🚨REPOST PLEASE! 🙏🏻 Calling all South African 🇿🇦 zoology students! You have ONE more week to apply to our Collective Behaviour Field Course 📍Two weeks at the Kalahari Research Centre 🗓️ June 2026 💸 Fully funded Application details are at www.exc.uni-konstanz.de/cbfc DM for any questions

🎙️ New Meet the P.I. podcast episode with Anna Stöckl @anna-stoeckl.bsky.social is out! From vision to interdisciplinary science, navigating new fields, dealing with rejection, and finding your own path ✨ 🎧 Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/1DGh... 📺 YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iemB...

Braitenberg 100 – a landmark symposium in computational neuroscience – will gather the field’s foremost experts from around the world. Join us in Tübingen, Germany, starting June 29! Registration: braitenberg100-theoretical-neuroscience.de

🧵 New preprint led by @bingbrunton.bsky.social, @elliottabe.bsky.social, @lawrencehu.bsky.social We gave a worm brain control of a fly body and it walked What did we learn? Nothing, other than deep reinforcement learning is effective We call it the digital sphinx www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

How does an animal choose between exploring for a better food source and taking advantage of a known one? Our recent work in Current Biology demonstrates how recent feeding and metabolic state dynamically influence fly local search. bit.ly/3PfrIv3 #Science #Neurosky #Foraging #Drosophila

Heads up animal behavior researchers! Amazing opportunity: 3 3-year independent postdoctoral fellowships based in Panama at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Deadline July 15. Come collaborate with @livingingroups @MPI_animalbehav...

Another amazing story by @edvardmoser.bsky.social and @m-bmoser.bsky.social on the developmental emergence of spatial navigation : I am so thrilled to see a new, and surprising example of instinctive circuit function 🤣 We still have so much to learn on behavior circuit development: congrats! 👏🧠

Have you seen the latest documentary on CASCB research? Director Franziska Mayr-Keber produced an insightful film for public national channel 3sat featuring the work of Hannah Williams, Iain Couzin and August Paula. Dive in: www.3sat.de/gesellschaft... @icouzin.bsky.social @augustpaula.bsky.social

This could be your dream job! PhD in ecology, and English and Japanese language skills required... working for POKEMON!!! www.ign.com/articles/the...

I just made an account and voted for this biology laboratory made of LEGO to "promote biological research and inspire more people into the world of biology". They need 10K votes. Reposting and/or voting below would be helpful. 🤗 beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

After 5 years of developing, a new preprint from the lab - introducing our workflow for comparative insect connectomics, aimed at democratizing connectomics. @erc.europa.eu @lundvision.bsky.social @biologylu.bsky.social Read it here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Little smart critters..🪰🐝🐜 Cognitive primitives of the insect brain: Trends in Cognitive Sciences www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

This paper on how the brain may do gradient descent is very cool: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The first paper from the lab is now out in Science Advances: Multimodal social context modulates larval behavior in Drosophila www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... We find that fly larvae keep their distance to conspecifics in the absence of food, enjoy reading! @cbehav.bsky.social @uni-konstanz.de

New blog post!!🚨 Michael Chimento gives an overview of the new R package STbayes, designed for creating, fitting and understanding Bayesian models of social transmission 🌍 🧪 Read the blog here 👇

Thrilled to start 2026 with our latest preprint, in which we dive into a dedicated forward-walking circuit in the fly brain: doi.org/10.64898/202.... This effort was spearheaded by the fantastic @chrisjdallmann.bsky.social with help from a bunch of talented people in the lab.

Long thought to be a simple switchboard, the hypothalamus may be the neural substrate of emotion states. By @natmesanash.bsky.social #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/systems-neur...

Made summer travel plans yet? How about a trip to Greece? This conference looks fantastic! conferences.weizmann.ac.il/NBNB2026/spe...

*First preprint from our lab* !!!!! How does the brain learn to anchor its internal sense of direction to the outside world? 🧭 led by Mark Plitt @markplitt.bsky.social & Dan Turner-Evans, w/ Vivek Jayaraman: “Octopamine instructs head direction plasticity” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Thread ⬇️

1/6: New publication from the lab: “Plastic landmark anchoring in zebrafish compass neurons” by Ryosuke Tanaka (@ryosuketanaka.bsky.social) and Ruben is available here: rdcu.be/eX1L4

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... We had a lot of fun working on this project (led by Itzel Ishida, not on bluesky). Some interesting highlights from the paper -

Our paper is published today in Current Biology and is featured on the cover! We report a neat, and somewhat counter-intuitive, finding: higher-ranking baboons get less and more interrupted night-time rest.

1/n: A new collaborative preprint from the lab to start the year: "A multi-ring shifter network computes head direction in zebrafish" together with Siyuan Mei, Martin Stemmler and Andreas Herz from the LMU, Munich.

Video abstract for our preprint, “Connectome simulations identify a central pattern generator circuit for fly walking”, bit.ly/4pubCuN Animated by T Sloan @quorumetrix.bsky.social, narrated by @sarahpugly.bsky.social, music by J McNamara, collab w @bingbrunton.bsky.social. youtu.be/twAZlL6olS4

I'm no purist when it comes to participating in things we all know are bad. I try to reduce my harm but I'm an honest hypocrite. I won't judge you for still using Spotify, just try this rad alternative. I'm listening to music from Dar es Salaam. Where will you listen to? radio.garden/listen/furah...

