Stephen Montgomery

Yeah I haven’t had time to do more than skim it to be honest, but I will hopefully read it properly before ESEB and we can chat about it over a drink!

A directional model is different to all those (or rather it is the BM model+a directional parameter), so it’s quite possible it would fit better - I imagine you could follow Venditti and Barton’s methods and implement it, as it doesn’t rely on fossils

OU implies different stabilising selection regimes, yeah, but BM is agnostic I guess.But I have always understood it to reflect fluctuating selection, rather than evolutionary drift, although they will be hard to distinguish. But directional biases in the other papers are not consistent with drift.

That’s what those two papers say yes - with the callitrichids and mouse lemurs being secondarily small. the second one, from venditti and @howbrainsevolve.bsky.social also finds the directional bias is fairly unique to primates btw

Your figures make me hate my figures!! 😂

Reconstructing the ups and downs of primate brain evolution: implications for adaptive hypotheses and Homo floresiensis - BMC Biology Background Brain size is a key adaptive trait. It is often assumed that increasing brain size was a general evolutionary trend in primates, yet recent fossil discoveries have documented brain size dec...

…either through inclusion of fossils or variable rate models you find evidence of a predominance of increases in brain size (and by implication, folding) - eg old: link.springer.com/article/10.1... and new: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 2/2

Don’t think it matters much for your main argument, but ersonally I think that’s a methodological artefact as the data/models you have can’t account for directional biases (since there is no variation in root-to-tip branch lengths) - when you introduce this variation… 1/2

Just to note I think this is a common cause of confusion, the BM model isn’t supposed to be a neutral/drift model, I believe it’s intended to reflect fluctuating directions of selection pressures (rather than drift, which implies the absence of selection)

We are looking for a Postdoc (up to 5 years) who wants to study neural mechanisms of spatial memory in honeybees.

This includes tetrode recordings in behaving honeybees.

Application Deadline is 1st of October 2025.

More details:
www.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de/en/services/...

Our paper, led by Eva van der Heijden, shows the work of an international team combining phylogenomics, hybridisation tests, population and comparative genomics and pheromone analyses to resolve the taxonomy and evolution of two rapid radiations of glasswing butterflies. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Dolphins, sun, sea, nice people… doesnt sound attractive at all 🤥

🧠 Opportunity for a post-doctoral position on human neurobiology, funded by the @erc.europa.eu!
🧫You want to use human pluripotent stem cell based models to understand the evolution of human cerebellar neurons and disorders, this position is for you!
🔗Apply here: emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U...

a thin butterfly with black and orange patterns on its long, lobed wings is at rest on the shiny surface of a leaf next to what might be small eggs

A new study tracks the recent and rapid diversification of glasswing butterflies, which evolved within the last two million years in the tropics of South America.
Story:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/geno...

Study:
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Winter ASAB 2025 - 15th-16th of December in Edinburgh - with a special theme of "How sensory information affects behaviour". Register at https://asabwinter.github.io/2025/ deadline for abstract submission 29th of August.

Winter ASAB @asab.org on *Sensory Ecology* register and submit your abstracts now (abstract deadline just a month away)!

I'm organising the conference this year with @lauraakelley.bsky.social and Innes Cuthill

Register & get more info here: asabwinter.github.io/2025/

Both a grant and a paper rejection today, but some nice people got some grants, and more nice people got interview invitations. So on balance, I’ll take it.

I am looking for a postdoc! Please share with Evo-devo-neuro-sensory people who might be interested.

We have multiple projects available so don't feel like you are not qualified to apply if you don't check every single box on the job ad!

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so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.

We're recruiting!

🌳Assistant Professor in Ecology, Evolution & Conservation
🌳Postdoctoral Research Associates in
Drosophila Connectomics
Whole Organism Neuroscience
🌳Research Assistant Environmental impacts of food consumption & policy

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I believe it speaks to a fundamental lack of decisiveness in one’s character

Congrats! Fantastic work

Amazing work, congrats!

🚨Very happy that my PhD work is now out in @nature.com!

We discovered that evolution, by acting in the midbrain, shifted the threshold to escape in Peromyscus mice, to fine-tune defensive strategies in different environments

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This was a truly collaborative effort! 🧵⬇️

Well I’m glad you found a couple of friends to help!

“Piecemeal and alone” sounds so sad Andy! 😢

It would be remarkably easy to add ‘parody’ on the end there

Thanks Vivek!

Agree! On a more basic level though, isn’t the point of these products that anyone can use them? If you need specialist training to use them doesn’t it only the products aren’t very good..?

It was joy writing this perspective with @katjareinhard.bsky.social on the importance for neuroscientists to embrace an evolutionary perspective

Thanks Andrew, glad you like it! Much of the credit goes to @benitoexplains.bsky.social!

Hugely