New paper out now in Ecology & Evolution: "Estimating (non)linear selection on reaction norms: A general framework for labile traits" Work done in collaboration with Yimen Araya-Ajoy, Niels Dingemanse, @ali--wilson.bsky.social, and David Westneat. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Myself and Alastair Wilson wrote an updated version of our 2016 primer to quantitative genetics in the wild: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti.... Happy to share a copy if interested. It is also on research gate

New paper out now in Evolution, co-led with Dave Westneat! Using long-term data on house sparrows, we find that quantity-quality tradeoffs near a local fitness ridge favor more or less canalized clutch size distributions in response to environmental variability. academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

With #eseb2025 coming to a close, it is time to start making plans for 2026. Interested in the interface of evolution 🧬 and ecology 🌳? Come to our #ExE conference hosted by @uniexecec.bsky.social in beautiful #Cornwall. Leave your email address at tinyurl.com/EvolxEcol to join our mailing list!

A landmark paper for the evolutionary biology of behavior. Fascinating work on how manipulating cell type-specific gene expression can rewire the brain to produce a key mating behavior observed in a sister species that diverged ~35 mya. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

My first solo author paper is now available in early view at Methods in Ecology and Evolution! I develop a covariance reaction norm (CRN) model for estimating continuous, multivariate, and nonlinear environmental effects on G and P matrices. besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Hot on the tail of our Tsimane IGE study comes the theory paper that motivated it! What are the ecological causes and evolutionary consequences of social plasticity in dynamic environments? See our new Functional Ecology paper to find out more besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Hot on the tail of our Tsimane IGE study comes the theory paper that motivated it! What are the ecological causes and evolutionary consequences of social plasticity in dynamic environments? See our new Functional Ecology paper to find out more besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

I'm very excited to share the central paper from my PhD out now in Science Advances. We investigated how social effects among neighbors shape the evolution of reproductive cooperation and the pace of adaptive population growth among the Indigenous Tsimane of Bolivia. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I'm very excited to share the central paper from my PhD out now in Science Advances. We investigated how social effects among neighbors shape the evolution of reproductive cooperation and the pace of adaptive population growth among the Indigenous Tsimane of Bolivia. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

@barbaraclass.bsky.social et al. assess how well different statistical models estimate indirect genetic effects and assortative mating when partner similarity is caused by multiple co-occurring processes @jsmartin.bsky.social @mmoiron.bsky.social academic.oup.com/jeb/advance-...

Nothing quite lifts your spirits like having R2 thank you for giving them the chance to read "an insightful piece of work" that they "really liked". Thanks to you, anonymous colleague, for a little sunshine on this overcast day 🌻

Four years ago we showed that only 27% of articles published in ecological journals WITH a code-sharing policy made their code available, leading to a 21% reproducibility potential. 📰 doi.org/10.1371/jour... We've looked into journals WITHOUT a code-sharing policy. Results coming soon...

One of the most fascinating papers of the year... "...infanticide occurred in multiple contexts due to multiple drivers. Nevertheless, 48% of stepparents of both sexes adopted offspring, and another 23% of stepfathers exhibited both infanticide and long-term care." www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

To get this new social media account going, I'm sharing a little celebration: our 2019 animal empathy review got its 100th citation today 🥳. This work represents the bulk of my research: investigating empirical evidence of "human uniqueness" in animals, with a firm grip on its theoretical foundation

We had heard about the challenges posed by motherhood within academia, but what about the previous stage? @ecfreewoman.bsky.social & I wrote our story for @science.org on how the academic system makes it almost impossible for women to even plan for a family ❤️‍🩹: www.science.org/content/arti...

Four years ago, Psychological Science published a paper which used a ludicrously poor quality dataset. That paper was retracted, partly in order to avoid “prolonging the use” of the data but the dataset still thrives in the academic literature. Read our article & 🧵 for examples

Our updated EcoEvoRxiv preprint "Estimating (non)linear selection on reaction norms: A general framework for labile traits" is now live. Work done in collaboration with Yimen Araya-Ajoy, Niels Dingemanse, @ali--wilson.bsky.social, and David Westneat. ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

When and why does social plasticity evolve, and what are its consequences for the pace of phenotypic evolution in fluctuating environments? Check out our new preprint where we use evolutionary quantitative genetic theory to develop general answers to these questions. ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

Are you interested in understanding plasticity and GxE in multivariate traits across complex environments? If so, please check out my new EcoEvoRxiv preprint where I propose "covariance reaction norm" models for detecting and quantifying these processes. ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...