GREAT PhD opportunity at La Trobe University in Melbourne: domestic Australian student only.
Deep-red vision and infrared sensing in jewel beetles. Field and lab studies, inc. electorphys, microscopy, behavioural assays. Team led by Dr Amanda Franklin.
PM me for more info!
New paper out in @cp-neuron.bsky.social 🎉
What determines contextual modulation in V1? Why does the visual surround sometimes facilitate and sometimes suppress a neuron's response to its preferred stimulus?
Bernie Sander’s 2028 litmus test would strangle America’s golden goose
Surprise! The Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post is against my 5% billionaire wealth tax. I wonder why?
If enacted, Bezos would owe $12 billion in taxes, and an average family of 4 would receive a $12,000 direct payment.
Poor Jeff would be left with just $224 billion to survive.
New paper out on the decision strategies of bumblebees. When using visual cues to make flower choices, they switch strategy with sensory context, learning as much as necessary, but as little as possible. Based on their training time, we propose a mechanism for this switch. tinyurl.com/2r9d4jrs 🌸🐝🧠
Pace of ecology drives the tempo of visual perception across the animal kingdom www.nature.com/articles/s41... - new paper with Clinton Haarlem, Cliodhna Hynes and colleagues
Different species see the world as fast as they need to...
Out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social!
A dive into the deep history of vertebrate vision, together with @mikebok.bsky.social, @neurofishh.bsky.social and @denilsson.bsky.social
Photo credit : Vasilis Karkalas
Postdoc Opening! 🚨
Thrilled to (belatedly!) share that I’ve received @hfspo.bsky.social grant in collaboration with @KatherinaPetrou "Plant-like solar tracking in a photosymbiotic animal."
We are hiring a Postdoc to join the team
@bristolbiosci.bsky.social!
Apply👇
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQO766/r...
A grey/brown male great bowerbird is looking towards the camera and in the background is a U shaped structure made of sticks, called a bower. Part of one of the walls is missing. In front of the bower is a pile of white, green and red objects called decorations that the male uses as part of his display.
Another stick in the wall: we removed part of male great bowerbird bower walls to test effect on courtship displays. Males didn’t just focus on rebuilding the wall, they stepped up effort across all aspects of their display, showing they flexibly invest in multiple signals tinyurl.com/4ujmkw95
I made a map of 3.4 million Bluesky users - see if you can find yourself!
bluesky-map.theo.io
I've seen some similar projects, but IMO this seems to better capture some of the fine-grained detail
A u shaped structure made out of sticks called a bower, built under a small tree. In front of the bower is a pile of grey, white and green objects that make up the display court. The whole scene is in dappled sunlight and shade created by the tree above.
New bowerbird paper out, we asked whether male great bowerbirds care about the light environment around the bower where they display to females. Short answer: not really. What they do care about is having a display arena with strong visual contrast on the ground. 🐦 tinyurl.com/2v7rycdz
New analysis of the major qualitative differences between natural and artificial intelligence (via LLMs).
LLMs and humans form judgments differently across seven epistemological stages 🧵
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Multiple anthropogenic stressors can negatively impact species but can a single stressor also have multiple, concurrent impacts? Here we show that light pollution creates several simultaneous impacts to the nocturnal movement ecology of a moth and a spider: tinyurl.com/5eku5bff (1/5)
Creative and important study for understanding visual processing.
Join us for your PhD! Apply by 15th Dec ⏰ to come to @bristolbiosci.bsky.social and study spider eyes, development and visual ecology under light pollution!
Open to all nationalities, funded incl. stipend, set in a beautiful city, and with amazing collaborators ✨
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
A new PhD opportunity in Melbourne!
Thrilled to announce a Postdoc opportunity in our group on the evolutionary genetics and ecology of colour. Wonderful system, great collaborators, and room to shape your own ideas.
Apply by 7 Jan: jobs.helsinki.fi/job/13477181...
#colsci @micatoolbox.bsky.social
Larger frogs are better mimics but are more risk-averse in a nontoxic poison frog
#Aposematism #WarningSignals #Ampibian
doi.org/10.1093/behe...
Make sure you don’t miss our key dates for abstract submission and registration!
I forgot to share that our paper came out a few months ago! We synthesise decades of research showing that conspicuous traits consistently predict attractiveness, condition, and fitness across animals. Check it out if you’re into sexual selection and signalling! doi.org/10.1111/ele....
Very happy to see our opinion article out in @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social today. 🥳 We ask whether sexual signals can influence the evolutionary trajectory of naturally selected adaptations, such as protective colouration, for better or for worse 🧐 1/n
doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...
New paper out in @behavecol.bsky.social!
Multiple studies show that sexually selected traits such as colours can reflect the presence of pathogens/parasites, but, can defensive coloration do the same? L. Schlippe Justicia, @carodittrich.bsky.social, O. Nokelainen & I tackled that question (1/3)
I've been pretty agnostic about mantis colour vision given the evidence so far. This new paper makes a convincing case they have the processing to do so. Mantises (probably) see in colour folks!
Do you work (/want to work) with caterpillars? Or sensory systems? Or BOTH?! Well good golly do we have the paper for you! We explain the senses that caterpillars have, what they use them for, and how anthropogenic sensory pollution might be messing it all up 🐛 doi.org/10.1007/s003...
BehaveAI is live!
Our biologically inspired video analysis tool sees motion as colour. Track animals or objects, classify their behaviour, and handle complex natural scenes with ease.
Semi-supervised annotation, no GPUs required, user-friendly, free & open source.
Pre-print tinyurl.com/BehaveAI
Now out in Cell! Congratulations to all involved, especially
@chiarafornetto.bsky.social
For a breakdown, see the bluetorial from when we posted the preprint: bsky.app/profile/neur...
Funding: @erc.europa.eu @wellcometrust.bsky.social @ukri.org @leverhulme.ac.uk @thelisterinstitute.bsky.social
New #PhD ad alert!
Interested in wild #bee #cognition and #brains in different #bumblebees? Want to live in #Newcastle and the beautiful north-east of England?
Check out this project with me, @lenariab.bsky.social and Sarah Scott. Contact me for further information.
iapetus.ac.uk/studentships...
Humans perceive but animals don’t: pitfalls in using plasticine models for assessing biotic interactions buff.ly/7hcLYXx | #ProcB #Ecology
Exiting career-boosting opportunity for a a skilled and highly motivated postdoctoral researcher: We're hiring a Post-doctoral fellow in Evolutionary Biology!
Please apply no later than 31 October!
lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/...
