Tomos Potter
@tomospotter
Evolutionary ecologist in the Kokko lab, JGU Mainz. Recovering guppy-botherer, interested in eco-evolutionary processes that generate and maintain diversity. Models, stats, long-term studies. 🏴 in 🇩🇪 Also likes: food, landscapes, guitars
Stumbled on this spreadsheet I made way back documenting all the deaths described in Sun Kil Moon's 2014 album Benji... Would like to make a #dataviz, but I'm lacking quantitative resolution!
Both my parents were carpenters for many years, I love that dad made this for her. The inscriptions read “Jenny Potter 1951 -2025” and “I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being - Hafiz C14th”. It’s a tiny poem that mum loved.
Special weekend. We installed a commemorative bench my dad made for my mum, at her favourite view point on her favourite local walk, looking over the Welsh hills she loved the best. On a clear day you can see Yr Wyddfa /Snowdon and others from Eryri in the distance. A lovely spot to sit and reflect.
Getting excited for #ExE2026 ! Come check out my talk at 11am on Tuesday in Lecture Theatre B:
Oh god it looks like talking about Moby D*ck has triggered the pornbots 😅
Courtesy of the aisle of suspiciously cheap dried mushrooms at my local supermarket, I present: Risotto of Questionable Morel Standing
Both killifish and guppies were infected by the parasite, but killifish suffered much more when guppies were present. This effect resulted in the ratio of guppies to killifish changing from 1:2 to 1:16 after the parasite invasion (!!!)
The invasive parasite in question is the unfortunately named Camellanus cotti. Originally from SE Asia, now globally distributed via the ornamental fish trade, it is a generalist nematode🪱 parasite of fish. It is becoming a major concern wrt the conservation of natural freshwater communities.
Our long-term study populations of guppies 🐟 and killifish 🐟were invaded by a nasty parasite 🪱 :( But when life gives you wormy lemons, make lemonade! Using a natural experiment and mark-recap analysis, we teased apart the direct and indirect consequences of this invasion for community structure.
New paper on how an invasive parasite alters community structure - out now ahead of print in @animalecology.bsky.social! Co-led with Ryan Mohammed, with huge thanks to the very many interns who helped gather data over the years! A very brief thread on what happened and what we found out 🧪🧵:
He is full of surprises, but I didn’t expect the pope to agree to sparring with ships approaching the US blockade tbh. Sounds like Trump is pretty confident in Leo’s abilities though. 🚤🥊✝️
My Grandmother Loved Horses And Was A Terrible Photographer A short 🧵
New book arrived! Looking forward to learning more about the bonkers life of JBS Haldane. I also note that he sports the same hairstyle that is (sadly) traditional among men in my family. Seems like we will have that in common at least!
What if your family members turn out to be your worst enemies? Come see my talk at #eseb2025 on using pedigree and mark-recapture data to explore how relatedness structures competitive interactions, and whether this maintains variation! Thursday, 11am, S48.02, meeting room 122+123
I think they are rank ordered by value. I made a similar plot to illustrate the change in both frequency and abundance of 27 distinct male colour patterns in guppies, maintained by negative frequency dependence. Visually striking, but maybe not an ideal way to convey the message...
Fun to give an introductory talk at JGU Mainz today - which is a good time to announce here that I am delighted to have joined the @kokkonut.bsky.social Theoretical Evolutionary Ecology lab as a post-doc! Looking forwards to developing my modelling skills with this excellent group!
Presumably Michelangelo isn’t bothered about the blatant reproduction of his design
Hurlbert 1984 is a classic - especially for the recommendations of using exorcism and human sacrifice to avoid demonic intrusion in experiments: