Beetle parents try harder under pressure, but still lose out. 🪲 This new study shows how competition reshapes cooperation. Read the story behind the paper below, featuring a comic take on stressful parenting! buff.ly/QfJUOVU

Writing on parental care and reproductive strategies? Submit to our collection! We invite studies on the diversity, function and costs of parental care; the evolution of reproductive and mating strategies; the roles of sexual selection and conflict; and the factors that drive variation in parenting.

Ever wonder how different burying beetle species vary in terms of immunity, and if the vast differences in larval dependency are reflected? I bet you did! So did we: doi.org/10.1111/eea.... Congratulations to Laura and @leo-theo.bsky.social, and big thanks to @steigerlab.bsky.social!

Excited to share our new paper @royalsocietypublishing.org This one took what felt like endless maze trials. We found that even modest warming (~1°C) changed an ectotherm's behaviour such that it affected cognitive performance. Speeding them up and reducing decision accuracy.

Writing on parental care and reproductive strategies? Submit to our collection! We invite studies on the diversity, function and costs of parental care; the evolution of reproductive and mating strategies; the roles of sexual selection and conflict; and the factors that drive variation in parenting.

New study out with @steigerlab.bsky.social! We investigated male care in a biparentally caring 🪲. Why does male contribution vary so much? Turns out there are repeatable individual differences, and how much the female does only affects some male care behaviors. authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Excellent initiative!

How do we know our research results are REAL? We replicate them! Most folks agree but lament on how hard it is to publish these replications. My dearest gentle reader, lament no more! Delighted to unveil: Replication Studies, a new section of Behavioral Ecology 1/ academic.oup.com/beheco/artic...

Really cool stuff, congrats to Erika, Sylvia and team!

A cool story about sacrifice and social immunity in ants.

Hmm. Preparing to post about a group member's nice new paper on the evolution of cooperation (out in a couple of days time), I feel regret we did not include the presence of Batman in any of the model versions.

After some years in the making, I’m happy to share our new paper on the benefits of care. By breeding 17 carrion beetle species, we show that parental protection and feeding both promote faster offspring growth. Thanks to Anne, Madlen, and all the fantastic coauthors academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...

🌿 This Thursday: Prof. Wilfert (Uni Regensburg), explores how global change impacts pollinators and their health — from land use to climate effects. 🐝 www.bayceer.uni-bayreuth.de/bayceer/en/a... @steigerlab.bsky.social @max-evolbio.bsky.social @uniregensburg.bsky.social #Pollinators #Ecology

Almost back home from the fantastic ecological immunity workshop. Good times, super grateful to Sophie, Jens et al for organizing - already looking forward to the next one! So much fun and science and good conversations in just a few days. Cheers guys!

Very proud and happy with @leo-theo.bsky.social and his poster presentation at the Ecological Immunity Workshop 2025 :) Excellent work Leon!

The EAE group really enjoyed #DZG2025 in Berlin — great talks, inspiring discussions, and lots of fun!

Was so nice to present our research and @unibayreuth.bsky.social at this DZG meeting! Glad to be talking about parental care and how it interacts with offspring immunity 🎉 Expect our upcoming paper that deals with this cool topic!🪲 @max-evolbio.bsky.social and I had a blast working on it #DZG2025

New study on the effect of relatedness on larval cooperation in burying beetles: sibs boost growth, strangers boost survival. doi.org/10.1098/rsbl... Congrats to Paul Huber and Daniel Wittmann!

Read the current issue of @jevbio.bsky.social here: academic.oup.com/jeb/issue 📸 Heiko Bellmann Adult #Nicrophorus vespilloides #beetle in the act of feeding its offspring atop a vertebrate carcass the beetles have monopolised.

... And it's off to the second conference in a row, this time at the Werbellinsee! Really looking forward to lots of immunity at the EIW 2025! Big thanks to Sophie Armitage, Jens Rolff, and everyone else organizing!

www.nickybay.com/ai-abuse-to-... AI abuse on macrophotography and AI generation of incorrect captions. Here are examples compiled by wildlife photographer Nicky Bay.

Amazing talk by Daniela @roesslerdaniela.bsky.social on spider sleep and possible adaptive values of rem sleep stages. Never knew spiders have sleep phases that eerily look like dream states. Traumhaft!! I wonder how many other creatures feature this behavior... Or how many don't!

Great start to day 2 of #DZG2025 with babbling bats and Mirjam Knörnschild of @mfnberlin.bsky.social!

And #DZG2025 is officially open! Great opening event at the @mfnberlin.bsky.social - what a stunning venue! We are looking forward to a great conference!

After many attempts to get Beauveria fungi to actually harm and infect Nicrophorus beetles in order to test the beetle's social immunity mettle against such a threat we found that I was probably barking up the wrong tree. Check out Leon's paper to find out why!

Through social immunity burying beetles protect their kids from diseases on their carcass. Can this protection ward off an insect pathogen? Researchers @steigerlab.bsky.social find out! doi.org/10.1093/jeb/... @leo-theo.bsky.social @max-evolbio.bsky.social

🔬 Last week at the BayCEER Colloquium, Dr. Maximilian Körner gave us a fascinating glimpse into the social lives of Nicrophorus #beetles 🪲 A fascinating and insightful talk that sparked great discussions! @max-evolbio.bsky.social Are you ready for the next talk?🌿 #SocialEvolution #Ecology

Biggest commitment to a 3 second joke I've ever seen

Chores of a tropical worker bee: drinking excess condensation water inside the hive, then spitting it out at the hive entrance 💦 🐝

Water & sun at MEM25 lunch break ☕

Excellent first day (and finish) at MEM25 :) with @drdomain.bsky.social and @joskramer.bsky.social & @kathrinaotte

Here goes the 3rd Münster Evolution Meeting, finally made it here - third time's the charm!

There's a lot more of these on Joël's page, and even though I have no longer the pleasure of working with these animals to answer questions of family life and its evolution, I can still highly recommend checking them out!!