Kavitha Kannan

Insect populations are declining at an unprecedented rate The most diverse group of organisms on the planet are in trouble and the consequences could be dire.

I still think this #SciComm deserves a #Pulitzer.

#InsectApocalypse
www.reuters.com/graphics/GLO...

Our findings on bees' photoreceptors are now officially published in Biology Letters of the Royal Society Publishing!! Thanks again for a productive collaboration @jjfosterlab.bsky.social and @gregoeur.bsky.social !!
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Happy to share that I successfully defended my doctoral thesis early this week! 🐝🥳 Really can’t believe I did it! 😅🥹
Super thankful to my supervisors, Morgane Nouvian, and Giovanni Galizia, colleagues at the Neurobio group Konstanz, @imprs-qbee.bsky.social, and all my friends and family! 🐝 #PhDone

The Behavioural Neurobiology Summer School in Kosovo is back for the 2nd year and after just a few days we already made it onto live TV! For anyone who speaks Albanian, you can check out the full broadcast here: shorturl.at/kpUzp 🎙️

A plea for academic decency - Journal of Comparative Physiology A In an internet age when a viral sensationalist story gains far more traction than a nuanced and balanced discussion, we have become used to some politicians, media and web-based influencers bending th...

🚨 In our world riddled with misinformation and sensationalization, we must be cautious about handling accusations of scientific misconduct in our community. Weaponizing a public internet campaign is not the way.

📖 Read "A plea for academic decency"
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

‘Half the tree of life’: ecologists’ horror as nature reserves are emptied of insects A new point in history has been reached, entomologists say, as climate-led species’ collapse moves up the food chain even in supposedly protected regions free of pesticides

“It’s the same sheet, w the same lights, in the same place, looking over the same vegetation. Same time of year, same time of the moon cycle, everything about it is identical. There’s just no moths on that sheet.” - Janzen

How long can we, like Wile e. Coyote, hang midair having run off the cliff?

Individual clown anemonefish shrink to survive heat stress and social conflict Clown anemonefish survive heatwaves by shrinking together with their breeding partner.

New study in @science.org Science Advances: Clownfish can shrink to survive heatwaves and social conflict!
Led by Melissa Versteeg, with Chancey MacDonald, Morgan Bennett-Smith, Pete Buston
@newcastleuni.bsky.social
@sciencesncl.bsky.social
@bostonu.bsky.social

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Honigbienen sind individuelle Persönlichkeiten. Forscher machen das an ihrem Stechverhalten fest Die Persönlichkeit der Bienen prägt ihr Stechverhalten. Während die einen noch zögern, stechen die anderen bereits zu. Das haben Forschende der Uni Konstanz herausgefunden. Von A. Braun.

Happy to share that our recent work on the individuality of honey bees in defensive behaviour got featured on German radio network yesterday 🤓🐝

Listen to my co-authors (also my PhD supervisors 😃) talk about it!

www.tagesschau.de/wissen/forsc...

What is #InverteFest? It’s a periodic event where we invite you to celebrate the overlooked invertebrate fauna around you and share the joys of discovery online. #InverteFest takes place every April, August, and December over the last 7 days of the month. Going out? 1. Find invertebrates 2. Share observations online using the hashtag #InverteFest 3. Interact with others who are celebrating the event BONUS: Join our iNaturalist project to contribute to community science NOT Going out? • Post your squid painting • Stream a game where you play as a crab with a knife • Selfie with your 27 beetle enamel pins • Write wikipedia pages QUESTIONS? ask franzanth / maureenbug / kellybrenner on iNaturalist / twitter / tumblr / instagram / bluesky MORE INFO AND IDEAS ON: invertefest.com

Greetings, chordate comrades. #InverteFest is upon us.

tl;dr: Over the last 7 days every April, August, and December, we invite you to show the internet your coolest bugs & slugs.

Go find critters, post your art, write wikipedia pages, do whatever you like to celebrate invertebrates with us!

Forschende des #UniKonstanz Exzellenclusters „Kollektives Verhalten“ haben herausgefunden, dass Honigbienen ein und desselben Volkes unterschiedliche Vorlieben im Stechverhalten haben. Während die einen noch zögern, stechen die anderen bereits zu: https://t1p.de/rjqws

And hopefully you don’t get stung this bee season!! 🐝😅

Consistency and individuality of honeybee stinging behaviour across time and social contexts | Royal Society Open Science Whether individuals exhibit consistent behavioural variation is a central question in the field of animal behaviour. This question is particularly interesting in the case of social animals, as their b...

🐝 To check out the full paper, see here: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....

🔎 To show this, we tested bees repeatedly in a stinging assay, with a decoy threat that doesn’t let the stinger attach to it. We also show that group composition does not have effect on individual bees.

🔎 We’ve discovered that individual bees vary in their stinging response - some choose to sting consistently whereas others don’t sting at all, despite the presence of social factors such as the alarm pheromone or other bees 🐝🚨⚡️

Hello BlueSky! 🦋 Thrilled to jump on this platform and make connections! 🐝 🥳
With the start of the bee season, I’m delighted to share that the findings of our latest research paper is featured on the Uni Konstanz website! 🐝

Here it is:
www.uni-konstanz.de/universitaet...