An insect that cooperates like bacteria | PNAS An insect that cooperates like bacteria

An insect that produces a nasty secretion to defend the local group against predators. Our commentary on some brilliant fieldwork by @caritalindstedt.bsky.social & Raphael www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... @asgriffin.bsky.social

Aerial view of a green mountainous landscape with the Komati River winding through it and labeled areas including Barberton Makhonjwa Mountains and Elukwatini

Earth’s earliest history is written in tiny glass beads. Impact spherules from South Africa carry geochemical fingerprints of meteorite impacts over 3 billion years ago, offering clues to processes shaping the young Earth and Solar System. #LIBresearch

© NASA Earth Observatory (public domain)

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From online games to evolutionary theory: testing warning signals with human “predators”

Understanding how signals are perceived is key to explaining biodiversity patterns and how species communicate risk.

Are Toxic Butterflies More Easily Detected by Human ‘Predators’? Aposematic signals are often thought to be conspicuous and stable across environments. Yet, butterflies can have distinct colours on their dorsal and ventral sides which contradict this prediction. W...

Using an online game with human 'predators' we test if toxic butterflies are more conspicuous: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Seasonal climatic variability shapes immune responses and infection risks in the common bluetail damselfly - Oecologia Understanding how a changing climate influences host-parasite interactions is important to predict disease-driven extinction risks. Insect immune responses are sensitive to seasonal climatic factors s...

Understanding how climate affects immunity is key to predicting disease dynamics under ongoing environmental change.

→ doi.org/10.1007/s004...

@mherberstein.bsky.social

Complementary approaches to measure predation pressure on butterfly populations in Australia Abstract. Predation pressure is a major force driving the evolution of anti-predatory traits, yet quantifying its intensity in the wild remains difficult.

Measuring predation in the wild is hard. @mherberstein.bsky.social

We compared wing damage, artificial replicas, and bird surveys in Australian butterfly communities.

Methods were complementary — together they better estimate predation risk.

royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...

New #PhD on #bees (BeeHd?)! Despite the ad saying "UK Students only", a limited number of scholarships are available for international candidates. So please apply!

Come to Hamburg and do a PhD on insect/spider traits with me!

Job advertisement

I am looking for a PhD working on tracking trait changes in insects/spiders at the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity change @leibnizlib.bsky.social and the University of Hamburg.
Apply here: www.uni-hamburg.de/en/stellenan...

Far-reaching consequences of trait preferences for animal social network structure and function
#Sociality #BiologicalModelling

doi.org/10.1093/behe...

Great PhD opportunity at the #LIB

Congratulations Scott!!! So well deserved!!! An excellent choice for your specialisation - very very proud!!!!

A fantastic choice for #ECBB2026 plenary speaker: @mherberstein.bsky.social
If you have ideas or topics you’d love to hear in a plenary, now is the time to share them — Mariella is taking suggestions!

Predictors of Wing Attacks by Birds Across Australian Butterflies Predation pressure can vary latitudinally and across different prey communities as well as between males and females of the same prey species. Here, the variation in predation pressure on Australian ...

New paper out today in @ecol-evol.bsky.social led by Hansani Daluwatta Galappaththige, with @mherberstein.bsky.social. We quantified wing attack marks in Australian butterflies and found lower attack rates in temperate biomes and in males compared to females: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Top text: ECBB 2026 Plenary Speakers (Left) Image of Prof Laurent Brent, University of Exeter (Centre) Image of Prof Tim Caro, University of Bristol (Right) Image of Prof Mariella Herberstein, Leibnez Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change Bottom text: 1 - 4 September 2026, Anglia Ruskin University

Top text: ECBB 2026 Plenary Speakers (Left) Image of Prof Andrew Radford, University of Bristol (Centre) Image of Dr Bibiana Rojas, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna (Right) Image of Dr Christopher Schell, University of California, Berkeley Bottom text: 1 - 4 September 2026, Anglia Ruskin University

Missed our #ECBB2026 Plenary Speaker reveals? Not to worry!

