Meanwhile in Croydon 🫶

'Male masturbation may have an adaptive benefit: it flushes out damaged, stored sperm.' New Oxford research suggests that the longer sperm are stored before ejaculation, the lower their quality, with implications for men trying to conceive and IVF treatment. Find out more ⬇️

Sperm can “age” independently of the male, when stored in male or female reproductive tracts. Our meta-analysis finds widespread evidence across animals (including abstinence in men). Important consequences for fertility, sexual selection, haploid selection! doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

Fascinating new research led by Rebecca Dean and @krishsanghvi11.bsky.social at @biology.ox.ac.uk! In humans & other animals, sperm stored for longer perform less well 👨‍🦳⌛🍆💦. This has super important implications for fertility!

More reasons to kiss! 💋🦠😘

Always such a pleasure chatting with the marvellous @dansavage.bsky.social – check out the Savage Lovecast tomorrow for our conversation on all things kissing, kinks and much, much more! 💋

We’re interested in folks applying from all manner of disciplinary backgrounds. Biology, zoology of course. But also computer science, remote sensing, architecture. If you’re keen to work with LiDAR and point clouds, we’d like to hear from you!

The "premastication" of food for babies—also called "kiss feeding"—is widespread in apes and humans. Could it have been an evolutionary stepping stone to the romantic kiss? Just one of the topics discussed in our latest episode, w/ @matildabrindle.bsky.social! Listen: disi.org/origins-of-t...

My interview with @manymindspod.bsky.social! Come for a deep dive into the evolution of kissing 💋, stay for the earth-shattering insights 🤯 "fish don't run" 🐠🏃 "monkeys tend to loll around quite a lot" 🙈 "chimps have moved on to grass-in-bumhole behaviour" 🍑🌱 disi.org/origins-of-t...

Does haplodiploidy - a method of sex determination seen in bees and ants among other animals - promote eusociality? New research from @rbonifacii.bsky.social and @stuwest.bsky.social enters evidence into this long debate that - despite popular belief - this is not the case 👇 bit.ly/4qEoEWm

We understand a great deal about how and why cooperation evolves, but what about its long-term consequences? Great to see our new review on this out now in @asn-amnat.bsky.social!

Comparative analysis across 5,678 insect species shows that, when you control for phylogenetic bias, eusociality has not evolved at a faster rate in haplodiploid species. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Delighted to have been a part of this. It's a very exciting area in the field of social evolution and beyond!

This is a *great* opportunity for early career researchers to get their work out into the public domain! I had a fab time talking to Laura about my research on the evolution of masturbation 🐒👋🍆💦🦧🌮👈: open.spotify.com/episode/3Xy9...

Strange discovery that an email about inclusive fitness was forwarded to Jeffrey Epstein, with the emailer quoting Jerusalem and comparing themself to Einstein. Are you one of the >100 evolutionary biologists now in the Epstein files? www.justice.gov/epstein/file...

Calling all OrthoFinder users! We’ve just released GLADE, a tool to infer gene gains, losses, duplications, and ancestral genomes across a phylogeny. GLADE runs directly on OrthoFinder results. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... github.com/lauriebelch/... (1/10)

How do temperature regimes shape trait diversity in communities? Does variability promote more specialists or more generalists? Our new Nature Communications paper tackles this with eco-evo simulations + 653 moth species across latitudinal and elevational gradients. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The marvellous @kitopie.bsky.social explaining how both monogamy and 'promiscuous' mating can help females avoid infanticide, "both early humans and chimpanzees are trying to solve the same problem"!

"we ... employ Bayesian phylogenetic methods to reconstruct the evolutionary history of kissing." www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Superstar researcher @averymaune.bsky.social on her awesome new paper! 🤩

Have had a very exciting and unexpected start to this week, travelling to Salford for an interview with BBC Breakfast talking all things #wasps! Many thanks to @waspwoman.bsky.social for trusting me with this opportunity, and the fantastic #WorldOfWasps at @uclgrantmuseum.bsky.social for the props!

This casual phrase might seem harmless but it misunderstands what autism really is and can do real harm to autistic people.

