Vocal convergence during formation of social relationships in vampire bats royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

In an increasingly divided world, how do strangers become friends? Parakeets might have something to teach us! New paper on formation of affiliative relationships, led by Dr. Claire O’Connell doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...

Monk parakeets ‘test the waters’ when forming new relationships doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...

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...

PhD project on the evolution of animal memory now available in my research group, through the TREES DLA: www.trees-dla.ac.uk/projects/evo.... Come and join us if you're interested in the evolution of animal minds and you want to do some cool experimental evolution!

More interesting data on Guinea baboons and more evidence of the diversity in social/mating systems among the awesome Papionins

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).

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has just launched its newly updated policy for Immediate Access to Research! When HHMI scientists share CC BY licensed preprints, it allows others to immediately access and share cutting-edge science. @asapbio.bsky.social

Last Chance! If you're a grad student don't miss your chance to apply for our 2026 Student Scholars program. The application deadline is a week away! Batcon.org/student-scholars

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

UPDATE: The 2025-2026 list of faculty and postdoc positions in ecology and evolutionary biology is out! Be sure to check out this active and helpful community run resources! docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

“I spent three nights and three days in federal custody. During that time, I was never told what I was charged with, was not allowed to shower despite being covered in tear gas and pepper spray, had no phone call to my family, and no access to an attorney.” - George Retes, U.S. citizen and veteran.

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

Hey US scientists, the NY Times wants to hear from you if you've had your funding cut. 🌊🧪

Going forward, preprints will form the basis of @hhmi.org assessments of its researchers’ work.💪 Starting January 1,2026, HHMI will require its scientists to post their research articles as preprints under an open license that allows unrestricted reuse (CC-BY-4.0). buff.ly/rGFFmxB

“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.” Diary of Anne Frank January 13, 1943

Remembering and celebrating Jane Goodall, one of the most impactful conservationists of our time who fought for the world’s most vulnerable species and proved to all of us that one person can make a difference. 💚

Sad news. We know Jane Goodall was an inspiration to many of our members. She brought real change not only to animal behaviour, but to the world 🌍

Join us! We are hiring a new #curator at the #AMNH in #Vertebrate #Zoology careers.amnh.org/postings/4600 #academicjobs #tenuretrack

**PhD POSITIONS** I am recruiting 1-2 PhD students to work on sociality and cognition in Monk Parakeets, starting Fall 2026. Full ad is here: hobsonresearch.com/index.php/20... (please help spread the word!)

If you are from the US and interested in applying for a PhD with me (or anyone else @camzoology.bsky.social @cambridgebiosci.bsky.social), your deadline for the gates scholarship is October 15! (You’ll need to write a research proposal, so contact PIs now) www.gatescambridge.org/programme/th...

Celebrating the publication of our big collaborative spatial-social meta-analysis of density-dependent transmission effects, out now in Nature Eco Evo! doi.org/10.1038/s415... (or rdcu.be/eD6eB)

UC Davis is hiring! A tenure-track assistant professor of psychology, in human cognition or cognitive neuroscience #psychjobs recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07300

Here's a paper with a skeleton of the idea, but there is really lots of research to do on the structure of workflow networks, now to make them robust, how to development diagnostics and calculi for steps within them. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

New paper from the lab - the overview of our long-term work on selection on spatial cognition in chickadees. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

“Basic scientific research is so appealing to me because, despite it being very frustrating and a lot of work, the payout is so amazing,” explains @fsantoriello.bsky.social‬, a postdoctoral researcher in HHMI Investigator Bonnie Bassler’s lab at Princeton.

Do you have a project that exemplifies open science in ecology and evolution? If so nominate your project for a SORTEE Commendation Award: More details about the SORTEE Commendation Award:

The US is now experiencing a brain drain that will be felt for at least a generation. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

❤️

"The story of the negative impact on the future of infectious disease research will only become part of public discourse if scientists speak up loudly" A must read. One Hundred Days, Incalculable Loses @jidjournal.bsky.social Emily Erbelding, MD - NIAID/DMD academic.oup.com/jid/advance-...

this paper about measuring dyadic paper in the context of causal inference which makes me weep with joy by @benkawam.bsky.social and is an example of what all should strive for doi.org/10.1101/2024...

this is a undercited "banger", especially the SI where DAGs abound by academic.oup.com/beheco/artic...

Registration for the SORTEE conference is now open (events.humanitix.com/sortee-confe...) @asn-amnat.bsky.social is a sponsoring society and ASN members get free registration to the SORTEE conference

📖Published📖 A computational framework to characterize and compare the tonal repertoires of toothed whales 🐳 🌍 🧪 buff.ly/kuKOAM7

URGENT! Contact your senators today to advocate to fund science agencies and programs! The Senate Appropriations Committee & its subcommittees are writing appropriation bills for the federal FY26 budget now. Here's how you can help: esa.org/esablog/2025...

I called my senators about the NIH and NSF cuts this morning (made easy with @5calls.org)! I'll be calling every day this week and encouraging friends & family to do the same

We just got an email that Hopkins is freezing salaries, hiring, and some construction projects. In addition to the 800 million USAID we lost, we’ve had another 50 million in grants canceled so far. And a 2/3 year over year decline in funded grants despite an increase in submissions

"Our calculations suggest that the proposed budgetary cuts to the NIH will create a social cost that is 16 times greater than the savings that the administration is attempting to achieve." jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

In case you couldn't bear to read all the way to the end (understandable), here is the proposed picture for the BIO Directorate.

How bad will it be? Catastrophic. Proposed cuts to #NSF, #NIH, and #NASA will set the US R&D landscape back 25 yrs+, cause economic and job loss now, and undermine innovations to come. But, this is the WH's *proposed* budget. Speak up now before it is too late. (inflation adjusted $-s below)

I don't think anyone outside of universities, pharma and biotech, independent research institutions have any idea of what is happening right now. If you haven't sounded the alarm among your friends, family and colleagues, now is the time to do it.

Negative thinking might be more powerful than positive thinking when it comes to pain and healing, according to new research. #Nocebo #Placebo #Neuroscience buff.ly/sdbyUjh

I'm guessing this is probably very well worth the read! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Grad students: Free training and community-building event this week!! If you are working on anything involving individuals or populations from an ecology or evolutionary perspective (including modeling!) your work probably qualifies as "animal behavior" for our purposes. You can still register!

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...

@gerrycarter.bsky.social and I wrote a Research Briefing on our lastest @Nature paper looking at reciprocity in superb starlings. You can access the summary of our work here (and the paper itself is OA): www.nature.com/articles/d41...

More awful news. The US has been the leader in scientific research for **80** years due to robust funding for NSF, NIH, and other scientific agencies. All that infrastructure, human capital, and international prestige that we have built over those years is at real risk of just collapsing.

Upset about federal funding cuts in the US? Want some ideas of what to do? I wrote a long-ish blog post about it here ecoevoevoeco.blogspot.com summarizing things I learned meeting with Senate & House aides this week with the @aibsbiology.bsky.social Congressional Visits Day event.