A few days after successfully defending my PhD, another chapter of my thesis is out in Environmental Toxicology!🥳 Here, we show that bird embryos actively mobilize Hg from eggshells, key for better understanding Hg impact on wildlife. More information can be found here👇 doi.org/10.1002/tox....

Very proud of you @matteobeccardi.bsky.social 👇😃🎉

Here is a lovely thing: a long interview with Chris Perrins by EGI DPhil student @jorgensoraker.bsky.social reflecting on his 70 years at the forefront of avian ecology here at Oxford

We are recruiting 🌟2 postdoctoral researchers🌟 for a NERC Large Grant project on the eco-evolutionary dynamics of badger - bovine tuberculosis (bTB) interactions.

Bugging is underway, and we are missing @matteobeccardi.bsky.social who spent two seasons supplementing the team to collect data on sex- and age-specific mitochondrial functioning in the terns. His paper on this just came out in @jexpbiol.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

Proud to see this work led by PhD student @matteobeccardi.bsky.social now published in @jexpbiol.bsky.social ! The study investigates how sex and age influence mitochondrial function in wild Common terns 🪶 Check it out below ⬇️ bsky.app/profile/matt...

Excited to share our new paper out in @jexpbiol.bsky.social! Here, we investigated how sex and age shape mitochondrial function under natural conditions in a long-lived seabird, the Common tern. Read the paper here for more information👇 doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

Look who arrived as well! 147 little field assistants made their way into one of our incubators. These laboratory-bred kissing bugs will help us collect blood samples from incubating terns. Stored in a fake egg for c. 20 minutes, they collect blood, which we then gratefully collect from them.

The first eggs of the 2026 season are a fact. Four clutches were started yesterday, today we're at nine. ❤️

come and work with us, we are looking forward to it!

Japanse kwartels die grote eieren leggen leven korter

New paper out: Artificial selection for increased reproductive effort accelerates actuarial senescence and reduces lifespan in a precocial bird url: royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article... @uniexecec.bsky.social @erikpostma.bsky.social @joelpick.bsky.social y.social @oscarvedder.bsky.social

Live from the field: they’re here! The first two registrations of the 2026 season are a fact and go to Calderon and Pricilla. ❤️

If you enjoyed the paper below👇👇, you might also be interested in our symposium on “Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics in a Changing World” at the Nordic Oikos-GfÖ conference! The amazing Viktoriia Radchuk will be giving a talk, and we still have a few spots open, reach out to if interested! #NSO2026 🐦🌴🐝🌡️📉

Help us find ticks in Germany! NABU has launched a nation wide effort to understand the range expansion of ticks in Germany. With changing climates, tick species have been able to extend their ranges. You can help by reporting tick images as explained below: www.nabu.de/tiere-und-pf...

“we are trapping 21st-century minds inside 19th-century academic hierarchies.” This essay gets a lot right about problems with German science. I would add that the hierarchies and precarious contracts lead also to systemic abuse and scientific misconduct. open.substack.com/pub/realimag...

🔈New study! Microplastics found in 62% of White-throated Dipper broods in Scotland & Basque Country. No body condition effects detected. Led by @cmartin3.bsky.social @sbohvm.gla.ac.uk @aranzadiornito.bsky.social 🔗 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #Ornithology🐦 #Microplastics #Freshwater💧

This #InternationalDayofWomenandGirlsinScience I would like to say a big THANK YOU to the amazing women and girls I currently have the pleasure of sharing my #ternscience journey with. Onwards and upwards we go! ❤️

A richly rewarding two days reviewing @ifv-whv.bsky.social: thriving under the brilliant leadership of Sandra Bouwhuis & Miriam Liedvogel. An exciting programme of research into avian migration & life histories with many future stars. Outstanding @commonternproject.bsky.social museum by frozen sea!

How does pre- and post-natal environmental stress affect the seminal foam proteome of Japanese quail? Find out here, Chloe Mason’s second PhD thesis paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @martingarlovsky.bsky.social @oscarvedder.bsky.social

🚨 PhD offer (please share) Fascinated by bird migration and movement ecology? 🦜🌍 Join us at @vogelwarte.bsky.social to study annual cycle energetics with multi-sensor loggers in multiple species Deadline: 20 Feb 2026 Starting: June 2026 Supervision: Martins Briedis & me Info: tinyurl.com/2dbv9nzh

Please repost: 🚨Field assistant position 🐧 We offer a 14-months field assistant position through the French Polar Institute to work on king penguin ecophysiology and behavioral ecology. Requirements: EU citizen < 30yo having experience with harsh fieldwork & wild bird/mammal handling/sampling.

There’s such beauty in variety – and the eggs laid by our terns show it too. In our newest paper we try to find patterns in this variety and test how female identity and age, as well as laying order, affect the colour, spottiness, shape, and size of eggs: doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

This week's EGI seminar is being given by Dr Maria Moiron @mmoiron.bsky.social of the University of Bielefeld at 3.30pm on Friday 21 Nov in LT1 in the Life & Mind Building @biology.ox.ac.uk. See below for online joining details - all welcome!

Are you interested in PFAS and OCPs contamination in birds? In our latest publication, we studied the levels of these contaminants in Great tit eggs from areas with different anthropogenic pressures. Read the paper here for more details👇 doi.org/10.1007/s113...

