We had the pleasure of awarding the Fyssen International Prize last June to two outstanding laureates — Prof. Jean-Louis Deneubourg and @icouzin.bsky.social Prof. Iain Couzin — in recognition of the excellence of their work on the theme "Collective behavior across species".

It’s the New Fellows Seminar Day - incredible talks in an inspiring venue. I love the motto of the Royal Society: “Nullius in verba” “Take nobody’s word for it” - don’t just believe something because someone says so—find out for yourself.

Spent a fantastic week in Konstanz visiting @icouzin.bsky.social and having so many discussions about collective behavior in *everything*.

Heuschreckenschwärme sind Wunder der Koordination. Wie sich die einzelnen Tiere im #Schwarm orientieren, können @icouzin.bsky.social et al. vom @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social und @cbehav.bsky.social @uni-konstanz.de) jetzt annähernd erklären: www.laborjournal.de/rubric/journ... (von Larissa Tetsch)

From humans to swarm intelligence, what is the impact of uninformed individuals on collective decisions? Check this comment in @science.org by @kenjennings.bsky.social and @carlbergstrom.com on @icouzin.bsky.social et al's paper cdanfort.w3.uvm.edu/csc-reading-...

I’m thrilled to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. What an honour! Would not have happened without the mentors, postdocs and students who I’ve had the great privilege to learn and collaborate with throughout my career. @uni-konstanz.de @maxplanck.de

Liang Li and team have developed a VR system for fish to decipher how they school. The team uncovered the natural ‘control law’ used by zebrafish to coordinate behavior with others. @icouzin.bsky.social @uni-konstanz.de @cbehav.bsky.social Paper: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New episode 🎧 We discuss Geometric Decision-Making with @icouzin.bsky.social! We go over the collective behaviours seen in different animals 🐠🪰🐙and ask: how much do physics models ⚛️portray the dynamics of collective-decision-making? Listen to learn more! open.spotify.com/show/4GrM2vL...

In his new book, published today, Nachum Ulanovsky calls on the field to embrace naturalistic conditions and move away from overcontrolled experiments. #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/systems-neur...

Pretty much everything is fucked, but here is some beautiful and exciting science from @archaeon-alex.bsky.social and colleagues. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A special issue of Science explores the complex and close associations rats share with humans—from their ubiquity in the human environment to their crucial role as biomedical models. 🐀 Learn more on #WorldRatDay: scim.ag/3E7Xo04

🌍 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

We use multi-sensor field studies, swarm robotics and computational modelling to understand the 'what', 'how' and hopefully the 'why' of it all. Tagging our collaborators @swarmdynamics.bsky.social @joefresna.bsky.social @icouzin.bsky.social & Kalle Åström at Uni. Lund 3/n

Kicking off the UK Multi-Agent Systems Symposium 2025 (UK-MAS) by The Alan Turing Institute! Opening with @icouzin.bsky.social from @cbehav.bsky.social on "The Geometry of Collective Multi-Agent Decision Making." Exciting day of #collective #behavior across scales. 👾🤖🦠🦈🖥️🏦

We are proud to present our new preprint “Correlative light and electron microscopy reveals the fine circuit structure underlying evidence accumulation in larval zebrafish”, just posted on bioRxiv (www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...). (1/10)

Thank you all for the opportunity to talk about insect swarms, and for the President’s Medal. Lovely to see so many friends from over the years there!

📢 It's tomorrow! The 2025 #VerrallLecture will be given by Professor @icouzin.bsky.social, Director of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social. The Lecture takes place Wed 5 March. The talk will be recorded & shared after the event 🔽 buff.ly/4hJ9BGz

Thinking of starting a new religion

The final keynote speaker of #cultureconference2025 is Michael Chimento, with his work on methods and models of ephemeral animal cultures 🐦 @cultconf.bsky.social @mchimento.bsky.social

More cool work from the “Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour” @cbehav.bsky.social at the University of Konstanz.

London folk - I’m giving a public lecture on Wed “From Democratic Consensus to Cannibalistic Hordes: The Remarkable World of Insect Swarms” - Come along!

Heartbreaking chats this week with students thinking of giving up on their dreams of getting a PhD. They worry about getting in PhD programs and careers post PhD. My suggestions: don’t be hasty, think broadly incl EU & Canada, & careers beyond traditional academia. What’re you telling your students?

