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Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto

@pedrobd.bsky.social

440 followers 320 following 270 posts

Biologist, molecular ecologist🧑‍🔬 , eDNA nerd 🧬, birder 🐦, coin collector 🪙, insect enjoyer 🐜, Brazilian mineiro, and more. Currently a Postdoc in the Kelly Lab at UW.

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Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto @pedrobd.bsky.social · Jul 5

I had an idea—just a hunch, really— on how to link #Popgen and #eDNA.
I was lucky to be in a lab that embraced curiosity, open discussion, and let me run with it.

One year, many equations, and a few too many simulations later, here’s the result:

🧬 Preprint now live: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Estimating Organism Abundance Using Within-Sample Haplotype Frequencies of eDNA Metabarcoding Data

Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding provides powerful insights into species presence and community composition, but remains limited in its ability to quantify species abundance or structure. Here, ...

doi.org

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Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto @pedrobd.bsky.social · 3h

The DIYNAFLUOR is an affordable and simple DIY plug-and-play nucleic acid fluorometer.

This microgrant provides access to materials to build one.

Apply here 🔗 docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

And please share widely! #CitizenScience #MolecularEcology #OpenHardware

DIYNAFLUOR Microgrant Opportunity

docs.google.com

Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto @pedrobd.bsky.social · 3h

🚀 The @ednacollab.bsky.social just launched the DIYNAFLUOR Microgrant 2025!

They’re offering materials + support to build a low-cost DIY fluorometer for eDNA quantification.

It can be as effective as Qubit at a % of the cost.

Great opportunity for anyone in #eDNA, #DIYBio, #CitizenScience 👇

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Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto @pedrobd.bsky.social · 12h

It turns out you can buy a monthly public transit pass and save money in Paris!😄🐓

(But it is valid from the first calendar day of the month, not the day you first use it)😑

You can also buy a weekly 7 day pass!

(But its valid from Monday to Sunday of a given week, not any 7 consecutive days)🥴

Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto @pedrobd.bsky.social · 1d

I think you have to make a bioblitz in an area with heavy inat observation, recording evry little thing possible. Then you make a joint statistical model estimating a conversion parameter between inat and unbiased bioblitz. Then you use the conversion parameter to all of inat.

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Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto @pedrobd.bsky.social · 1d

New paper shows that spotting rare birds increases the odds of people starting a checklist, thus data is a little biases.

Makes sense ... I do the same! On routine walks or usual hikes I skip eBird, but when something unusual 🦤 (or a lifer!) appears, I can’t resist starting an eBird list 😅

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 1d

Large citizen science datasets are powerful tools for biodiversity science, but they may have biases. Nice new paper from @louisbackstrom.bsky.social et al. showing that for eBird and Birdtrack lists there is a tendency for rare species to be over-represented
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

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Reposted by Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto

Matthew A. Barnes @drbarnes.org · 3d

Only negative controls amplified.

🏰meg⚔️ @Birthright Audiobook! @impavid.us · 6d

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand

I'll go first: Six page commercial lease.

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Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto @pedrobd.bsky.social · 2d

A Crested tit and I just got to 990 life birds🐦! I am in a new continent - but the bad news is that its Europe and its October.

All migrants are gone and I am not confident I will find 10 more species. Let's see....

It would help if all the ducks weren't Mallard🦆 and all the gesse weren't Canadian

Reposted by Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto

Jonathan C Slaght @jonathanslaght.com · 12d

super cool study found human artifacts in Bearded vulture nests, incl. "weaponry like a crossbow bolt and wooden lance, decorated sheep leather, and parts of a slingshot....a shoe made from twigs and grass is ~675-years-old." link to paper: doi.org/10.1002/ecy..... www.popsci.com/environment/... 🧪🌍🦉

Multi-generational vulture nests hold 700 years of human artifacts

Crossbow bolts, sandals, slingshots, and more.

www.popsci.com

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Reposted by Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto

