Many wild populations are fragmenting and declining, leading to inbreeding.
We are studying how animals avoid inbreeding and the consequences of inbreeding an in a >20 year study of >20,000 wild mice with whole genomes.
We are recruiting a postdoc at Columbia and two PhD students in U Zurich.
Kuangyi Xu, a current EEB postdoc at UToronto and a former student in my lab, spearheaded this new dissection of the lek paradox. It often doesn't hold! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Your daily Avian Hybrids story!
Stuck in a Ruff: Having a supergene is not always super
avianhybrids.wordpress.com/2022/08/24/s...
#ornithology
#Shorebird eggs are optimised for camouflage and each one is a unique piece of art. Thee eggs are coloured by the females individually (who probably inspired the #Easter 🐇). Our annual "egg hunt" at Liminka Bay, Finland, searching for hidden #ruff and #dunlin 🪺 will soon start again.
#ornithology
Let me think about it 🤔
When did this one hatch? Those lesser coucal chicks really resemble more ancient dinosaurs than modern birds 🐍
Fieldwork surprise.
This work was led by freshly celebrated PhD Hanna Algora with vital contributions from @koivulakari.bsky.social @vmpakanen.bsky.social @jellybb.bsky.social, Kriszti Kupán and others
Nest failure in threatened #shorebirds has many reasons. Replacing eggs of vulnerable clutches with dummy eggs boosts nest survival of #Ruffs in grazed coastal meadows. New paper out 🎉 dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3... in @ecol-evol.bsky.social #conservation #ornithology
Mary Colwell and Prof Jenny Gill explore gender bias in fieldwork in our latest blog. Read it now:
www.curlewaction.org/the-joke-tha...
Becca Wood captures amazing video of Sharp-tail grouse (Tympanuchus phasianellus) males demonstrating their sexy dance, which involves moving legs up & down more than 20 times per second, inflating purple neck sacs, tails behind them like a flag.
They're native to Canada & central plains of the US.
Resting Snowy Plover male in deep thoughts about life and everything. He has this slightly annoyed expression, probably was thinking about humanity. #ornithology
✨ Happy International Women’s Day. ✨
Today, we celebrate the power, courage, and impact of women around the world. Let’s continue to create space where women feel seen, valued, and unstoppable. May we continue to challenge stereotypes, support one another, and inspire the next generation.
1/ Remember when Ted Cruz went to Cancún as the Texas power grid failed? It wasn't just the people of TX left behind, it was also the wildlife. Out now @natecoevo.nature.com, our paper led by @mstager.bsky.social & @treeswallows.bsky.social documents how bad the storms were for birds.
rdcu.be/e7aUy
And of course, this implies that for Ruffs the sample size of ringed birds in the UK is much smaller, i.e. <1% than dunlins, for example.
The longevity table in the blog is very useful, indeed. Interesting bit that I learned: For Ruffs, the British record is about 9y 1m, the EURING record is more than 16y 2m, almost twice as long. I guess that reflects the UK being just at the edge of their distribution.
New Paper alert 📄
Rüppel et al. 2026 - "movetrack: An R package to model flight paths from radio-telemetry networks"
-> this makes it possible to transform station-based radiotelemetry data into actual flight path, validated with a plane flight.
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Ready to start your own lab? Interested in #GlobalChange,#Biodiversity and #Ecosystem#Resilience? Join us in Göttingen - we are looking for a (female) Junior Research Group Leader in #EcologicalNovelty.
Attractive conditions, see euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/415857 - please share widely if you can!
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...
📢 Hiring: Tenure Track Professor of Flyway Ecology & Scientific Director of BirdEyes, the Centre for Global Ecological Change
Apply before 31 Mar 👇
werkenbij.rug.nl/vacature/ten...
#Hiring #Vacancy #ScienceJobs #SciComm
Job Alert
Help monitor breeding Black-tailed Godwits at WWT Welney
• Colour-ring reading
• Nest monitoring
• Trail cameras
• Predator surveys
Closing date: 6 March
Photo © Astrid Kant
More details here!!
vacancies.wwt.org.uk/vacancies/77...
Be #inspired by #waders or #shorebirds
When pets devour biodiversity. My new article on the European edition of @uk.theconversation.com about the impacts of pet-wildlife interactions and the opportunities for their legal regulation in the EU. theconversation.com/our-pets-are.... Related paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
And the defense @oulu.fi with very thorough but cordial opponent Terje Lislevand (right) was a special experience! Supervisor @koivulakari.bsky.social looks ecstatic (🇫🇮❄️).
Congratulations 🥂, Dr. Hanna Algora! Thesis on nesting ecology featuring Finnish #waders, ruffs and dunlins, defended convincingly today. Another fledgling 🪺🐦🐣 from @oulu.fi and @mpiforbi.bsky.social
Really grateful to be able to interact and work with some of these #WomenInScience, they are wonderful colleagues. Our research has benefited immensely from their unique perspectives.
The Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) is seeking a scientist in wildlife biology, ecology, or a closely related discipline, with a focus on movement ecology, spatial data analysis, and/or scavenger and carnivore systems.
Read and apply here: tinyurl.com/mr3x7uwk
Join us in Sheffield this April to celebrate 70 years of the Ecological Genetics Group
Abstract submission is closing soon!
Please repost! We are looking for two field technicians to work on our deer mouse project in the Colorado Rockies this spring-fall. Learn about physiology, ecology, and evolution, all in one project! Not to mention that you get to be in the ⛰️. Reach out if you have any questions.
Shout out to Lisa, who has been an amazing fieldworker over the last few years at our field site at #Liminganlahti, Finland. On this picture, she is (probably) returning freshly hatched #Ruff chicks to their nest after ringing. #WomenInScience #ornithology #conservation
Who benefits from mating with multiple partners? Darwin suspected that in some cases, it may be the females rather than the males. A new long-term study on African coucals shows: when males provide all parental care, females can have more offspring by competing for and mating with multiple partners.
