New paper out: Artificial selection for increased reproductive effort accelerates actuarial senescence and reduces lifespan in a precocial bird url: royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article... @uniexecec.bsky.social @erikpostma.bsky.social @joelpick.bsky.social y.social @oscarvedder.bsky.social
Visual with the text: Postdoctoral Fellowships call 2026
€399M in EU funding is available to support around 1,600 researchers in their postdoctoral journey.
You can choose your path:
🧪 European fellowships: 12-24 months in Europe
🧪 Global fellowships: 12-24 months abroad + return
Deadline: 9 September (17:00 CEST)
More info: link.europa.eu/t6jYb3
New paper! 🐦🦠
Social Structure and Interactions Differentially Shape Aerotolerant and Anaerobic Gut Microbiomes in a Cooperative Breeding Species
doi.org/10.1111/mec....
A 🧵
A collage of 1) a meerkat in the Kalahari desert, wearing a tracking collar while stood beside the entrance to its burrow, 2) a 3D scan of a subterranean burrow, 3) a map showing burrow locations and their usage patterns.
🚨 Please share: PhD opportunity
🐾 Mapping the Manor: How are the lives of meerkats shaped by their sleeping & breeding burrows? 🐾
💡 Big ecological Qs
📡 Geophysical scanning
🌍 Field ecology & behaviour
📊 Big data & code
with me & @geophysics-adam.bsky.social
APPLY www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
🚨REPOST PLEASE! 🙏🏻
Calling all South African 🇿🇦 zoology students! You have ONE more week to apply to our Collective Behaviour Field Course
📍Two weeks at the Kalahari Research Centre
🗓️ June 2026
💸 Fully funded
Application details are at www.exc.uni-konstanz.de/cbfc
DM for any questions
Out today is our paper 'Genomic history of early dogs in Europe', in which we uncover the identity of the dogs that lived in Europe before agriculture—during the Paleolithic & Mesolithic periods: doi.org/10.1038/s415.... A thread ⬇️ (10)
@biouea.bsky.social @crick.ac.uk @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social
Norwich has just been named the best place to live in the UK and we couldn't be more proud. We love you, Norwich! 🫶
Norwich was crowned winner in The Sunday Times Best Places to Live guide, the only location to have featured in all 14 editions of the guide.
Find out more: https://bit.ly/4lCFCTU
🧵 New paper!
How does the immune system shape the gut microbiome in wild animals?
We studied the Seychelles warbler using shotgun metagenomics to test how variation in MHC genes (key immune genes) influences both the taxonomy and function of gut microbes.
rdcu.be/e7Wxv
Here’s what we found 👇
A small bird perches on a thin branch amid lush green leaves. Credit: Claire Lok Sze Tsui.
Prof David Richardson from @biouea.bsky.social has been the senior researcher on a study that has uncovered a hidden link between gut health and the immune system – all thanks to a tiny island bird.
Read more: https://bit.ly/4cIV4vs
#ResearchMatters #NewStudy #GutHealth
📣 JOBS!!! We're looking for new colleagues in the School of Biology @bioscienceleeds.bsky.social - two associate profs (plant sci and animal biology) and a lecturer (ecology/zoology)...
jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...
jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...
jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...
Leipzig U and the MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) have an open faculty position (W2) in evolutionary population genetics! This position is tenured and comes with generous core funding. We are eager to welcome a new colleague! Deadline March 11.
www.uni-leipzig.de/en/newsdetai...
🚨JOB alert🚨
We have three (yes, THREE) 🌟lectureships🌟 advertised in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol.
Broad remit, including #AnimalBehaviour & #GlobalChangeBiology
⏱️Deadline: 8th March 2026
🙏Please circulate widely
😊Come join us!
Full #job details: tinyurl.com/y3us95rc
Just over a week left to apply for this PhD project (unfortunately UK students only). If you're interested then please get in touch!
