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/...
Still time to apply this #phd position in Finland, DL 20.12
#microbe #host #evolution #metabolism #vesicles #BEV
🚨Two funded PhDs on the evolutionary ecology of antipredator colouration 🦋 with myself and Iliana Medina.
One in Swansea tinyurl.com/4thtbph6 deadline Jan 12th @crocus-dla.bsky.social
The other in Melbourne - deadline Jan 1st
Please share among potential students!
If you are interested in animal cognition and birds, a reminder to apply for this PhD opportunity in our lab! Applications close December 10th
Fig. 1 from the article: Hypothesized bidirectional pathways connecting the gut microbiome and diet in wild birds.
Fig. 2 from the article: Proposed methodology of DNA extraction, PCR, and amplicon sequencing to characterize aspects of avian diet and gut microbiome from the same fecal sample. Researchers can also use the same DNA extract for microbial metagenomics, and they can perform an RNA extraction on the same fecal sample for transcriptomics analysis.
NEW PAPER: how bird diets and gut microbiomes shape each other: synthesizing how diet drives microbiome shifts, how microbes may steer diet choices, and outlining key questions and methods for studying diet–microbiome links.
➡️ vist.ly/4gjuw
#ornithology #birds 🪶
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)
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher Eating Viceroy Butterfly https://stevecreek.com/scissor-tailed-flycatcher-eating-butterfly/
🐞🧬🦅 join us for a PhD position researching how birds evolve resistance to prey toxins. If you’re excited about wild chemical arms races, we’d love to hear from you. @shabmohammadi.bsky.social @livuni-ives.bsky.social @livuni-ismib.bsky.social @mpi-ce.bsky.social
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
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
I am looking for a postdoc to work in our long-term system of food-caching mountain chickadees in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The expected start is April 2026. Please see details here: chickadeecognition.com/positions
If interested and qualified, please contact me directly (email on the website).
This paper shows the importance of collaborations! Who knew a bunch of "leftover" fecal samples could turn out into such a cool paper.
We found that lack of sleep and increased stress decrease diversity in the gut microbiotas of common mynas.
nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Examples of some recent papers from graduate students in my group - a full list of recent papers and preprints can be found here (https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=pTdxVdIAAAAJ) and profile of the group here: https://egioxford.web.ox.ac.uk/members
The annual Wytham Field Team Photo!
Celebrating a successful field season with great food & good company - May 2025
Front view of the Life & Mind Building, which opened in Oct 2025: The new home of Biology at Oxford
Interested in a PhD in ornithology? Funding available for projects at the interface of ecology, behaviour & evolution from Oct '26 working on long-term population studies of tits at Wytham, based in @biology.ox.ac.uk in the new Life & Mind Building in Oxford
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
a 14 day old great tit nestling, ringed for individual identification
Figure from the paper showing that extreme climatic events interact with ambient climatic conditions and breeding timing within a season, in a developmental stage-specific manner, to influence nestling growth in great tits
New preprint! 🪶
We analysed 60 years of data on 83,000+ great tits to show how extreme climate impacts on nestling growth and survival are stage-specific and context-dependent 🐣 🌍🔥❄️
With @davididiaquez.bsky.social @iremsepil.bsky.social @sheldonbirds.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🚨🔊 Fully funded PhD!! 🚨🔊
Are you interested in wildlife gut microbiomes? Love birds, fieldwork and bioinformatics? Want to join a collaborative and supportive team? Looking for training to become an independent scientist?
Please apply!
Informal enquiries welcome!
www.uea.ac.uk/course/phd-d...
Out today in @plosbiology.org (1/5)
Siblings and non-parental adults provide alternative pathways to cultural inheritance in juvenile great tits 🐦🧩
Link to study:
10.0.5.91/journal.pbio...
Co-authors:
@lucymaplin.bsky.social
@galarconnieto.bsky.social
Late to the party but finally migrating here after some social media break - excited to have a new platform to keep up with the latest research!
