Are our 95% CIs only worth 45% confidence? When multiple studies on the same research question, or multiple analyses of the same dataset are summarized in a meta-analysis, our confidence intervals (CIs) are put to a relentless test of reliabil...

Are our 95% CIs only worth 45% confidence? New preprint authors argue that's too pessimistic and outline extended CIs beyond sampling error. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

#statistics #OpenScience #Reproducibility
cc @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social
@sortee.bsky.social

Known and Unknown Biases: A Framework for Contextualising and Identifying Bias in Animal Behaviour Research As scientists, we are prone to biases. These biases can influence our ideas, how we conduct our research and how we interpret our findings. Individual researchers can take active steps to locate and ...

I have shamelessly joined Bluesky to plug our new perspectives paper on bias in animal behaviour research.

"Known and unknown biases: A framework for contextualising and identifying bias in animal behaviour research"

doi.org/10.1111/eth....

PLEASE respond to review requests! Saying "No" as soon as you can is helpful so we can move to the next invitation. Each ignored invitation can delay the process by around 2 weeks. Be considerate of your peers relying on this process!

Hatch early and eat well: Patterns of juvenile dispersal and recruitment in Mountain Chickadees from a long-term study - American Ornithological Society Being a fledgling is difficult—and dangerous. The vast majority (~80 percent) of young birds do not survive this stage, succumbing to predation or starvation. What might give a vulnerable fledgling a ...

Do you like baby birds? Fun photos and stories about chickadees in my latest guest post at Wing Beat, the blog of the @amornith.bsky.social. This post accompanies our recent paper on postnatal dispersal and recruitment in mountain chickadees 🪶

americanornithology.org/hatch-early-...

‘Almost unimaginable’: these ants are different species but share a mother Ant queens of one species clone ants of another to create hybrid workers that do their bidding.

A common type of ant in Europe breaks a fundamental rule in biology: its queens can produce male offspring that are a whole different species

go.nature.com/4mOb5T9

Group photo of postdocs conducting research at a Max Planck Institute

The #MaxPlanckPostdocProgram offers a guaranteed contract of at least 3 years, targeted mentoring, and career workshops. The call for applications is open now! 🚀 Take advantage of this opportunity and browse the job vacancies. www.mpg.de/en/max-planc...

🧵THREAD: (1/7) Standard metabolic rate (SMR) is one of biology's most measured traits. We argue it isn't the constant baseline it's assumed to be. Our preprint discusses how sleep-wake cycles create a 'metabolic mosaic' that requires us to rethink how we interpret SMR. ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

Systematic mapping and bibliometric analysis of meta-analyses on animal cognition Meta-analyses play an important role in empirically synthesising research and guiding future directions. The field of animal cognition is rapidly expa…

New collaborative paper "Systematic mapping and bibliometric analysis of meta-analyses on animal cognition" Neuro & Biobehav Rev https://bit.ly/45Jsd4T by folks at @UNSWScience @ualbertaScience @Uni_Newcastle @HokkaidoUni

@NSERC_CRSNG @Psych_UAlberta #CompCogPapers

Principles of experimental design for ecology and evolution Here I argue that we do not discuss experimental design, often until it is too late. This editorial seeks to begin a conversation about how and where to replicate appropriately.

I wrote (ranted) on experimental design as I was frustrated as an editor at how little guidance students were getting. I underestimated the interest in the issue: it has been downloaded 10,000+ times! Clearly it’s something we need to be talking about more. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

The evolution of reversible plasticity in stable environments Abstract. Reversible plasticity, i.e., the ability to deconstruct phenotypic specializations based on environmental conditions, is widespread in nature. De

The evolution of reversible plasticity in stable environments
doi.org/10.1093/evle...

Now in @evolletters.bsky.social by Nicole Walasek et al.

Error rates of human reviewers during abstract screening in systematic reviews Background Automated approaches to improve the efficiency of systematic reviews are greatly needed. When testing any of these approaches, the criterion standard of comparison (gold standard) is usuall...

Systematic reviewers have a 10.7% error rate when screening papers for potential inclusion.

In other words, about 1 in 9 abstracts are categorised incorrectly (i.e., false inclusion or false exclusion). This really drives home the benefit of having at least two screeners

Covariance reaction norms: A flexible method for estimating complex environmental effects on trait (co)variances Estimating quantitative genetic and phenotypic (co)variances is crucial for investigating evolutionary ecological phenomena such as developmental integration, life history trade-offs and niche spe...

My first solo author paper is now available in early view at Methods in Ecology and Evolution! I develop a covariance reaction norm (CRN) model for estimating continuous, multivariate, and nonlinear environmental effects on G and P matrices.

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

Behavior drives morphological change during human evolution Dietary shifts and corresponding morphological changes can sometimes evolve in succession, not concurrently—an evolutionary process called behavioral drive. Detecting behavioral drive in the fossil re...

Really cool study looking at how behaviour precedes morphological change across taxa - and implications for human evolution 💀🧪 massive congrats to all the authors, including @vivek123.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Steal this (updated) syllabus for Scientific Writing I’ve just finished the 3rd go-around of my Scientific Writing course.  When I first signed up to teach it, I was very scared, but now that I’ve been through it a few times, I’m quite pleased with h…

If you're teaching Scientific Writing this fall (especially if it's new to you!) and are getting worried about just how close the fall is getting: reminder that I share my syllabus and all my course materials. Here: scientistseessquirre...

