University of Bristol Biological Sciences

Delighted to support the amazing #PratchayaPhinthong with his #PhuketBiennale2025 installation. Our collaboration took us to meet the Moken people, capture video and audio at degraded inshore and also pristine Surin Island reefs to bring to the installation, and build a restoration reef of hope!

Welcome Trisha @trishg.bsky.social!

#animalcommunication
A different view on #acoustic #signals used as part of #animal #contests - after rather than before or during the fight.
#birds #mammals
@bristolbiosci.bsky.social

🪸 🪸 🪸 Postdoc position in my group at Bristol to study the role of venom in surviving environmental stress in corals! 🪸 Interested in venom biochemistry and coral ecology?Please apply by November 24!
@bristolbiosci.bsky.social
www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

Imagine choosing where to live for centuries when only 2 days old! How do free-swimming coral larvae detect their environment, and how are they wired to choose a suitable home? Find out with this fabulous PhD opportunity with @venky-vnm.bsky.social @bristolbiosci.bsky.social @bristoluni.bsky.social

Huge thanks to #Life'sABeach for enabling our @bristolbiosci.bsky.social 1st Year #BeachClean. >200 students collected >57 kg litter, including lego, shotgun cases and >30 shark/ray egg cases. All data uploaded to @mcsuk.bsky.social & #SharkTrust. Blog here: www.lifesabeach.org/back-with-br...

📣 Fully-funded PhD opportunity in my Lab @bristolbiosci.bsky.social @bristoluni.bsky.social
🔬We will explore how coral larvae sense their environment and guide settlement.
Check out the details! 👇
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

#Coral #SensoryEcology #PhD #MarineScience

Funded PhD - Nutritional value and vulnerability of blue foods at University of Bristol on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Funded PhD - Nutritional value and vulnerability of blue foods at University of Bristol, listed on FindAPhD.com

Looking for a PhD that combines global food security, climate change and environmental protection? Then read on...

The amazing #JoleahLamb is joining us in 2026 @bristolbiosci.bsky.social. You can join too with this exciting fully-funded PhD opportunity:

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

BBC World Service - CrowdScience, Why are some animals black and white? Why are zebras so stripy? Why do penguins wear tuxedos?

Why is hiking in a zebra onesie a smart move if you want to avoid being devoured by flies? And why are skunks more stripy in predator-rich forests? Find out this, and more, from @bristolbiosci.bsky.social experts @drmartinjhow.bsky.social & Tim Caro on BBC CrowdScience: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w...

Dwarf mongoose

Rhesus macaques grooming

Meerkat

❓ Want to join us?
📢 Fully funded #PhD for UK-domiciled Black heritage candidates
🐵 Biological market monitoring & manipulation in social animals #mongooses #macaques #fieldwork

👥 With me, #LaurenBrent & #PatrickKennedy
🎓 @bristolbiosci.bsky.social

ℹ️ www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

🙏Share widely

Exciting times ahead - I'm beyond delighted to be joining @bristolbiosci.bsky.social in 2026! 🎉🕷️🎉🐌🎉

I'm also looking for a PhD student to join @multipleye-lab.bsky.social in our new home! Come and study the effects of light pollution on the evolution and development of spider eyes with us 🌃🕷️👀 👇

Black in STEM banners

Some amazing heroes of science celebrated this month in the foyer of our Life Sciences Building @bristolbiosci.bsky.social @bristoluni.bsky.social. Wangarĩ Muta Maathai a particular favourite for building the Green Belt Movement that empowered women across Africa to engage in rewilding.

🐬 Registration is now OPEN for the UKIRSC 2026 Marine Mammal Conference hosted @plymuni.bsky.social 🎓A FREE event bringing together students from across the UK & Ireland to share research, connect, and learn from leading marine mammal scientists. 👇Link below

#UKIRSC2026 #MarineMammals

200 students stand with staff for a photo, waving at the camera

What a phenomenally successful Y1 Retreat for 205 students in North Devon!

Two days of woodland surveys, GPS hunts, sustainability workshops, pond dipping, bat walks, evening lectures and a pub quiz, a Marine Conservation Society beach clean, and a Shark Trust eggcase hunt!

The entrance to the forest

A car driving down the road into the forest

A photo of the road into the forest

🌴 Zanzibar’s Forests at Risk🌴

Pemba’s Ngezi-Vumawimbi Reserve-home to rare orchids, endangered trees & endemic wildlife-is threatened by a resort plan to convert c.17% into villas. 🌿

What’s at stake?

➡️Tim Caro & 13 biologists' @ScienceMagazine letter bit.ly/4mFJ13h

BBC World Service - CrowdScience, Why are some animals black and white? Why are zebras so stripy? Why do penguins wear tuxedos?