**PhD opportunity @uniexecec.bsky.social** How is immunogenetic variation maintained in the wild? Why are alleles that increase disease susceptibility maintained in populations, when natural selection should eliminate them?

*PhD opportunity @uniexecec.bsky.social* How does antimicrobial resistance spread through ecosystems? Combine fieldwork (rodent trapping 🐭, habitat surveys 🌳, pheasant sampling 🦤), molecular techniques, GIS, and spatial modelling to understand AMR evolution and spread. 🔬🦠🧪 Please repost!

There’s one month left to apply for the PhD position on interactions between contaminants and parasites in common terns, co-supervised by @alicecarravieri.bsky.social, Bernd Sures from @unidue.bsky.social and myself. You can do so here: euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/380142

The date is set for the next EOU Fledglings Meeting 🐥 in Gdansk, Poland! Share the news with your peers! 🦆

I am recruting a #postdoc for a project investigating the evolution of avian heat tolerance in @erc.europa.eu project #HotLife. Fieldwork over broad latitudinal gradients, common-garden experiments, and more. Read more and apply👇 shorturl.at/WA1Qa Would appreciate a re-post! @evoldir.bsky.social

📢 PhD opportunity at @cebc-chizelab.bsky.social @ifv-whv.bsky.social @unidue.bsky.social 🎓 Interactions between contaminants and parasites in common terns 📅 Apply by 12/12/2025 at euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/380142 #seabirds #ecotoxicology @univ-larochelle.fr @commonternproject.bsky.social

Out @animalecology.bsky.social today - a paper with David Ewing in which we explore the #HPAI outbreak in the terns. We find bird-to-bird transmission to be the main driver of infection and estimate the probability of mortality to drop from 0.26 to 0.14 from 2022 to 2023: doi.org/10.1111/1365...

With @romain-pigeault.bsky.social and Jérôme Moreau we offer a 6-months internship for a master student to test the effect of pesticides on passerine birds. Follow the link for more. @ecophycebc.bsky.social @univ-larochelle.fr @univpoitiers.bsky.social www.linkedin.com/posts/corali...

When we hypothesised female terns to have lower mercury levels than males due to egg laying, @matteobeccardi.bsky.social et al designed an elegant experiment to prove the effectiveness of this pathway. That proof just got published & the open access paper can be found here: doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

Another excellent paper by @matteobeccardi.bsky.social, with great help from Justine Bertam, @commonternproject.bsky.social, @pablosalmon.bsky.social, @icbm-uol.bsky.social

🚨 PhD alert 🚨 We are looking for a highly motivated student to use 🧬 genomics 🧬 and 🛰️ bio-logging 🛰️ approaches to disentangle cultural and genetic contributions to seabird migration 🐣 Think this is you, or someone you know? Then come to our Q&A session at on 29/09 and check out the ad below!

How can we reform science? I have some ideas. But I am not sure you’ll like them, because they don’t promise much. elevanth.org/blog/2025/07...

Our neighbours at the Banter See are no fan of the terns. Luckily the terns don't give a shit. Oh, or maybe sometimes they do. :-)

Hatching is hard work. ❤️

Happy to share our newest paper in which we investigated the non-breeding distribution of Australasian gannets #seabirds #ornithology @aurore-counilh.bsky.social www.int-res.com/abstracts/me...

Live from the field: the first 4 chicks of 2025 have hatched. ❤️ #babyboom

I am looking for a postdoc wanting to use functional genomics to understand why birds 🐦 struggle with climate warming in @erc.europa.eu project #HotLife. Ideal candidate is a molecular evolutionarybiologist. Join us at @biologylu.bsky.social. Details 👇 shorturl.at/wijEq Would appreciate a re-post!

Last weekend was exciting! Together with @gullbilledterns-de.bsky.social,‬ and thanks to the amazing teams at Druid & Interrex, we deployed the first gull-billed tern with a GPS. It returned to the nest after a quick preening session and for the last 3 days has shared its foraging sites with us.

Really worth a read if you are interested in life-history physiology or mitochondrial function 👇

Now 11 birds recaught 😎 new pressure loggers giving insights into migration I never thought possible, absolutely incredible technology. Wouldn’t be possible without the help of friends here in Georgia, Levan, Sopo, Vano and Natia 🇬🇪 ☺️

Chapter 10 is dedicated to the Banter See common terns, showing how they too have suffered from a population crash following the outbreaks of avian influenza in 2022 and 2023.

meanwhile in #Georgia - where and how long do #blackcaps breeding in this eastern #location migrate? @joewynnbirds.bsky.social @andalgalornis.bsky.social and @oscarvedder.bsky.social are on a mission & have already caught 9 returning #geolocator birds. stay tuned! @ifv-whv.bsky.social

Male inbreeding reduces fertility, but does not accelerate in vivo sperm senescence: an experimental approach in a polyandrous bird royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... | #BiologyLetters #Behaviour #Evolution

And here's another shout-out to the wonderful tern-and-quail team, which, led by Nathalie and @matteobeccardi.bsky.social, prepared a gorgeous hat for Justine. ♥️