Sandra Steiger

HIRING! We are looking for a new PhD student to work on insects in deadwood, effects of microclimate and land use. This is part of the Biodiversity Exploratories @bexplo.bsky.social and will use a new experiment using rain-out shelters in different regions of Germany. EU driver´s licence required.

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

3-year PhD position in insect ecophysiology and land-use intensity with PD Dr. Florian Menzel (@unimainz.bsky.social) and Prof. Dr. Thomas Schmitt ( #Würzburg ). Application deadline: February 4th, 2026. More info here: www.blogs.uni-mainz.de/fb10-evoluti... #insects #ecophysiology #land-use #CHCs

PhD project entitled "Are we underestimating the effects of climate change on animal populations?" Supervised by Dr Natalie Pilakouta and Dr David Shuker Deadline: 6 January 2026

📣 PhD opportunity in my lab 📣

We're looking for a motivated student interested in the effects of thermal stress on animal survival and reproduction: www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Project is open-ended to allow student to define its direction depending on their interests

Please share widely!

Christmas ornament with a painted burying beetle

New article from the lab out today, in which we discuss how social behavior evolves at the molecular level. From parenting across the animal tree of life to caste systems in social insects, it’s all connected (and, therefore, slowly starts to make sense)…

GEvol Job Alert: PhD position in Robert Paxtons lab in Halle This research project focuses on the extent to which the origin of eusociality in the socially variable halictid bees is ascribable
to changes in gene regulatory mechanisms. Find this and more open positions @ g-evol.uni-muenster.de

ECE 2026 - XIII European Congress of Entomology It is our great pleasure to welcome you to Tours, France, in the heart of the Loire Valley, from June 29 to July 3, 2026.

📢 Don’t forget! This is the last week of early bird registration for what promises to be a great meeting in Tours, France, next year. Exciting program on all aspects of insects research, great food, lovely wine, a beautiful historic city, castles … it will be memorable! ✨

www.ece2026.org

Next European Congress of Entomology in the lovely city of Tours, France 👇

📢 18-month PostDoc Fellowship – University of Montpellier (France)
🦠🦋 Interested in insect pathology, immunity, microbiome, or genomics?

We’re looking for a motivated candidate (<2 years post-PhD by mid-2026). 🧪
📩 Contact me ASAP for details!
⏳ Application deadline: 16/01/26
🔁 Please RT / Repost

Are you a bachelor's / master's student looking for a thesis project or Erasmus Internship? We’re looking for someone to come and help us collecting data! If you’re interested, feel free to contact me! :)

Kinship as a double-edged sword: relatedness among burying beetle larvae enhances growth but increases mortality: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... #BiologyLetters #ecology Image credit: Jacy Lucier

And of course I am also very excited and happy about the joint project with @bfeldmeyer.bsky.social , @steigerlab.bsky.social , Peter and Mark on the evolution in brood care behavior in beetles and about the collaborations and scientific exchange with all the great colleagues in @gevol.bsky.social !

🎉We are happy to announce that our wonderful GEvol SPP will be funded by @dfg.de for another 3 years. Included are 17 great projects all over Germany with amazing people. You want to be part of this fantastic community? Soon you can find new PhD/Post-Doc positions here & on our website. Stay tuned🎉

🌿 This Thursday:

Prof. Wilfert (Uni Regensburg), explores how global change impacts pollinators and their health — from land use to climate effects. 🐝

www.bayceer.uni-bayreuth.de/bayceer/en/a...

@steigerlab.bsky.social
@max-evolbio.bsky.social
@uniregensburg.bsky.social
#Pollinators #Ecology

Parental care liberates juvenile growth: a common-garden test of the evolutionary benefits of care Abstract. Effects on juvenile growth have long been considered an important benefit of parental care, but they have rarely been tested empirically. Protect

After some years in the making, I’m happy to share our new paper on the benefits of care. By breeding 17 carrion beetle species, we show that parental protection and feeding both promote faster offspring growth. Thanks to Anne, Madlen, and all the fantastic coauthors academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...

TRAVEL AWARDS - Apply for a travel award to support your trip, accommodation and registration! Application guidelines on www.isbe2026.com

🪳 New paper out – Part II!

Our 2nd study on the hormonal regulation of maternal care in the European earwig is now out!

We show that blocking juvenile hormone synthesis with Precocene reduces egg care in post-oviposition mothers, while JH supplementation has no effect.

doi.org/10.1016/j.yh...