Screenshot from CPAWS’ website about career opportunities. This section says “We recognize that the conservation movement in Canada has a complex and often problematic history. Although we have moved a long way, there is still significant work required for it to become an equitable, just, and inclusive space for everyone. To address these inequities, we have committed to making our organization as welcoming and as transparent as possible. Read our Hiring Through a JEDI Lens”

I care a lot about diversity, equity, inclusion, & justice — including in hiring.

🥇 GOLD MEDAL 🏅 to @cpaws-snap.bsky.social for outstanding *public* explanation about their hiring practices. We can all learn from their example!

“Hiring Through a JEDI Lens” ➡️ cpaws.org/about/about-...

Animal Behaviour - Bielefeld University With a team of over 50 people, the different research groups study animal behaviour within the framework of the four questions of Tinbergen, both in the lab and in the field. Current model systems include laboratory studies on zebra finches (

Bielefeld University seeks a postdoc for a 6-year scientific assistant position in Animal Behaviour, starting March 2026. Apply by Sept 10, 2025. More info: www.uni-bielefeld.de/fakultaeten/biologie/forschung/arbeitsgruppen/behaviour #job

Boss. I'm tired boss. We been doing these experiments and studies since the 60s and 70s and the outcome has been the same in them all.

The pushback against these measures aren't because they don't work. It's because they DO work and they'll include peoples they wish to exclude from society.

paper on linguistic injustice on the dominance of English

"The present situation is a clear, unequivocal example of linguistic injustice
All the costs of having a common language in science are borne by non-native English-speaking scientists, implying unfair cooperation in obtaining a common good (i.e. a common language)"
@cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social

Current reproductive effort shapes the response to infection in a passerine bird Our study fills a much-needed gap and connects the body temperature response to infection with the framework of reproductive investment and trade-offs between current reproduction and self-maintenanc...

New out @animalecology.bsky.social: Reproductive effort shapes response to infection in blue tits. High-effort birds avoid costs of infection by hypothermia and downregulated immune response. Normal-effort birds fight costs by fever and upregulated response @biologylu.bsky.social

shorturl.at/MX95Y

A screenshot of the article titled 'Pre-adult mortality: should we care about it, and what can we do about it?' by Tony Williams.

In some species, up to 90% of individuals don't make it to adulthood, yet most studies don't take this into account. In his recent Commentary, Tony Williams discusses why we should care more about pre-adult mortality

journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

The Evolution of Homeothermic Endothermy via Life History Optimization | The American Naturalist Abstract Endothermy is an energetically expensive trait, yet it has posed an evolutionary advantage across different lineages—a paradox that remains puzzling to biologists. Here, I investigate whether...

Excited and honored to have my first solo paper out in Am Nat!! @asn-amnat.bsky.social doi.org/10.1086/736225

Knowledge from non‐English‐language studies broadens contributions to conservation policy and helps to tackle bias in biodiversity data Collecting data from local sources markedly further strengthens global biodiversity databases by adding species not previously included in international datasets. Furthermore, the addition of these d...

Great new paper shows that using knowledge from non-English language journals can strengthen global biodiversity databases. Including info from Brazilian journals increased species & population coverage & reduced uncertainty in population trends besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

I've wanted to write this article for years. About my and other's struggles to even survive sometime in #academia. Thank you to the amazing editors at @plosbiology.org that gave me the forum to write this piece. #science

The three academic positions (Lecturer/Senior Lecturer) in the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University are now advertised. Details here:

Ecology:
careers.pageuppeople.com/513/cw/en/jo...

Genomics:
careers.pageuppeople.com/513/cw/en/jo...

NEW PAPER🎺
How does cognition determine an individual’s fitness? A systematic review of the links between cognition, behaviour and fitness in non-human animals

Lots of studies try to explain how cognition might evolve, by taking a behavioural ecology approach

Has this approach made any progress?🧵

📢NEW funding criteria for ASAB Research Grants📢
From the 1st October deadline, we will be considering #EDIA in awarding @asab.org Research Grants.
Extremely happy today, as this is the reason I agreed to be grants secretary.
Thanks to @wascherclaudia.bsky.social and @englishse.bsky.social for help

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences: Vol 380, No 1929

Selection Shapes Diverse Animal Minds: our special issue of @royalsocietypublishing.org Phil Trans B on the diverse evolutionary processes underlying cognitive evolution is out today. Thanks to all our contributors! royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/202...

Postdoctoral Researcher: Contribution of genetic background and gut microbiome on thermal physiology A post-doctoral Researcher position is available at the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, Finland, in the group of Dr. Suvi Ruuskanen. The post-doctoral res...

3-year #Postdoc position on the role of #genetics and #microbiome on #thermal #physiology in @erc.europa.eu project in my group at @uniofjyvaskyla.bsky.social FIN! We establish #selection lines on quails, collab @btschirren.bsky.social DL 15.7., start Nov25-Jan26
ats.talentadore.com/apply/postdo...

Please share.
We have a fully-funded PhD position on animal migration. If interested, please apply by 27 July. More about us: shawanchowdhury.com. @idiv-research.bsky.social @monashbiol.bsky.social @uq-cbcs.bsky.social

#PhDposition #Ecology #Conservation #Migration #Rstats #AcademicTwitter

Do older parents do better? Relationships between parental age, chick body condition and migratory behaviour in a colonial‐breeding waterbird Animals' performance of basic functional behaviours, such as foraging and movement, may improve with age as a result of past experiences. In migratory birds, for example, due to earlier or more effic...

Thrilled to announce that the 4th chapter of my thesis is now PUBLISHED in @avianbiology.bsky.social!

"Do older parents do better? Relationships between parental age, chick body condition and migratory behaviour in a colonial-breeding waterbird"👇

nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...