Here is a quick recap of all the excellent speakers we'll be welcoming at September's meeting!

Meet our plenary speaker Renata Sousa-Lima!

Professor at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil), Renata ‘s research focuses on bioacoustics of aquatic mammals and has pioneered the field of ecoacoustics and soundscape ecology in Brazil.

Meet our plenary speaker Eva Ringler!

Professor at the University of Bern, Eva Ringler and her research group are interested in understanding variation in animal behaviour from an ecological and evolutionary perspective focusing on Neotropical poison frogs and glassfrogs.

Meet our plenary speaker Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi

Director of the India Program for the Snow Leopard Trust working on snow leopards and human-wildlife coexistence in the high Himalaya. His work focuses on the interactions between large carnivores, their wild prey, and farming communities.

Meet our plenary speaker Felicity Muth!

Assistant professor at the University of California Davis, her lab group are broadly interested in cognition, especially aspects of learning and memory that have a clear function in the natural world, focusing on captive and wild bumblebees.

Meet our Plenary Speaker Daniela Rößler

Fueled by curiosity and a deep love of natural history Daniela discovered a REM-like sleep state in spiders and uses integrative field, lab and comparative approaches to investigate the function, ecology, and evolution of sleep across the spider tree of life.

We are happy to announce that registration for ISBE2026 is now open! We encourage you to register as soon as possible to take advantage of reduced fees and to plan your trip and accommodation in advance.

Please read the information on www.isbe2026.com before proceeding with your registration.

Abstract (and travel award) submission deadline has been extended to the 7th of January 2026. Don’t miss the chance to submit your contribution and be part of the scientific program of ISBE2026!

Thank you so much for the invitation!!! I am taking requests! What would you like to hear in a plenary????

ECBB 2026 logo above header that reads ECBB 2026 Plenary Speakers Photo includes:Prof Mariella Herberstein, Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change Text reads: - Interested in all aspects of spider behaviour – from mating behaviour and sexual cannibalism, to web-building, mimicry and deception - Behavioural ecology of various insects, including moths, bugs, damselflies, and praying mantids - The evolution of imperfect mimicry in ant-mimicking spiders, warning signals in moths and butterflies

Ready to meet our third plenary speaker? We are delighted to announce it's....
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The extraordinary @mherberstein.bsky.social

Volumetric Comparison of Overall Brain and Neuropil Size Between Social and Non‐social Spiders: Exploring the Social Brain Hypothesis Brain size may be influenced by the cognitive demands of sociality (social brain hypothesis). We used microCT to compare CNS and brain volumes in social versus solitary huntsman and crab spiders. Soc...

✨ It’s published! ✨

🕷️ Social spiders have bigger brains… but only in the right places! Our new study shows that in social huntsman spiders, regions for memory & vision processing are proportionally larger, supporting group living.

Read more: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Complex signals, complex defences: there’s more to defences than meets the eye. New from @amatageorgeii.bsky.social &
@liisahamalainen.bsky.social @kateumbers.bsky.social @mherberstein.bsky.social @jmappes.bsky.social @mpic.de

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

#aposematism #chemecol

Check out what these toxic moths are up to!
Shout out to ‪@amatageorgeii.bsky.social‬

Asymmetric arms races between predators and prey: a tug of war between the life–dinner principle and the rare-enemy principle | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Antagonistic co-evolution can be asymmetric, where one species lags behind another. Asymmetry in a predator–prey context is expressed by the ‘life–dinner principle’, a classic informal model predictin...

Ever wondered whether prey always outcompete predators (aka life-dinner principle?). Turns out when prey are numerous, predators edge ahead in the evolutionary arms race - download paper here: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....

Sperm transfer in spiders is complex and sometimes dangerous. Our latest paper is trying to figure out what behavioural and morphological traits affect sperm transfer
doi.org/10.1111/1749...