New paper! We propose a framework to empirically study animal social relationships by modelling social network (SN) data as time-series—that is, without the need to aggregate them over time. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🚨STOP SCROLLING, IT’S AN EMERGENCY BROADCAST📣 This message will self-destruct in 10…9…8…7…⏰ …now that I have your attention: 🧪Our new paper on Alerting Components in animal vocalization is out in AnimBehav🎉 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #AnimalBehaviour #Bioacoustics #Communication

‼️ Thrilled to share my first article on the Kalahari meerkats ‼️, in @animalecology.bsky.social! Group membership strongly influences gut microbiomes & especially the co-occurrence of beneficial bacteria, beyond animals' age or sex, disease status, or environmental exposure doi.org/10.1111/1365...

New paper, led by Vlad Demartsev: Alerting components in animal vocalization www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I am looking for a postdoc to work in our long-term system of food-caching mountain chickadees in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The expected start is April 2026. Please see details here: chickadeecognition.com/positions If interested and qualified, please contact me directly (email on the website).

Exciting new work from former team members Eric Romero, Cwyn Solvi, Fei Peng and colleagues makes the cover of Science: affective contagion in bumblebees! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Excited to share our new paper on the #social #structure of Rwenzori #colobus multi-male, multi-female core units! We found 3 different patterns but close #male #relationships in all that were long lasting! Paper is behind a paywall but contact us if you want a pdf. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Social relationships are powerful predictors of fitness across social animals. But *why*? In our new @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social paper, we outline testable predictions for why relationship quality and quantity adaptively vary across socio-ecological contexts. tinyurl.com/55dnkeh7

In 2018, Charles Murray challenged me to a bet: "We will understand IQ genetically—I think most of the picture will have been filled in by 2025—there will still be blanks—but we’ll know basically what’s going on." It's now 2025, and I claim a win. I write about it in The Atlantic.

Trying to work from home with my kids around

New paper, led by Luciano Atzeni: Using spatially explicit individual-based modelling to evaluate the ecological feasibility of big cat reintroduction: the example of the Arabian leopard www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

War is over, so here's a great fellowship to do a postdoc in Israel. Get in touch if interested: azrielifoundation.org/azrieli-fell...

⭐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...

I'm v excited to be recruiting a PhD student to work on badger behaviour and ecology! Starting date is March 2026; see the ad here, or message me for more details: www.gregalbery.me/s/March-2026...

Amazing days at the Sinharaja rainforest, Sri Lanka, and saw a loris!

This is an awe-inspiring and fascinating study that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. However, the overall framing in terms of "innate versus learned” is unnecessary. The innate versus acquired dichotomy is outdated and has been for a long time. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🌍🦋 Across 6 continents, 21 sites & 15,000 paper moths, we joined a worldwide experiment led by @wlallen.bsky.social & Iliana Medina, showing how ecological context shapes the evolution of animal colouration. Proud to be part of this global team effort: doi.org/10.1126/scie...

New preprint out from the lab, including @rroyaute.bsky.social: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... In this we test what we refer to as the "standard model" of behavioral variation. This was inspired by recent work identifying intra-genotypic variation as a major contributor to "individuality". 1/

New paper, led by Camille Bordes: Social network dynamics under experimental manipulations of predation risk and food abundance in wild rock hyraxes besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

New paper, led by Camille Bordes: Social network dynamics under experimental manipulations of predation risk and food abundance in wild rock hyraxes

Crazy discovery in ants 🤯🐜 One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants | Nature www.nature.com/articles/s41... "Males from the same mother exhibit distinct genomes and morphologies, as they belong to species that diverged over 5 million years ago."

A 40C degrees day is perfect for checking some trail cameras in the Judean Desert with @otter-guy.bsky.social

🐒🕸️ New preprint! Confused about how to model animal social networks? ASNA can be confusing—but also full of opportunity. We break down 5 common misunderstandings in animal social network analysis and share solutions from behavioural ecology, anthro, stats, & network science. Hope it helps! A 🧵

We have a new paper out in @cp-iscience.bsky.social reporting that more socially integrated female chimpanzees have lower offspring mortality 🧪 #evosky #primates #primatology #anthropology www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New in #ProcB - Early-life paternal relationships predict adult female survival in wild baboons - find out more about the study from the authors #Behaviour @archielab.bsky.social‬ royalsociety.org/blog/2025/06...

been a long time coming, there's now a preprint along with Will Hoppitt describing our new R package for creating, fitting and interpreting bayesian NBDA models (STBayes). www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1.... Documentation is here michaelchimento.github.io/STbayes/inde...

