🚨✨ JOB OFFERS ✨🚨
🧠 Interested in disgust and human disease avoidance? 🦠🤢
🎓 2 PhD positions (Montpellier 🇫🇷) + 1 postdoc (Stockholm 🇸🇪) now open!
📢 Exciting projects in VR, psychophysiology, psychoneuroimmunology, social behavior, and health
🧵 Details + deadlines in thread below!
Led by the amazing Martina Francesconi, Erica Masciarelli, Virginia Schianini and Elisabetta Palagi from the University of Pisa and in collaboration with Michael Job from Siyafunda Wildlife & Conservation. 5/5
Bonus #hyenafact: we identified 13 vocal types during play, including 5 new types: whimper, bark, harshbark, muted-squeal, and soft-grunt.
4/5
In more complex group settings, where individuals cannot always rely on visual signals, #vocalizations become more prominent.
👉 They use sounds to effectively compensate for reduced access to facial expressions 🤓
The clever beasts adjust their signalling strategy to the social context!
3/5
We analysed 238 play sessions of hyenas in the #NgorongoroCrater, Tanzania, and Greater Makalali Private Game Reserve, South Africa.
👉 In simple, one-on-one settings, #hyenas frequently use the “relaxed open mouth”, a facial expression that is widespread in mammals to signal harmless play.
2/5
New #hyena study ! 📢🧪
Spotted hyenas LOOOOOVE TO PLAY, even as adults!
But how do these powerful carnivores make sure that everybody involved knows that they “just want to play”?
👉 They use a combo of visual and vocal signals, depending on the context! 🤓
doi.org/10.1007/s002...
1/5
An wearing his fantastic doctoral hat
Congratulations to An Nguyen on successfully defending his PhD!!!
His work stands out by combining one of the largest #Camtrap datasets with advanced modelling to reveal how snaring drives #Defaunation in Vietnam - providing actionable insights for targeted #Conservation and #SpeciesProtection.
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 🐦🌴🐝🌡️📉
👉 One trait — how quickly females reproduce again — was better predicted by proportional rank.
So reproduction isn’t just about resource access, but also social constraints (e.g. ability to nurse cubs at communal den).
Take-home: “rank” isn’t one thing—metrics shape the story.
5/5
Main results:
👉 Ordinal rank best predicted most reproductive traits.
Why? Top individuals often get priority access to food & mates—key drivers of fitness.
But not everything followed this pattern…
4/5
We compared two ways to measure rank:
• Ordinal rank: your absolute position (#1, #2, #3…)
• Proportional rank: your position relative to how many are above/below you
These metrics aren’t interchangeable — they reflect different biological processes.
3/5
Higher rank often means higher reproductive success—but why?
Is it about excluding rivals from food & mates?
…or coping better with social constraints?
We tested this using 28 years of data on 6 reproductive traits in 481 male + female hyenas of our 8 study clans in the Ngorongoro Crater.
2/5
New #hyena study out @ecol-evol.bsky.social ! 📢🧪
What does it mean to be “high-ranking”?
And does it always predict reproductive success? 🤔
Turns out: how you *measure* rank can change the answer.
👉 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
1/5
Seeking a motivated postdoc (2+3 yrs) to study links between cognition, behavior, and fitness in lemurs at our long-term field site in Kirindy Forest, Madagascar. Join an interdisciplinary team working on wild populations. @primatenzentrum.bsky.social. Apply here: www.dpz.eu
Our package estar for quantifying ecological stability is out: MEE @britishecologicalsociety.org! Provides 11 stability metrics for measuring stability at different levels of organization, from individuals to populations, communities + ecosystems. besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
📢 You look for a student #Job? You'd like to contribute to current research topics about birds🪶🐦 & #WestNileVirus?
Then be part of a consortium on "Combating #WNV through an integrated #OneHealth approach" #TUBerlin , #Charite, #FUBerlin, #UniBayreuth ... Apply here at #IZW:
short.sg/j/63072339
Suggestions for how to develop systematic approaches to create equitable futures for individuals with disabilities in higher education
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/15/2/94
🧵 by author:
"What animals can teach us about overcoming tyranny"
www.bbc.com/future/article/20260121-...
Led by Viktoriia Radchuk, an international collaboration shows phenological shifts in response to changing temperatures allow populations to remain stable or even increase in numbers.
Support from #sDiv @idiv-research.bsky.social
Our findings reveal how social structure and non-random dispersal generate hidden genetic structure and result in heterogenous rates of adaptive evolution.
Led by the *brilliant* Kasha Strickland!
#longterm
This demonstrates adaptive benefits of gene flow and no evidence for selection against males from outside the Crater.
Finally, additive genetic variance in fitness differed among clans. This is cool because it shows that evolutionary potential is unevenly distributed across the population.
3/4
The differences were best explained by asymmetric dispersal between clans. This indicates that social processes drive population stratification.
We also found that hyenas with more foreigner ancestry (i.e., from outside the #Ngorongoro Crater) had higher fitness.
2/4
How do social structure and male-biased dispersal shape genetic structure and evolutionary potential?
We analysed 29yrs of demographic + genome-wide data from >1100 #hyenas.
We found consistent genetic differentiation in our 8 study clans. This reflects cryptic population genetic structure.
1/4
the IUCN have passed the Longevity Conservation motion put forward to them by @kellerfish.bsky.social and @pili-scotland.bsky.social and based on the paper we wrote on the value of older individuals in animal societies.
www.cdu.edu.au/news/global-...
Photo with a blue tit and information text of how to apply for the announced postdoc position.
📢 #Postdoc (75%) 3+2 years on identifying #West-Nile-Virus wildlife hosts and #modelling spatial risk factors.
Be part of a consortium on "Combating #WNV through an integrated #OneHealth approach" w #TUBerlin , #Charite, #FUBerlin, #UniBayreuth and health authorities
▶️ tinyurl.com/yuhfwpdr
„Pictured: Winning entries for Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025“
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx253vrd931o
We are hiring - PDRA position exploring how information access shapes social dynamics in killer whales. Collaboration with @samellisq.bsky.social @drwhale.bsky.social Prof Dan Franks (York) start 1st Nov (or ASAP) end 31st Oct 2028. Apps close on 19th Oct.
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOT336/p...
Please RT!
📢 #Doctoral / #PhD position available with us at Leibniz-IZW for 4 years working at the interface of #wildlife + #disease #ecology, #veterinary sciences and #modelling.
🐗🐗🐗🐦🐦🐦
Training within #DFG #RTG 3069 led by @freieuniversitaet.bsky.social
▶️Apply here for P7: tinyurl.com/j2ehtz7m
Come and work with us! Three new academic posts (including Animal Behaviour) and superb facilities in the new Life & Mind Building
🐒🕸️ 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 🧵