Diogo B Proietti @provete.bsky.social · 10d

Pre-print em português (sorry @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social ) do nosso artigo publicado recentemente na PECON disponível no @ecoevorxiv.bsky.social

ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

Ciclos irregulares de financiamento no Brasil são uma barreira à conservação da biodiversidade e à liderança global do país

ecoevorxiv.org

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Reposted by Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto

Susheel Bhanu Busi @susheelbusi.bsky.social · 16d

🚨 New #OpenAccess paper in #Environmental #DNA! 🚨

Led by #TimGoodall @ukceh.bsky.social with @danread.bsky.social we tested whether #soil #eDNA metabarcoding can capture plant #biodiversity & vegetation cover across the UK 🌱

🔗 doi.org/10.1002/edn3...

Deciphering Landscape‐Scale Plant Cover and Biodiversity From Soil eDNA

Biodiversity surveys are essential but challenging to conduct at scale, prompting this study to evaluate soil-extracted eDNA as a proxy for traditional field-based surveys for describing plant commun...

doi.org

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Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto @pedrobd.bsky.social · 11d

a cartoon character is sitting on a green couch with his arms crossed

ALT: a cartoon character is sitting on a green couch with his arms crossed

media.tenor.com

Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto @pedrobd.bsky.social · 11d

I have gone through Fig 2 of my upcoming paper ~20x now. Every time, I find a small error that I hadn't seen before, which triggers a series of ~10 steps and 5 min of work to update it. It`s a complex figure.

If y`all find an error in it while reading the paper, please DO NOT tell me. Thank you 🥰

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Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto @pedrobd.bsky.social · 12d

How many Nanopores is too many Nanopores to have running all at once? Well, @AdenIp has four (!!!!) up here at the @ednacollab.bsky.social right now 💢💢💢💢

Why, you ask?
"Why not?" - he says

Lots of air eDNA data coming out of the oven (literally, these basicalling GPUs warm up the room a lot 🔥🔥🔥)

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Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto @pedrobd.bsky.social · 15d

Some call it fashion

Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto @pedrobd.bsky.social · 15d

Today the glove box gave me a glove with no thumb and dared me to do science without opposable thumbs. I rejected the challenge 👍

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Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto @pedrobd.bsky.social · 15d

I feel like we tend to complain loudly and often when manuscript peer reviews are bad or unfavorable.

But today I got reviews... and they were reasonable and polite!

Faith slightly restored!!

Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto @pedrobd.bsky.social · 19d

Toxic trait of bioinfo folks:
Everyone insists on building their own pipeline 👨‍💻

Is it (a) distrust, (b) dreams of citations, (c) tryna prove competency— or all?
Even if it’s a wrapper on a wrapper, god forbid you just use an established one!

I am half guilty as well.
xkcd nailed it long ago.

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Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto @pedrobd.bsky.social · 20d

Beta-Binomial and Dirichlet-Multinomial are the GOAT distributions

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Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto @pedrobd.bsky.social · 20d

Why are statistical methods so often explained as if the authors are afraid someone might actually understand what they did?

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Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto @pedrobd.bsky.social · 26d

The Miseq i100 has a baby now

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Reposted by Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto

Scott P. Egan @scottpegan.bsky.social · Sep 12

The Dept. of BioSciences at #RiceUniversity, in Houston, Texas, invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professor position in Evolutionary Biology, with a preferred focus on organismal responses to environmental change. Please RT!

Apply: apply.interfolio.com/173889

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

apply.interfolio.com

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Reposted by Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto

Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 27d

Full comic here: www.smbc-comics.com/comic/theodi...
#smbc

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Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto @pedrobd.bsky.social · 27d

If you are upset that I am shitposting, please understand: I am on a visa, I cannot not shitpost. I CAN not post, but once I do post, I cannot not shitpost. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto @pedrobd.bsky.social · 27d

I had a nightmare where I had to correctly identify 2 juvenile winter gulls in the PNW or my eBird lists would be all invalidated. 🦅

#birding