New paper in @behavecol.bsky.social (link: academic.oup.com/beheco/advan...) led by PhD student @marcofele.bsky.social using hard-won data from our amazing baboon team. Our @swanseauni.bsky.social press release: www.swansea.ac.uk/press-office... We introduce the idea of a "social spandrel".....

Humans have many unusual traditions. But did you know animals’ strange behaviors can become culture too? Out now in Current Biology (doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...) we show the rise and spread of a surprising tradition: interspecies infant abduction. Interactive timeline (www.ab.mpg.de/671374) 🧵 (1/12)

1/3 Chimpanzees combine their vocalizations to create new meanings. They have studied more than 4000 sequences of 53 chimpanzees from Taï (Côte d'Ivoire), and analyzed how combinations (16) of two vocalizations change their function. (paper) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Our latest superb starling work in @nature.com. We observe long-term reciprocal helping relationships, and suggest reciprocity is an underappreciated mechanism promoting the stability of cooperatively breeding societies. Led by Alexis Earl and @gerrycarter.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

If you're a grad student or an undergrad interested in research I need to you listen to me very carefully. You cannot learn to write good research papers if you do not read good research papers. Stop asking LLMs to summarize papers for you.

Really excited that our DFG grant on the Speciation Genomics of Eye Size variation in *Heliconius* has been funded :) In the next weeks, I will post an advert for a PhD, but if you know of good students, please suggest they get in touch. Please repost.

I wrote about how population stratification in genetic analyses led to a decade of false findings and almost certainly continues to bias emerging results. But we are starting to have statistical tools to sniff it out. A 🧵:

1/35 New paper out! @jamesTstroud and I dive into why long-term studies are crucial for understanding evolution. They reveal processes impossible to detect in short timescales and capture rare events that transform our understanding of evolutionary dynamics. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Postdoc fellowships in Israel: azrielifoundation.org/fellows/inte...

Friends! The science that we love is under threat. World-wide, there're forces seeking to make it corporate-like, focused on deliverables, or even the enemy of society. Take a stand & celebrate science & music! #theconferencetoendallconferences - Registration starts NOW! woodstock.img.cas.cz

FINE starts again next week with exciting free online seminars. In its 10th season we will hear about whales, parental care, neuroethology, aging, group-living lizards and much more!

It was a good hyrax day near the Sea of Galilee

IT'S HAPPENING! The Woodstock of Biology 2.0 meets Night Science @nightsciencepod.bsky.social 10-13 of June in Prague & the Woods of Bohemia... Be there or be REJECTED. #theconferencetoendallconferences

Long-term ecological #research projects apart from being highly demanding, it deserves extra respect from the scientific community; funding agencies should consider the benefits of such projects #ecology #science #nature #evolution @ipbes.bsky.social @esci.bsky.social doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Scientists - consider writing up your research for Frontiers for Young Minds (if you are brave enough to face kid reviewers 😉). Here's how: kids.frontiersin.org/participate/... Like Liza Fazio! @lkfazio.bsky.social Or Yann LeCun! @ylecun.bsky.social kids.frontiersin.org/articles/10....

3-year Postdoc Position Join our team @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social and investigate the dynamics of seasonal songbird migration using biologging technologies See details here: bit.ly/3ZojW38 Please get in touch if interested & share with anyone else who might be!

Exciting new NERC funded PhD opportunity available with us on #killerwhale #orca #behaviour and #conservation, co-supervised by Stephanie King, Sam Ellis and Dan Franks in partnership with The Center for Whale Research USA exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin... - deadline 13th January 2025 #killerwhale

A nice example of hyrax tusks

Come do a PhD with Sinead English @englishse.bsky.social , Dan Padfield @padpadpadpad.bsky.social and me on Gulls! GPS- and Bluetooth-tracking! Microbiomes & AMR acquisition & transmission! Human-wildlife conflict & mitigation! should be fun :-)

New NERC DTP PhD opportunity on social networks and demography in Soay sheep with me, Dan Nussey, Amy Sweeny and others (Autumn 2025 start). Apply by January 6th. Project and application details: e4-dtp.ed.ac.uk/e5-dtp/super...

Took a break from grant writing to visit the nearest rock hyrax group, but they were occupied with a "guest"

All enthusiasts of #ethology #cognition #ecology #evolution #biodiversity have you been to the #Behaviour2025 website? Check out our stellar list of speakers behaviourindia2025.in/speaker.html. Pre-register now. Mark your calendars and make plans to visit #India!

Homophily in social and demographic traits predict association patterns in female western and mountain gorillas royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1...