(1/n) We are excited to share our new paper in Nature Communications, by Hagar Lavian (@hlavian.bsky.social) and team, revealing how the zebrafish brain integrates visual navigation signals! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Job Alert! The Institute for Neuro- and Behavioural Biology at the Faculty of Biology @uni-muenster.de invites applications for a Full Professorship (W3) in “Systems Neuroscience” - Highly attractive research environment at the Multiscale Imaging Center. Apply by January 5th. See shorturl.at/VczFp

First neurons didn’t appear overnight. We trace their roots to ancient secretory cells - showing how lifestyle & behavior shaped the evolution of first synapses.🧠🌊 #Evolution #Neuroscience Our latest in @natrevneuro.nature.com Link: rdcu.be/eMX3E @jeffcolgren.bsky.social @msarscentre.bsky.social

Finally, someone has solved a real problem with AI! No more having to take a paper in the format for a journal that rejected you, and reformat it for a new journal. Well done!! formatmypaper.com

Which processes underlie collective intelligence in naturalistic human groups? In new work led by Valerii Chirkov, we show that payoff selectivity is key in transforming a group of individuals into an intelligent collective 🤝🧠 www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY7n... Preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...

New study from #UniKonstanz @cbehav.bsky.social and @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social shows: animal swarms don’t need to follow fixed rules; their coordination emerges from brain dynamics. Flexible “ring attractor” networks create complexity from simplicity: https://t1p.de/4c6cd#UniKonstanz@icouzin.bsky.social

Proud of my PhD student @rodento.bsky.social for her first study on the effect of environmental structure on social phenotype of desert locusts. An amazing collaboration with @einatcouzin.bsky.social , who got me to work on locusts. You want to know more: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

"Superefficient" weaver ants show remarkable strength in numbers. Learn more: https://scim.ag/4lpTGOQ

FlyBase, a Drosophila database, will lose a third of its team in early October because the Harvard grant that covered the employees’ salaries was canceled. Scientists warn that losing FlyBase could devastate fly research. By @claudia-lopez.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/community/ha...

In humans, bigger teams often mean less effort per person — the #Ringelmann effect. Weaver #ants 🐜 flip the script: #teamwork makes them superefficient! Video + paper out now in Current Biology! @cellpress.bsky.social tinyurl.com/44yrvp6m tinyurl.com/3jnnevfn

Check out the newest episode of our podcast "In the Swarm"! Have you ever wondered how tiny insects navigate the world? In this episode, @anna-stoeckl.bsky.social explains how the tiny but mighty insect brain controls behaviour of stunning complexity. www.exc.uni-konstanz.de/collective-b...

Registration for the ASAB conference is now open - come join us!

Our postdoc Dr Dila Atak has received a big grant from Health Institutes of Türkiye to investigate alterations in human astrocytes associated with epilepsy. Thanks to fantastic clinicians of Koç University School of Medicine Drs: Solaroglu, Kulac, Gurses, Akyoldas, Baran for their generous support.

New paper out 🥳 The physiological costs of leadership in collective movements. - Trying to lead the group can be stressful, so it might not always be worth it!#openaccess at @currentbiology.bsky.social @cbehav.bsky.social @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social

Crazy two weeks: From the field research with mormon crickets at arid Utah/Colorado to lush Tuscany, discussing desert locusts collectives #grc #neuroethology. In either case, cannibalistic insects are cool 😎

Are you a scientist with an interest in photography? We're delighted to announce that the Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition is now open for entries until 15 August 2025! 🎉 Find out more: royalsociety.org/journals/pub... #RSPphotocomp

🚨 New paper out! 🚨 We used interpretable machine learning on data from 55 countries (N = 4,635) to identify the most important individual- and nation-level factors predicting climate beliefs, policy support, and behaviors. 📄 doi.org/10.1038/s441... Led by @todorova.bsky.social

Excited to share my PhD paper is out! We studied how motion vision is processed beyond the optic lobes to help flies walk straight. It has been a wonderful collaboration with @michaelreiser.bsky.social, @dddavi.bsky.social and many others not in bluesky! Paper + digest here: bsky.app/profile/cham...

Please mark your calendars and join us next May 20th in the next session of the webinar series "The future of Neuroethology". We will have a line-up of amazing scientists as usual, we will learn about locusts, newts and cichlids!

Fly larvae keep on surprising us - check out this new paper from the Louis lab: www.cell.com/current-biol... Sensation of electric fields in the Drosophila melanogaster larva. Such cool little critters 🪰

When bats emerge from roosts by the thousands, they experience a "cocktail party nightmare" of jammed echolocations. Scientists didn't know how bats avoid colliding. Now, they do. Study by @ayagoldshtein.bsky.social and team from Tel Aviv Uni ▶️ www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... youtu.be/mIockHSehYw

🌍 We are launching a new #ManyLabs!!! Join the Heat & Cognition project! We're studying how extreme heat affects human thinking, social behavior & well-being — globally. Contribute & co-author: 🔗 Info: heatandmind.wordpress.com 📋 Sign up: www.soscisurvey.de/HeatandCogni... #EnvironmentalPsychology

Hello World! After almost a month of starting a research group - finally the announcement :) We are the 'Active Sensing Collectives' group (tinyurl.com/yckehxys) at the CASCB in the University of Konstanz. We're still growing, see PhD position ad below. @cbehav.bsky.social @uni-konstanz.de z.de

The first paper from the lab is out on biorxiv - enjoy reading! Social context and interactions influence our behavioral decisions - the same is true for the little fly larva!

Our next Collective Behaviour Seminar #CollBehavSeminar is by @sercansayin.bsky.social from @uni-konstanz.de on 18th March 2025, @2pm UK time. Talks are 15 minutes long, with 15 minutes of questions. Subscribe to lnkd.in/eCWT2dvF to keep up to date and for information on our seminars.