Safe to say that we are very excited about this here at ESEB!

Huge thanks to Brian Golding for entrusting us with the fantastic service that you have created and curated for the years!

Follow @evoldir.bsky.social

Melissa Armand, the first author of the study, also did some excellent scholarship here, reviewing the evidence for decoy effects in bees and other insects, and found that actually, the evidence is pretty shaky and inconsistent. It's such a tempting idea, but it seems often not to be the case!

Flowers can move too 🌼🐝

In Galactites tomentosus, touching the disc florets can trigger a rapid staminal movement that helps control pollen presentation and release during a pollinator visit.

This was observed by Biology students during Plant Diversity classes at the University of Coimbra 🌿

Wildlife trade drives animal-to-human pathogen transmission over 40 years

New in @science.org ‼️ In the most comprehensive study to date, we show that wildlife trade is driving animal-to-human zoonotic spillover at a planetary scale, with +1 spillover per host every 10 years. Live animal markets and illegal trade pose even greater risks. 🔓 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Satellite imagery reveals increasing volatility in human night-time activity - Nature Daily satellite data reveal that Earth’s artificial lights at night are highly volatile, with frequent brightening and dimming between 2014 and 2022.

Nature research paper: Satellite imagery reveals increasing volatility in human night-time activity

go.nature.com/48kxaDq

We're accepting proposals for our Special Feature!

We invite scientists and practitioners to share experiences from management projects that didn't go to plan, but still provided important insights into how best to manage ecosystems and species🌱

⏰Submit by 30th April

More here👇
buff.ly/EXXBFsJ

One of cholera’s great enemies is found in the human gut Experts find that cholera strains in Bangladesh are in a constant battle with a protective bacteriophage found in the human gut, lessening cholera’s ability to spread widely.

Cholera-causing bacteria are locked in an evolutionary arms race with their viral nemesis found in the human gut, according to a new study. 🦠

Find the full story here ⤵️

www.sanger.ac.uk/news_item/on...

The SORTEE guidelines for data and code quality control in ecology and evolutionary biology are now published in the Peer Community Journal!

🔗 peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10....

Macro photo of a brown stink bug in face view on a leaf, guarding a tightly-clustered bunch of eggs that are shaped and colored exactly like a full tray of dark beer with foam on top.

Finally, the bug is back with a round of the Guinness.

Pesticides and habitat loss additively reduce wild bees in crop fields - Nature Ecology & Evolution The authors synthesize bee assemblage data from 681 crop fields across three continents, finding that local pesticide hazards and decreasing adjacent semi-natural habitats both negatively affected wil...

Our new paper, co-authored by Riho and Péter, titled "Pesticides and habitat loss additively reduce wild bees in crop fields", is published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. The study emphasizes the need to reduce pesticide impacts and restore habitats for promoting wild bees. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

It’s surprising to see that Bombus lapidarius plays such a key role in virus transmission within agricultural landscapes. This challenges long-held assumptions and highlights how non-honeybee species can drive the spread of pathogens. 🧪

Congratulations to Patrycja Pluta for leading the study!

Python skeleton

Giant armadillo skeleton

Sloth, taxidermy

Koala, taxidermy and skeleton

Today is World Sleep Day 😴 and in celebration of that, here are some of the snooziest animals in the world @zoologymuseum.bsky.social

What kills a society: accumulation of uric acid increases infectious disease risk in #termites #ProcB #OpenAccess royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Published 📖

Generalized graphical mixed models connect ecological theory with widely used statistical models

GGMMs connect ecological theory with statistical models that are applied for inference, prediction, and causal analysis throughout ecology 🖥️ 🌍

🔎

Cambridge University Library, University Museum of Zoology and the University of Cambridge - Collections Connections Communities

Here’s a great PhD opportunity in the crossover between humanities and natural history- please repost 🙏 www.ccc.cam.ac.uk/initiatives/...

Heather nectar extracts reduce within-colony epidemics of the bumblebee parasite Crithidia bombi Abstract. Disease and habitat loss are significant causes of pollinator declines, and evidence indicates the two are linked. In Britain, lowland heath is a

Heather nectar metabolites reduce within-colony epidemics of the bumblebee parasite Crithidia bombi showing that anti microbial compounds in nectar are effective at improving bee health at colony levels. @rbgkew.bsky.social
@markjfbrown.bsky.social
royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Photo with just a person's legs and feet visible as well as their luggage which includes a yellow backpack and black cabin bag. The person is on a train to somewhere.

