In this issue: Deforestation and soybean yields in Brazil, the environmental impact of updated US dietary guidelines, and bird flu transmission in cows. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/auxc50ZcOHn

What a treat - this is the third time the Shark Bay dolphins have made the cover of @pnas.org! You can read more about our new paper - led by @alicebouchard.bsky.social in the current issue www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... @bristolbiosci.bsky.social @researchdolphin.bsky.social

Nice coverage of our new paper in National Geographic @alicebouchard.bsky.social www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...

In our new TREE paper, with M. Borgerhoff Mulder, S. Brosnan and E. Strauss we show that power in animal societies can be subject to control. When high-powered individuals use aggression to gain better access to resources, other group members can respond with "levelling". doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

So happy to welcome @francae.bsky.social to the team! 🥳🐬

New paper in @pnas.org - using playback experiments we provide further evidence that bottlenose dolphins can use individual identity signals + social memory to guide decision-making. Female dolphins use individual vocal labels to track coercive males | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Just finished an incredible two month field season in Shark Bay #Gathaagudu - big thank you to all my wonderful team members 🙏🏻 So much appreciation for the animals and the time I get to spend with them. You have my heart Shark Bay 🫶

Great work from Simone Videsen. We found sperm whale slow clicks maintain extreme isochrony with inter-click intervals up to ~10s. That's beyond any known neural system for precise interval timing. May be a long-distance communication system. nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Do elephants adress one another with vocalizations that function like human personal names, as was widely reported two years ago? Dharmarajan (2026) argues that this finding may have been just a methodological artefact. 🐘🧪 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

One month of amazing fieldwork with some of my favourite people - 33 playbacks done for our next whistle study and some lovely observations of dolphin behaviour. Always such a privilege to be here and we are lucky enough to have another month of fieldwork ahead of us 🙏🏻 #sharkbay #gathaagudu

So happy to be back in Shark Bay #Gathaagudu for two months of fieldwork 🫶

I am hiring a research assistant (vampire bats), a Panama fieldwork coordinator (vampire bats), and also considering postdoc apps (social behavior, any species): socialbat.org/2026/02/19/h...

Bonobos and bottlenose dolphins may seem worlds apart, but together they reveal key conditions that foster cooperation beyond group boundaries

New OA paper @royalsocietypublishing.org: What can we learn from bonobos and bottlenose dolphins about the evolution of between-group cooperation? royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article... Lovely collab with @lirsamuni.bsky.social Martin Surbeck and Richard Connor.

🧠🧪🧵1/37 Our new paper on how pinniped (seal and sea lion) brains evolved to unlock vocal plasticity is this week's @science.org cover. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

By mapping the brains of seals and sea lions, researchers have uncovered specialized neural circuits that have evolved to support the control of complex vocal behavior and learning in the species. Learn more this week in Science: https://scim.ag/4bpsJYU

New paper on magpie vocal development led by @stephaniellaura.bsky.social ⬇️

New paper on age-related reproductive tactics & success in humpback whales, published in Current Biology.🐳🧬 doi.org/10.1016/j.cu... #marmam @seamammalresearch.bsky.social @uniofstandrews.bsky.social @ellengarland.bsky.social @emma-carroll.bsky.social @clairenea.bsky.social @lrendell.bsky.social 1/7

🥂CONGRATULATIONS to Lola von Kietzell on defending her #Masters by Research thesis with no corrections. 👏 🙏THANK you to @josharbon.bsky.social for cosupervising, #Chun-ChiehLiao & #RobMagrath for brilliant #fieldwork support, and @caglarakcay.bsky.social & @stephanielking.bsky.social as examiners.

🚨JOB alert🚨 We have three (yes, THREE) 🌟lectureships🌟 advertised in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol. Broad remit, including #AnimalBehaviour & #GlobalChangeBiology ⏱️Deadline: 8th March 2026 🙏Please circulate widely 😊Come join us! Full #job details: tinyurl.com/y3us95rc

5 days, 5 reasons to apply for a Lectureship @bristolbiosci.bsky.social (Day 2): Behavioural & Sensory Ecology & Responding to Anthropogenic Change Theme includes animal senses, underpinning behavioural theory & mitigating human impacts www.bristol.ac.uk/biology/rese... Job: tinyurl.com/3ebphy34

Fantastic opportunity to work with us at Shark Bay Dolphin Research 👇🏻

🚨3 Lectureships in Biology 🚨 Come join us in Bristol @bristolbiosci.bsky.social! We are looking for new collegues working across a broad spectum of topics in biology, including ecology & environmental change. Get in touch if you have Qs! Apply here by 8 March: www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

Join us on Saturday, February 7th for a live Q&A with the authors and editors of ‘The Evolution of Cetacean Societies’ 18:00 GMT / 10am PT 🎟️ Free with registration 🔗 www.eventbrite.com/e/book-launc...