🚨🐜!!! Check out our new paper where we investigate the impact of a soil level (SoilTemp) dataset on niche shifts of introduced ant species globally — using soil temperatures often lessens the extent of niche shifts between native and introduced ranges! 🐜 🐜 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

The ASN Distinguished Achievement in the Conceptual Unification of the Biological Sciences is for a senior (but still active) investigator who has made major contributions that relate to the goals of ASN. This year’s awardee is Stuart West (Oxford) www.biology.ox.ac.uk/people/stuar... 11/N

The ASN Early Career Investigator Awards recognize outstanding work by 4 researchers who have received their doctorates in the past 3 years. Recipients include: d. Anna Dewar www.anna-dewar.com 5/N

Really looking forward to this talk at @radicalanthro.bsky.social where I’ll argue that the evolution of menopause is crucial to an understanding of the evolution of modern humans and language. @bristolantharch.bsky.social

Write-up of our new paper on information transfer in plant-fungal networks: "Study shows plants are more likely to be ‘eavesdroppers’ than altruists when tapping into underground networks". www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-01... @tobykiers.bsky.social @stuwest.bsky.social

Super important new research out today by @josephwilliamson.bsky.social, @alexpigot.bsky.social & @jonbridle.bsky.social et al. shows diverse communities of species have worryingly similar heat tolerance 🔥🪲🦜🦎. Read more about it in Joe's piece for @theconversation.com

🚨New paper 🚨We argue that abrupt biodiversity losses can be driven by populations sharing similar tolerances to warming 🦋🌎🥵. Out now in @royalsocietypublishing.org. Summary thread below 🧵 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10....

‘Bending the curve towards nature recovery: building on Georgina Mace's legacy for a biodiverse future’ - a special issue of Phil Trans R Soc B in honour of a very special biodiversity scientist - is published today by @royalsociety.org. royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/202...

Our review is out in Nature Reviews Genetics! rdcu.be/d5AY2 We show how phylogeny-based methods can resolve the problem of non-independence in genomic datasets. These methods must be considered an essential part of the comparative genomics toolkit. @lauriebelch.bsky.social @stuwest.bsky.social

Applications are currently open for UNIQ 2025. UNIQ helps support UK state-school students from underrepresented backgrounds prepare for university, with support through the application process to help take those first steps to university life. www.uniq.ox.ac.uk

Is low fecundity of old males a consequence of seminal fluid or sperm declines, or female post-mating responses? Our new paper in evolution letters finds some surprising answers! academic.oup.com/evlett/advan...

New year, new term, new list of evolutionary anthropology seminars, starting Tuesday Jan 14th @uclofficial.bsky.social Anthropology dept. 14 Taviton St. Come along. www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropology...

Excited to have presented my poster at #BES2024 @britishecolsoc.bsky.social 🍀 I am grateful for the amazing opportunity to share my master’s research on spatiotemporal shifts in butterfly reflectance and trade-offs in thermal tolerance and UV protection 🦋 (Part 1/2)

Great to see so many people here – now seems like a good time to reintroduce my research! I explore the evolution of behaviour, especially all things sexy ❤️‍🔥🌮👈🐒🍆 & answer the big questions: why do primates spank the monkey 🍌? Do chimps have wet dreams 💦? Why do some mammals have a penis bone 🦴?

I have some PhD projects now available for application if you are interested in insect biodiversity change. Please check out the links below and shout if you have questions!

I keep finding myself suggesting this brilliant paper by John Welch, about why pointless debates in evolutionary biology + behavioural ecology. Maybe it is easiest if I just repost it here every so often? link.springer.com/article/10.1...

go.bsky.app/QKajPgc A starter pack for social evolution! Lots of space left for anyone who would like to be added

hey everyone! i made a list of some useful starter packs (primarily biology/earth sciences with a few bonus things thrown in) to share with friends who have joined bsky in the last week and thought it may be useful for some people here too! 🌍🧪 #SciSky #BioSky docs.google.com/document/d/1...

A new Palaeolithic female figurine from Piatra Neamț, Romania sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Thank you to all our colleagues for putting this brilliant bid together. Big focus on improving access to graduate study. Applications open in January - please apply! @oxfordbiology.bsky.social

I’m on my first ever “proper” sabbatical, on other side of planet from my department. Super-productive, time to think about science (turns out I still quite enjoy that), deep-fried duck for lunch and a coconut-break in the afternoon. 🌴 ❤️🇮🇩

Reminder that, if you're a teacher, happy to provide a free assembly (online) to help communicate why science matters and how to spot pseudoscience and general BS online. It all matters right now.

Paper accepted 🥳🙌 in #philtransb is a nice way to start a grey Monday. Watch this space to learn more about how clustered warming tolerances drive non-linear risks of biodiversity loss on a warming planet! 🥵🌎🌿

Had the best time at #ISBE2024! Always a pleasure to present this research 🌮🍆💦👋🦧, but even more fun to discuss it with awesome behavioural ecologists in such a welcoming setting!

At #ISBE2024 next week? Come see my first ever conference poster. (I'm cheating - it is a slight update of an awesome poster by @annadewar.bsky.social )

Why do pangenomes vary so much across bacteria? 🦠🧬 We show that bacterial lifestyle is the key factor shaping variation in pangenome fluidity. Read more in our paper out now in PNAS: doi.org/10.1073/pnas... With Chunhui Hao @lauriebelch.bsky.social Melanie Ghoul @stuwest.bsky.social