Bags packed, on the train, and super excited to finally attend my first @britishecologicalsociety.org conference! #BES2025 🤸🏼‍♂️🐝 (luggage in bee-colour theme is accidental, promise 😅)

Time to publish responsibly: DAFNEE, a database of academia-friendly journals in ecology and evolutionary biology Abstract. The current economics of scientific publishing reveal a profound imbalance: academia pays prices far exceeding the actual costs of publication. R

Delighted to publish Forum Article by @nicolasgaltier.bsky.social et al:

"Journals run by learned societies or universities have more ethical policies while being cheaper and similarly cited"

doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

Thank you for choosing JEB - we encourage the support of #societyjournals

Resource supplementation later in the colony cycle improves real‐world bumblebee colony survival Our findings suggest that B. terrestris colonies became food-limited towards the end of their colony cycle in early summer. We suggest ecological intensification through planting native wildflower sp....

I am absolutely thrilled to share my first chapter, published today in @jappliedecology.bsky.social! Results are summarised in the thread below, or you can read it OA here doi.org/10.1111/1365... @ellileadbeater.bsky.social @rhulbiology.bsky.social @uclcber.bsky.social @ucl-pnl.bsky.social 1/7 🧪

(PDF) A second British record of Paragus quadrifasciatus Meigen (Diptera, Syrphidae) PDF | In short note format, we report the second UK record and the first specimen for Paragus quadrifasciatus (Meigen, 1822), found in Stratford,... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ...

Delighted to share this note on only the second British record of the #hoverfly Paragus quadrifasciatus, which @amaeda16.bsky.social, @ellileadbeater.bsky.social, and I found during a #pollinator survey of the @ucl-pnl.bsky.social garden lab. Read and share! 🧪
www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Deciduous leaves may have evolved to be symmetrical and subtly lobed so they fall quicker and land near their parent tree, recycling their annually sequestered carbon. Join us 22 Oct 3:00 PM (London, UK) to hear #JRSocInterface author Kaare Jensen talk about his research: cassyni.com/events/5PbU2...

‘Almost unimaginable’: these ants are different species but share a mother Ant queens of one species clone ants of another to create hybrid workers that do their bidding.

A common type of ant in Europe breaks a fundamental rule in biology: its queens can produce male offspring that are a whole different species

go.nature.com/4mOb5T9

Purple pollen visible in a dissected flower of Linum grandiflorum, flowering flax, an insect-pollinated species.

*Postdoc in Evolutionary genomics at Stockholm University*
We are recruiting a postdoc for a large interdisciplinary project to investigate evolutionary drivers and genomic consequences of pollen evolution in response to pollination mode shifts in flowering plants. 1/5

su.varbi.com/what:job/job...

Beyond the Grant–Stebbins model: floral adaptive landscapes and plant speciation AbstractBackground. Floral diversity, a striking feature of angiosperm evolution, provides the impetus and rationale for linking pollinator-driven selectio

Is the Most Effective Pollinator Principle a zombie idea? How do plants adapted to one pollinator shift to another without traversing an adaptive valley? How should we measure fitness in pollinator selection studies? We explore these questions and more in a new review doi.org/10.1093/aob/...

A figure showing that light pollution prolongs avian vocal activity by nearly an hour. (A) Most diurnal bird species show bimodal vocalization patterns with peaks in the morning and evening; in light-polluted landscapes (yellow shading), the first vocalizations occur earlier in the morning and the last vocalizations occur later in the evening. (B) Globally—averaged across species, space, and season—onset of morning vocalization shifted 18 min earlier in the brightest landscapes versus the darkest landscapes. (C) Similarly, evening cessation was delayed by an average of 32 min. In (B) and (C), lines are means and shaded regions are 95% confidence intervals (CI) of model predictions.

Light pollution is causing birds around the world to sing for longer each day, prolonging their vocalizations on average by 50 minutes, according to a new study in Science.

Learn more: https://scim.ag/3Uz7vzP

Saving bees with ‘superfoods’: new engineered supplement found to A new study led by the University of Oxford could provide a cost-effective and sustainable solution to help tackle the devastating decline in honeybees. An engineered food supplement, designed to

Press release for our @nature.com paper on the importance of #sterols in the diet of honeybees is here - the piece provides details on the yeast engineering & bioassays. The work was the research of my brilliant PhD student Elynor Moore www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-08...

Major heath blaze at Holt Heath brought under control More than 100 firefighters have worked to get the fast-moving fire under control.

This is devastating. We’ve lost most Lowland Heath in England. It supports unique flora & fauna & healthy bees. Our work @rbgkew.bsky.social w/ @cminnaar.bsky.social & @markjfbrown.bsky.social studies heather nectar for compounds that protect bumblebees from parasites www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Pollinating insect count for City of London Bees, butterflies and moths are being counted across the City of London on Thursday.

Pollinating count to track Square Mile's ecosystem Bees, butterflies and moths are being counted across the City of London on Thursday to document the state of insect populations.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Insects usually care for their own young, but sometimes they also help other species. This #RSOS study found that yellow meadow #ants protect the eggs of root aphids in their nests during winter. Read more: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... @tparmentier.bsky.social @wybouw.bsky.social

If you've not already followed the cool trans nature experts in this starter pack, you're really missing out.

Also, it's Pride! Get some more trans voices on your timeline!