Matthew Silk

Torness this morning 06:07-09:21:
1 arctic skua, 29 manxies, 82 sandwich, 8 arctic, 6 common and 7 commic terns, 59 fulmar, 27 common scoter, 1 velvet scoter, barwit and 3 whimbrel.
Then found this beaut of a house martin expertly photographed by @jarrodhadfield.bsky.social later on.
#BirdingLothian

Looks same as bird in Firth of Forth a few days ago
bsky.app/profile/norm...

Opportunities — ASAB

🚨JOB alert🚨 Full-time Managing Editor role for @asab.org journal Animal Behaviour. Applicants must have animal #behaviour background; previous editorial experience would be ideal.
Apply by 31st July 2025.
#publishing #editor #job

More details: www.asab.org/opportunities

PLEASE share widely.

been a long time coming, there's now a preprint along with Will Hoppitt describing our new R package for creating, fitting and interpreting bayesian NBDA models (STBayes). www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1.... Documentation is here michaelchimento.github.io/STbayes/inde...

Disentangling non-random assortment, indirect effects, and joint plasticity as causes of phenotypic (dis)similarity between social partners Abstract. Social partners frequently resemble each other. These correlations between the phenotypes of interacting individuals (e.g. social partners, group

Our paper on disentangling assortative mating and indirect genetic effects in empirical datasets has just been accepted in @jevbio.bsky.social ! It has been a long process (5 years in the making!) and I am very proud of the result 🥳
academic.oup.com/jeb/advance-...

mpmsim: An R package for simulating matrix population models Matrix population models (MPMs) are widely used in ecology and evolution to explore population dynamics, including assessing management impacts and extinction risk. In comparative studies, MPMs ca...

New paper! I introduce mpmsim, an R package for simulating matrix population models (MPMs). Great for exploring life history, sampling error, and teaching population dynamics. Full docs + vignettes to get you started! doi.org/10.1111/2041...

Image showing the Hobson Lab logo (monk parakeets flying into a social network diagram with R code in the background), pictures of natural-colored green and gray monk parakeets, and head shots of our individually-marked birds showing their color combos and "names" (Blue-Orange-Blue has those colors on the head, cheek, and neck, and is "BOB"). Text says "Postbac position: parakeet sociality & cognition"

I am recruiting 1-2 postbacs for my parakeet sociality & cognition project! This position is for people finished with undergrad but who have not yet started grad school. Must be totally fascinated by parakeet social drama (there's a lot of it!)🪶🧪 Job ad here: ornithologyexchange.org/jobs/board/s...

Visual representation of common garden procedure.

Our common garden experiment with urban and forest great tits is out early view in Evolution! doi.org/10.1093/evol... @denisreale.bsky.social @annecharmantier.bsky.social

MacaqueNet: Advancing comparative behavioural research through large‐scale collaboration We present MacaqueNet, a global community of macaque researchers who developed the first publicly searchable, standardised database on affiliative and agonistic behaviour. This cross-species database...

So exciting to see MacaqueNet out into the world! 🤩

Learn about our global community & database centralizing standardized affiliative & agonistic data from 61 populations across 14 macaque species: doi/10.1111/1365...

Explore >600 networks & request data: macaquenet.github.io/database/

Fieldwork opportunity: We're looking to hire a field assistant for the www.phenoweb.org project starting 1 April. Please repost. #phenology #fieldwork #birdringing

I'm looking to hire two MSc positions. Interested in social animals, agent-based modelling, and reinforcement learning (RL)? Take a look at these two projects!

Agent-based modelling of beluga social dynamics: tinyurl.com/4umsvkdx

Social network dynamics of RL agents: tinyurl.com/5jztxdd6

Here's a photo of my favorite grass host, Dactylis glomerata, infected with ergot and stem rust in the beautiful Swiss Alps

Please spread the word - I am looking for a postdoc to join my lab at @osubpp.bsky.social to study diversity and interactions of plants and pathogens in wild and working landscapes!

More information here: agsci-labs.oregonstate.edu/diseaseecolo...

The Ecology & Behaviour annual conference is organised BY and FOR young researchers. In 2025 it comes back to Montpellier @ the Center for Functional & Evolutionary Ecology.
Highly recommended to PhD students & postdocs - come to share your science, make new friends & meet your future collaborators!

Sex-specific immunocompetence: resistance and tolerance can both be futile but not under the same circumstances Abstract. Immunocompetence evolution can involve a “resistance is futile” scenario if parasite encounter rates are so high that high investment in resistan

The artwork by Franziska Brenninger is pretty, and we (coauthors Viktor Kovalov and I) think the equations are pretty too! Theme of the paper: when it's hard to succeed, do you try harder or do you give up in a "resistance is futile" way? Context: parasitism. academic.oup.com/evlett/advan...

Interested in fitness consequences of the gut microbiome in the wild? Keen on being involved with an iconic long-term study system?

Check out a PhD opportunity working on Soay sheep microbiomes! Info below and feel free to contact with q's.

e4-dtp.ed.ac.uk/e5-dtp/super...

EastBio: What makes a super-spreader? Unravelling the genetics of host infectiousness. at University of Edinburgh on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - EastBio: What makes a super-spreader? Unravelling the genetics of host infectiousness. at University of Edinburgh, listed on FindAPhD.com

"What makes a super-spreader? Unravelling the genetics of host infectiousness"

Funded #PhD position in my lab exploring the drivers of host heterogeneity in pathogen transmission. Get in touch if interested. Deadline 17 Jan 2025.

#HostPathogen #DiseaseEcology

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

Come do a PhD with Sinead English @englishse.bsky.social , Dan Padfield @padpadpadpad.bsky.social and me on Gulls! GPS- and Bluetooth-tracking! Microbiomes & AMR acquisition & transmission! Human-wildlife conflict & mitigation! should be fun :-)

New NERC DTP PhD opportunity on social networks and demography in Soay sheep with me, Dan Nussey, Amy Sweeny and others (Autumn 2025 start). Apply by January 6th. Project and application details: e4-dtp.ed.ac.uk/e5-dtp/super...