Prof Tim Caro and I both feature in this BBC World Service radio show about why zebra have stripes. Catch it at 8:30pm GMT on Fri 3rd Oct or replay on the link below. @bristolbiosci.bsky.social @ecologyofvision.bsky.social

Career Development Fellowship | Royal Society This scheme provides the most talented early career scientists from underrepresented groups in STEM with research funding and high-quality training opportunities to build a strong base for a successfu...

Fancy joining us?
Check out this excellent @royalsociety.org Career Development Fellowship:
royalsociety.org/grants/caree...
If you're eligible & are interested in social behaviour, vocal communication or anthropogenic impacts on wildlife, feel free to DM or email me.
@bristolbiosci.bsky.social

Huge welcome to Venky! We can't wait to see what the future holds 😀

Great to have this finally out! A whole summer of experiments at @bristolbiosci.bsky.social to look for behavioural and morphological signals of collapse in protists population🔬 Thanks to @duncanobrien.bsky.social @expecocons.bsky.social @dzchilds.bsky.social and John Jackson for the great team work

The Sci Comm cohort stand in a huddle with clouds in the background

Congratulations to our amazing MSc Science Communication for a Better Planet students, who recently gave wonderful final presentations on their summer placements and projects!

We wish them all the best of luck with their future careers!

Animal Behaviour from Exeter and Bristol, plus some of our alumni, went to @behaviour2025.bsky.social in Kolkata and had mountains of rice. @crab-exeter.bsky.social @bristolbiosci.bsky.social @uniexecec.bsky.social

Wildlife of the Year Award 2025 – the best pictures so far The photo taken by Bidyut Kalita, is among several highly commended in this year's Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

We love these! Check out the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025 – the best pictures so far, at the link below: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

‘Bee buffets’: the pollinator pathways turning drab alleys into insect havens Corridors of nectar-rich plants encourage pollination and brighten up city streets at the same time

Corridors of nectar-rich plants encourage pollination and brighten up city streets at the same time.

Find out more at the link below:

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Real-world example of how airborne LiDAR data can be used to advance our understanding of forest edge effects.

Many thanks to @leverhulme.ac.uk for funding this work! Keep your eyes peeled for a quantitative test of some of these ideas usign airborne LiDAR, which is coming soon!
@bristolbiosci.bsky.social @cabot-institute.bsky.social

Electroreception in treehoppers: How extreme morphologies can increase electrical sensitivity | PNAS The link between form and function of an organism’s morphology is usually apparent or intuitive. However, some clades of organisms show remarkable ...

Why do treehoppers look so weird?! Our latest paper, out this week in @pnas.org, suggests a perhaps unexpected reason - static electricity ⚡ We show that treehoppers can detect the electrostatic cues of predators and that their crazy shapes may boost their electrosensitivity! doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

After the fight: post-contest acoustic signalling | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Animal contests often involve acoustic signals at different stages, but empirical work has primarily focused on usage before and during antagonistic interactions. Far less attention has been paid to p...

🎉NEW PAPER🎉 out today - our review in #ProcB about post-contest acoustic signalling. Started piecemeal and alone years ago, the brilliance and energy of #ECRs @josharbon.bsky.social & Amy Morris-Drake gave it impetus. ☺️

@royalsocietypublishing.org
@bristolbiosci.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

Enhanced conspicuousness of prey in warmer water mitigates the constraint of turbidity for predators Abstract. Changes in environmental conditions impact predator-prey interactions by altering behaviour through sensory and non-sensory (e.g. metabolic or co

✨Out Now✨ The outcome of my 1st ever #guppy experiment (from 2021!) w @ccioannou.bsky.social & @jtroscianko.bsky.social

We asked: How detectable are guppies to visual predators under different env. conditions?👇
academic.oup.com/beheco/artic...

#ISBE #fish #behaviour @bristolbiosci.bsky.social
🧵1/9

Repeated evolution of reduced visual investment at the onset of ecological speciation in high-altitude Heliconius butterflies Abstract. Colonization of new habitats is typically followed by divergent selection acting on traits that are immediately important for fitness. For exampl

New from @gadusmo.bsky.social’s PhD thesis 👐🏼 with @dickmerrill.bsky.social, Jake Morris, Camilo Salazar and Carolina Pardo-Díaz

‘Repeated evolution of reduced visual investment at the onset of ecological speciation in high-altitude #Heliconius butterflies’ 1/n 🧪

academic.oup.com/evlett/advan...

Much like humans, plants can go through difficult life phases, but how do they know when to move on? Dr Jim Fouracre explores what makes plant biology so unique, and how they know when to grow up:
#SummerScience

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiHq...

Staff and children in the Atrium of the Life Sciences Building

Staff and children in the Atrium of the Life Sciences Building

Staff and children in the Atrium of the Life Sciences Building

Staff and children in the Atrium of the Life Sciences Building

Last week we held our Insect Week showcase and had around 200 visitors to the LSB across the afternoon!

We had visitors from as far as Bath and Taunton which is incredible!

Thank you to all those who helped on the day!

#insects #insectsofintagram #wearebristoluni #wearebristol