Monika Eberhard

Come to Hamburg and do a PhD on insect/spider traits with me!

Please share: We are hosting the 2026 DZG evolutionary biology graduate meeting at Uni Hamburg on March 25-27: "Interactions and Coevolution: from Molecules to Species". #PhD students, early postdocs and advanced Master students in evolutionary biology are welcome to register! t1p.de/dzg2026evolbio

🚨We are looking for neurobiologists who are interested in joining our team as section speakers of the German Zoological Society. If you enjoy interacting with your fellow neuro-addicts, want to help shape the direction of our society and section, and have a knack for organizing symposia let us know🚨

No Appeasement Through Vibrations: Male Vibratory Pre‐Copulatory Courtship in the Cursorial Spider Pisaura mirabilis Does Not Affect Female Predatory Response Male courtship can serve various purposes such as species recognition, mate localization, or advertisement of individual quality and physical condition. In predatory species such as spiders, courtshi...

News on the function of tremulation:
Female Pisaura mirabilis spiders are not appeased by the courtship tremulations of males - at least in our playback setup. Result of Stefan ter Haar's internship from Groningen led by
@monikaeberhard.bsky.social

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

No Appeasement Through Vibrations: Male Vibratory Pre‐Copulatory Courtship in the Cursorial Spider Pisaura mirabilis Does Not Affect Female Predatory Response Male courtship can serve various purposes such as species recognition, mate localization, or advertisement of individual quality and physical condition. In predatory species such as spiders, courtshi...

Proud to present our new paper, led by Stefan ter Haar who came all the way from Groningen to Greifswald to study spiders: No Appeasement Through Vibrations: Male vibratory pre-copulatory courtship in Pisaura mirabilis does not affect female predatory response onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

rdcu.be/eSIHs
We reported on the chemosensory toolkit of an Orb weaving spider in our PNAS paper earlier this year. Here, we report on a cursorial spider: similar, sex-specific sensory equipment and evidence for olfaction.
🧪🕷

Come and work with us in our new home @bristolbiosci.bsky.social ! This fully funded PhD opportunity is open to anyone interested in spiders/eyes/light pollution/evolution/development! 🕷️👀

⏰Deadline 15th December, online info event TODAY @2pm! Link in the PhD advert👉 www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

We performed an experiment with two spider species, one web building and one cursorial species. Juveniles experienced vibrations or visual input or both or no stimuli. Their brain areas did not differ significantly. However, siblings reacted in a similar way.

Spiders that experience vibrations, visual stimuli, both or none during development do not differ strongly in the size of their brain areas. This is a surprising finding. Even more surprising is that siblings react alike. See our new publication in the J. comp. Neurology.
doi.org/10.1002/cne....
🧪🕷

PhD position - How jumping spiders see

- Put cute spiders on trackballs!
- Program fancy automated experiments!
- Do cutting edge research!
- Hang out in beautiful Italian cities!
- Be supervised by a super nice chap!

Like invertebrate behaviour and computation stuff? You'll love this.

Link in 🧵

Face-first view of a brown spider with long legs. He is carrying a nuptial gift (silk-wrapped prey) in his chelicerae.

The first chapter of my thesis is out now in Journal of Ethology! Check it out if you're interested in taking a deep dive into the vibrational signal of a very cute spider 🕷️〰️

Variation of vibratory performance during courtship of a cursorial spider: doi.org/10.1007/s101...

A crab spider with bright yellow/green prosoma and legs and a light brown opisthosoma sits on a leaf

PhD position open with Dr. Jutta Schneider and @mherberstein.bsky.social in Hamburg, on sub-social behavior in crab spiders 🕷️ It even includes field work in Australia! Application deadline is 15 July, more info at the link:
www.uni-hamburg.de/en/stellenan...

Dear all, the registration and abstract submission deadline is approaching in a few days! Friday June 20th at midnight!!! 🚨 Don't miss the chance to join us in a beautiful Zadar! 🌞https://event.fourwaves.com/eca2025/pages

REGISTRATION NOW OPEN 👋
Join us in Berlin for the Annual Meeting of the German Zoological Society! Visit our website for all the details: dzg-meeting.de
Early Bird offers are available—register now to secure your spot!
We look forward to seeing you in Berlin.
#share #like

Really excited that our DFG grant on the Speciation Genomics of Eye Size variation in *Heliconius* has been funded :) In the next weeks, I will post an advert for a PhD, but if you know of good students, please suggest they get in touch. Please repost.

👋 Looking forward to the 117th Annual Meeting of the German Zoological Society. Please like and share 🤩

Olfaction with legs—Spiders use wall-pore sensilla for pheromone detection | PNAS The sense of smell is a central sensory modality of most terrestrial species. However, our knowledge of olfaction is based on vertebrates and insec...

doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
Olfaction in spiders. We found that the wall pore sensilla in spiders look similar from the outside to those of insects, but differ ultrastructurally in various ways. Independent evolution!
🧪

We are hiring a new entomological curator in Hamburg at the Leibniz institute for the analysis of biodiversity change…
Please share and apply!!!

8101202752.karriereportal.cloud/job/2024-20-...

Biotremology Animal communication, including that among humans, is fascinating in its efficiency, diversity and its complexity. The evolution of a communication si…

Bringing more #biotremology to this platform. What is biotremology, you ask? Well I'm glad you did! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Photo of a great audience and me on the stage, talking about Biotremology

Me, standing on the stage and about to give a presentation about Biotremology in the Audimax of Uni Hamburg.

Kinderuni @uni-hamburg.de - I had so much fun presenting my favourite topic - #biotremology to a great crowd of young people today. Many thanks to the organisers, this was such a great opportunity #wisskomm

Insects are making sounds the human ear can't hear. One Midwest scientist is listening Thousands of insect species use vibrations to communicate. Now, in part because of the foundational research of a Midwestern biology professor, more researchers are exploring insect vibrational commun...

“Most of the sounds out there have never been heard by humans, and you can literally go into a backyard in Missouri and hear a sound that no one has ever heard before.”

Etho 2025

Interested in Evolutionary Behavioural Genetics ... come join us by the Bavarian lakes in February! @chorlnev.bsky.social and I are organising a symposium on current advances to link molecular and behavioural variation across a broad range of animal taxa. Please Re-post!

www.bi.mpg.de/etho-2025

Screen shot of an article: Animal Behaviour Volume 217, November 2024, Pages 13-20. The impact of acoustic signalling on offspring performance varies among three biparentally caring species. Taina Conrad, Magdalena M. Mair, Julia Müller, Peter Richter, Sophie Schödel, Ann-Kathrin Wezstein, Sandra Steiger

🪲Beetles!🧑‍🍼Parental care! 🔇Acoustic signals! 🐛Larvae!

Our November #ASABEditorsChoice for the #AnimalBehaviourJournal: "The impact of acoustic signalling on offspring performance varies among three biparentally caring species" by Conrad et al.

Read here: doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2024.08.014

Absolutely thrilled that our Biotremology meets Klangkunst tour with the fantastic Chuchchepati Orchestra from last year has been released on vinyl! And I can hardly believe that @monikaeberhard.bsky.social and I were invited to write the foreword - what an honour! unitrecords.com/artists/chuc...