#Swarm science just got a shake-up! 🦗🦗🦗For decades, #locusts were thought to move like particles but new research indicates they actually use sensory & cognitive mechanisms, not simple alignment @icouzin.bsky.social @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social @sercansayin.bsky.social

New field/lab work from Sercan Sayin,…& Iain Couzin at Universität Konstanz. More evidence the classic “self propelled particle” model is insufficient. Who even proposed THAT?! Overview: www.campus.uni-konstanz.de/en/science/s... Paper: doi.org/10.1126/scie... #ALife #collective #behavior #locusts

Scientists use VR + lab + field study to rewrite the rules of locust swarming 🦗🦗 Latest @science.org from first author @sercansayin.bsky.social and #Konstanz team ⬇️ @einatcouzin.bsky.social @icouzin.bsky.social @cbehav.bsky.social @uni-konstanz.de www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Latest #UniKonstanz @cbehav.bsky.social + @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social @science.org study shows: Classical models of collective behaviour fail to explain the mechanisms driving desert locust swarms: t1p.de/bmwst @sercansayin.bsky.social @einatcouzin.bsky.social @icouzin.bsky.social

Coverage of our recent locust paper in @science.org by DW www.dw.com/en/scientist...

Virtual reality rewrites the rules of the swarm. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... We find that classical models of collective behavior fail to account for collective motion. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Interdisciplinary team effort from biologists and computer scientists @cbehav.bsky.social @icouzin.bsky.social @uni-konstanz.de led by first author Liang Li www.ab.mpg.de/656307/eye-o...

Had a blast at Harvard. Such great science. Such great doors.

Just arrived in Boston. Very much looking forward to giving the Winston Chen Lecture at Harvard on Friday!

For our junior colleagues in the US looking for opportunities, Europe is a great place to do science 🧪 We have a #postdoc call open right now! #complexity csh.ac.at/education/po...

#CollectiveBehaviour is all around. Here is a short film showcasing our research as the cluster of excellence, collective behaviour in based in @uni-konstanz.de youtu.be/S0MkSuBK0iI?...

🚨 new publication from our lab in @pnas.org ! "Expert navigators deploy rational complexity–based decision precaching for large-scale real-world planning" Entropy of streets & successor representations explain planning speed Colab wth Daniel McNamee at Champalimaud www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

I was invited to contribute a 1987 boids video to “The Creative Machine” exhibition, open through February at Taikang Art Museum in Beijing. Today I saw these videos (via Frederic Fol Leymarie on LinkedIn) including a boids reference: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtwC... www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOr2...

Hi all! We are happy to announce that we are now on bluesky!! 🥳 We are The Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour (CASCB) based in @uni-konstanz.de, Germany focused on the study of collective behaviour across species and environments Here to bluer skies! 🦋

What does the remarkably early appearance of the Last Universal Common Ancestor tell us about the first days of life on Earth? My article in yesterday's Observer. www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Rove beetles of the genus Tetradonia patrol the periphery of army ant columns, snatch weak or injured ants off the trail, and pull them into the leaf litter where they consume them. These predators are one of the many myrmecophiles, or ant guests, associated with army ant colonies.

📢 Join us for the first talk in 2025 on Thu. Jan 9, at 4.15pm with an amazing speaker: Iain Couzin @icouzin.bsky.social, Director at the MPI of Animal Behavior, on "The neural basis of exploration and decision-making in individuals and groups", live in Tü & in Zoom Sign up: forms.gle/VXGsMYdDhspv...

Hey #boston #cambridgema folks: A new #artscience salon for exploring #complexity and #emergence, with our first meeting at Boston Public Library. www.meetup.com/complex-syst...

What is the role of complexity, nonlinearity and phase transitions in conservation biology? What kind of lessons from maths can help preserve biodiversity? Here's my last paper on Biological Conservation. @ftmaestre.bsky.social sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Our sharks are featured in The Guardian’s photographs that defined 2024! Photo by @albiangela.bsky.social and @augustpaula.bsky.social @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social @unikonstanz.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

The non-model organism “renaissance” has arrived Meet 10 neuroscientists bringing model diversity back @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/animal-model...

We’re excited to announce the winning entries of the #RSPPhotoComp 2024! Follow along as we reveal the beautiful winning images of each category. Starting with #Behaviour and overall winner, 'The Hunt from Above' by @albiangela.bsky.social, with the help of drone pilot, @augustpaula.bsky.social.

#UniKonstanz pioneer in collective behaviour research, Iain Couzin @icouzin.bsky.social, has been awarded the prestigious 2024 Fyssen International Prize. https://t1p.de/d1eed#UniKonstanz@mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social

🚨It is finally out: In our newest paper paper in @currentbiology.bsky.social we show that #Cataglyphis #DesertAnts have a polarity-sensitive magnetic sense 🐜🧭 Please read & share 🧪↘️https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(24)01519-7↙️ #Magnetoreception #Neuroethology #InsectNavigation

I am delighted and honored to have been awarded the 2024 Fyssen International Prize! Sharing it with Jean-Louis Deneubourg makes it all the more special. He was instrumental in inspiring me to study collective behaviour when I was a PhD student. www.exc.uni-konstanz.de/collective-b...

We start off here with some great news 🦈 me and @augustpaula.bsky.social got the right shot! Great team work with @icouzin.bsky.social Luke Costello and Tristan Walter @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social