeling the movement, mortality, and impacts of two species of exotic beetles, the polyphagous shot hole borer, and the tamarisk leaf beetle (TLB model mostly being done by my final graduate student from the previous life in academia). These beetles are important because they impact the habitat vegetation of an endangered bird,… Read More Agent-based modeling of exotic beetles
Title: Agent-based Modeling of Beetle Populations Institution: Purdue University, Dept. of Entomology Location: West Lafayette, IN; Fieldwork in southern CA. Job Category: Graduate Assistantship (Ph.D.) Salary: Year-round funding of $26,000 /yr plus a full tuition waiver will begin in Fall of 2022. Summer 2022 salary is ~20,000 /yr. Start Date: May 16, 2022 Description: This… Read More Graduate Assistantship Available
Data science is a term that conveniently conveys a collection of methods for dealing with data. However, it is a confusing term in that data science is not necessarily a science—perhaps only rarely so—although it should form a portion of the analytical toolbox of scientists and others that interpret data. As more and more data… Read More What is Data Science?
Geographic projections are mathematical procedures that display the objects on the surface of the earth on a two-dimensional surface. If you imagine trying to cut and flatten out a basketball into a perfectly flat surface you may see why this is not trivial. Geographic projections create two-dimensional maps by tracing vectors from an originating point… Read More Geographical Projections
Filming Collembola (common name: “springtails”) poses a number of challenges. One of the first challenges, if out in the field, would be to locate some, which can prove difficult due to their tiny size (typically averaging 1mm for adults). The size in itself demands a camera of adequate power and focus, which often is a… Read More Collembolagraphy: Springtails on Film
Creating images of molecules in three dimensions seems at first to be simple enough, but there are some challenges. This is likely why people may either avoid doing so or use a plug-in script for specifically for this. I decided to try my hand at rendering some simplified models of macromolecules. I started with a… Read More Drawing Molecules
I wished to generate a random landscape map of habitat and non-habitat. This will be the arena for the next development in the correlated random walk dispersal model of last month. The landscape generated has large blocks of habitat, i.e., the cell value of habitat or non-habitat is not randomly determined for each cell which… Read More A Simple Random Landscape Generator
Dispersal models are useful in research to examine how changing parameters alter how animals may move. As with other models, they are stripped-down versions of reality in nature that can help us ask better questions, but are not used to test hypotheses. Just for fun, I decided to start a scratch built dispersal model from… Read More A Very Simple Dispersal Model
The spatial distribution of soil-dwelling arthropods is a subject that continues to by and large remain a black box to researchers. This is due largely to the extraordinary complexity of soil ecology and the difficulty of studying creatures that, in a sense, are an inseparable part of the soil itself. Soils are often highly heterogeneous… Read More The Spatial Complexity of Soil Arthropod Communities: Navigating the Labyrinth
A bioblitz is a 24-hour survey of the taxa in a defined area. Teams led by experts in different groups of living things survey to find as many different species as possible during that time. These are fun events to take part in. Participants learn of different groups of organisms that are present and different… Read More The Value of a Bioblitz
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