Join us! Oxford is advertising an Associate Professorship in Animal Behaviour. my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

Hormonal regulation of parental care in insects: a call for exploring vulnerabilities to anthropogenic pollutants Global insect populations are declining at an alarming rate, threatening biodiversity and the ecosystem services on which humans depend. One potential…

Ever wondered how pollution affects insect parenting? 👀

Our new paper in Current Opinion in Insect Science digs into this question, highlights what we don’t know (yet), and lays out five priorities to push the field forward.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

@

From constructing nests to nutritional provisioning: the impact of direct and indirect parental care in the burying beetle, Nicrophorus orbicollis - Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Abstract Parental care has evolved multiple times in the animal kingdom and includes all parental traits that enhance offspring fitness. The evolution of care can lead to prolonged associations between parents and their offspring. This, in turn, can drive parent–offspring coevolution, creating systems in which multiple care behaviors are exhibited and potentially resulting in offspring becoming more dependent on parental care. Parental care often takes indirect forms, such as nest building, while direct care behaviors, like feeding, which involve physical interaction with offspring, are generally less frequent. However, in species where both types of care occur, the extent to which offspring rely on indirect versus direct care is often unknown. In this study, we investigated the roles and relative importance of direct and indirect care in a system where offspring are highly dependent on parental care. We conducted an experiment in which we manipulated the duration and composition of direct and indirect post-hatching care in the burying beetle Nicrophorus orbicollis. Burying beetles reproduce by exploiting small vertebrate carcasses, which they bury and convert into a nutritious nursery for their offspring. In addition to modifying the food resource, parents actively feed their offspring. We found that direct care had a greater effect on offspring growth and survival than indirect care, although indirect care also enhanced fitness. The greater reliance on feeding over indirect care is likely the result of sibling competition for food. Our study underscores the complexity and multi-layered nature of parental care strategies and their effects on offspring performance. Significance Statement Parental care enhances offspring fitness and can include both indirect care, like nest building, and direct care, like feeding. In systems where both care types occur, it is often unclear how much offspring rely on each type. As a model, we used Nicrophorus orbicollis burying beetles, which prepare a carcass as a nursery and regurgitate food to their offspring, to experimentally manipulate the duration and composition of direct and indirect care and assess their relative contributions to offspring survival and growth in this species. Our results show that while direct care has a stronger effect on offspring survival and growth, indirect care also provides measurable benefits. This study highlights the adaptive value of multi-component parental care strategies and the complex interactions between parents and offspring in species that depend heavily on parental care.

Family life in burying beetles. New paper out on the importance of direct and indirect care. Congrats to Madlen and Daniela!
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Kicking off day 3 of #GradMeet25 with more talks on sociality — linking it to dispersal, cognition, and endocrinology! From social dispersal in burying beetles to hormonal changes in cheetahs 🐘🐅🦀🪲

@paulhuber.bsky.social @carolin-schlarb.bsky.social @robotowilliam.bsky.social

Illinois State University seeks an Assistant Professor in Behavioral Ecology. Candidates should establish research programs and mentor students. More details: https://jobsearch.illinoisstate.edu/en-us/job/520844/assistant-professor-of-behavioral-ecology. #job

#ISBE2026 Call for Abstracts is now open! Submit your abstract by 15 December 2025 on www.isbe2026.com

@behavecol.bsky.social

Analysis of communication and collective behavior in animal groups

⭐PhD position available!⭐
Come join us @imprs-qbee.bsky.social to study communication and collective behavior in animal groups! We're looking for someone excited to use computational approaches to tackle biological questions, using our full-group tracking datasets
imprs-qbee.mpg.de/121465/analy...

Kinship as a double-edged sword: Relatedness among burying beetle larvae enhances growth but increases mortality buff.ly/zpGurBS | #BiologyLetters #Behaviour #Ecology #Evolution

ecoevojobs.net 2025-26

UPDATE: The 2025-2026 list of faculty and postdoc positions in ecology and evolutionary biology is out! Be sure to check out this active and helpful community run resources! docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Read the current issue of @jevbio.bsky.social here: academic.oup.com/jeb/issue

📸 Heiko Bellmann
Adult #Nicrophorus vespilloides #beetle in the act of feeding its
offspring atop a vertebrate carcass the beetles have monopolised.

The EAE group really enjoyed #DZG2025 in Berlin — great talks, inspiring discussions, and lots of fun!

Kinship as a double-edged sword: relatedness among burying beetle larvae enhances growth but increases mortality | Biology Letters Theoretical and empirical considerations suggest that relatedness can have complex effects on social life. While high relatedness may promote sibling cooperation and altruism through indirect fitness ...

New study on the effect of relatedness on larval cooperation in burying beetles: sibs boost growth, strangers boost survival. doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...
Congrats to Paul Huber and Daniel Wittmann!