Why is there such variation in the birds encountered as you go up or down a mountain? New paper in #ScienceAdvances examines how climate and ecological interactions drive bird distributions in mountains throughout the year:
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
1/10 ⬇️
Delighted to see our paper featured on the cover of the Journal of Animal Ecology @animalecology.bsky.social @britishecologicalsociety.org
Thanks Pam Hurkens for the lovely image of a heavily pregnant meerkat being weighed at our field site.
(8/8) Overall: higher food availability drives faster gestational weight gains, producing chonky, healthy pups.
Social factors have no effect - surprising because after birth, growth IS adjusted to rivals in meerkats and other social mammals.
Thanks for reading, follow for more meerkat science!
(7/8) And what about those adorable pups?
Faster weight gains during pregnancy produced heavier pups. Pups' rapid prenatal growth did not shorten their telomeres (a marker of cellular stress), so heavier pups were more likely to survive to adulthood. In meerkats, growing fast in utero pays off!
Two meerkats having a violent fight, teeth bared.
(6/8) What about social effects on pregnancies?
Meerkats are cooperative AND competitive, and females often kill rivals' pups. We asked whether this intense social environment shapes pregnancies. Surprisingly, it didn't! Gestational growth and birth timing were unchanged by social conditions.
(5/8) How do environmental factors affect pregnancies? ☀️🌧️
As expected, rain and greater food availability 🐛🦂 were correlated with rapid weight gains. We confirmed this by experimentally feeding mothers a daily hard boiled egg (their favourite!). Fed mothers gained weight much faster than controls.
(4/8) We found (as expected) lots of variation and a two-phase pregnancy: an initial flat phase and a second steady growth phase.
(3/8) To find out, we weighed 381 females every 2 days through their ~75-day pregnancies (>12,000 weights!). We used ultrasound scanners to count in utero litter sizes, scanning the mum's belly while she sunned herself in the morning. Here's a clip of a 1-inch long fetus. Look at his little heart 💓
(2/8) We wondered whether mothers conceal or accelerate their pregnancies to avoid conflict with rival females in the group. This conflict can be fatal!
We also predicted that food availability would dictate growth patterns (gestating pups is hungry work!).
A tiny meerkat pup aged just a few weeks, emerging from the birth burrow in the Kalahari Desert.
🚨 New paper 🚨
(1/8) In meerkats, pregnancy isn’t one-size-fits-all. Some mothers gain weight steadily, others delay all growth until the final weeks 📈
What drives this striking variation, and how does it affect the (adorable) pups?
OA PAPER: doi.org/10.1111/1365...
Details (+cute pics!) below👇
Cooperation, the foundation of life.
"Positive interactions—where one microbe's growth promoted another's—were much more common than negative interactions like competition or predation"
phys.org/news/2026-01...
Strongly recommend you watch the video Abstract for this @currentbiology.bsky.social paper about Veronika the tool-using cow 🐮🧹
The last 30 seconds is particularly heart-warming.
doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...
Applications closing 5th Jan for Fully funded PhD through @iapetusdtp.bsky.social
Studying behaviour and ecology of anemonefishes. Need to be happy to spend lots of time in Papua New Guinea and need to be SCUBA qualified.
iapetus.ac.uk/studentships...
Lovely piece on how meerkats deal with climate change by @chameauleon.bsky.social in National Geographic: www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti... I had the pleasure to chat with Camille about the importance of understanding how extreme heat changes food availability 🐛 for meerkats
Medfly
UEA campus
Please share 📢
We have a Postdoc position available here @uniofeastanglia.bsky.social to develop innovative genetic control strategies for insect agricultural pests in collaboration with @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social
vacancies.uea.ac.uk/vacancies/19...
Delighted to see our work picked up by @theguardian.com this is a real window of opportunity for us to reduce carbon emissions to give the bears a hope at survival before it really is too late.
Interesting new paper in Nature on how sterilization and castration increases lifespans across vertebrates. Accords with life history theory, which says that there is a trade off in investing in survival and in reproduction.
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