Join us Sat, Feb 7 for a FREE virtual book launch of 'The Evolution of Cetacean Societies'. Live Q&A + cover BTS. 🕕 18:00 GMT / 10am PT 🎟️ Free with registration 🔗 www.eventbrite.com/e/book-launc...

Ever wondered how accurate drone-based photogrammetry really is? Turns out UAV-based photogrammetry does a great job at estimating body size, condition, and even mass in live cetaceans. Yes, we validated it. doi.org/10.1113/JP29...

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.

🌟Huge CONGRATULATIONS to @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social who has won the @asab.org Christopher Barnard Award for Outstanding Contributions by a New Investigator. 🤗 Research on social evolution and what links climate & cooperation in a changing world, using #wasps as models. #worthywinner #ECR #proud

Almost four years on since we started work on this project, it feels surreal to have a copy in my hand. @stephanielking.bsky.social @darrencroft.bsky.social @ellengarland.bsky.social

Friendship is magic: male dolphins with close friends age more slowly theconversation.com/friendship-i...

New paper out in @commsbio.nature.com: Social bonds decrease epigenetic age in male bottlenose dolphins rdcu.be/eUoID led by @liviagerber.bsky.social @researchdolphin.bsky.social

The ZSL Scientific Medal is also awarded to Professor Stephen Montgomery, @bristolbiosci.bsky.social whose research has provided insights into the relationships between ecological niche specialisation, brain structure, and cognitive function 🏅 @ebablab.bsky.social

I’m one of the lucky people to have been mentored by @andyradford.bsky.social and I can’t think of anyone that deserves this award more than he does 🙌🏻

Huge congratulations to @ebablab.bsky.social - can’t think of anyone more deserving! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Reposting now @samhill-cousins.bsky.social is on Bluesky - he is about to start an exciting PhD with @researchdolphin.bsky.social so follow him for more cool science!

New paper on dolphin motor synchrony led by master's student Sam Hill-Cousins with a fantastic team of co-authors @danaipapageorgiou.bsky.social @emmachereskin.bsky.social @researchdolphin.bsky.social 🐬🐬🐬: Male dolphins use synchrony to both maintain and strengthen their social bonds rdcu.be/eQ543

The final chapter of my thesis has just been published in Ecology and Evolution! @ecol-evol.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... Here we find that the social environment, notably vocal and aggressive interactions, are linked to cognitive development in magpie fledglings.

An important ontogenetic perspective into the relationship between cognition and social interactions! Congrats @lizziespeechley.bsky.social! With collaborators @stephanielking.bsky.social @ceb-uwa.bsky.social Ben Ashton, Alex Thornton and Leigh Simmons

Don't just take my word for it ... @stephanielking.bsky.social and Denise Herzing provide insightful comments in this piece: www.sciencenews.org/article/ai-n...

3 year postdoc funded by @ukri.org NERC on between-group cooperation in the Shark Bay dolphins is now live - please share widely 🙏 www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

🎉 Excited to share the 2nd chapter of my PhD! From 270 eDNA samples across Shark Bay (🇦🇺), we identified 106 fish species and mapped their diversity with remote sensing — all non-invasively! 🌊🐠 A scalable framework for characterising marine biodiversity 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/ddi.70074

🐬 Want to be part of a most excellent research team? See @stephanielking.bsky.social post 👇🏻 for a ⭐️ post-doc

Amazing opportunity for a post doc, fantastic team to work with, and a brilliant project... opportunities like this don't come up every day ......

A dream postdoc on an incredible population, building on over three decades of field research, and with a brilliant and supportive PI.

Amazing PhD opportunity with a wonderful bunch of supervisors 🫶

❓ Want to join us? 📢 Fully funded #PhD for UK-domiciled Black heritage candidates 🐵 Biological market monitoring & manipulation in social animals #mongooses #macaques #fieldwork 👥 With me, #LaurenBrent & #PatrickKennedy 🎓 @bristolbiosci.bsky.social ℹ️ www.findaphd.com/phds/project... 🙏Share widely

Huge congratulations @diandraduengen.bsky.social - your thesis was outstanding and a pleasure to read. Distinction with cum laude is so well deserved 👏🏻

⭐PhD position available!⭐ Come join us @imprs-qbee.bsky.social to study communication and collective behavior in animal groups! We're looking for someone excited to use computational approaches to tackle biological questions, using our full-group tracking datasets imprs-qbee.mpg.de/121465/analy...

Incredible animal system, awesome science and the nicest group of people to work with - what’s not to like? ⬇️

Huge Congratulations @stephaniellaura.bsky.social - truly a thesis to be proud of!