@egioxford.bsky.social
Research Institute in Dept of Biology at University of Oxford studying all aspects of Behaviour, Ecology and Evolution of Birds in natural environments. Follow us for updates on science, seminars, jobs & field projects: https://egioxford.web.ox.ac.uk/
This #InternationalDayofWomenandGirlsinScience I would like to say a big THANK YOU to the amazing women and girls I currently have the pleasure of sharing my #ternscience journey with. Onwards and upwards we go! β€οΈ
11.02.2026 10:50 β π 32 π 8 π¬ 0 π 0
This week's seminar will be given by Dr Paul Acker from NTNU, Norway on "Processes of life-history adaptation to spatio-seasonal environmental changes" - seminar at 3.30 on Friday in Life & Mind Building @biology.ox.ac.uk All welcome & will also be streamed - see details below
09.02.2026 13:03 β π 8 π 7 π¬ 0 π 0
This week's EGI seminar in @biology.ox.ac.uk will be given by Dr Kirsty MacPhie from @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social on the contrasting insights to be drawn from studies of phenology in @phenoweb.bsky.social and @rumdeerresearch.bsky.social. Usual time and place - details below with streaming info β¬οΈ
02.02.2026 16:21 β π 12 π 7 π¬ 0 π 0New preprint! π₯π¦ ποΈ
We study a great speciator, the silvereye, to test whether parasites follow island biogeography rules, and find that parasite diversity and isolation effects depend strongly on transmission strategy.
Led by PhD student Sarah Nichols.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
This week's EGI seminar will be given by Prof Jon Slate @jon-slate.bsky.social of @sheffielduni.bsky.social at 3.30 on Fri 30 Jan in LT1 in LaMB @biology.ox.ac.uk. OK, it's not quite birds, but our colleagues' work on @soaysheep.bsky.social has much in common with what we do. All welcome: details β¬οΈ
26.01.2026 16:56 β π 10 π 7 π¬ 0 π 1For those of us who involved in running long-term studies, our work's value can be increased by synthetic studies like this one, which included Wytham Great Tit data, and suggests that plasticity in timing in response to temperatures buffers against population change
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
π¨π¨π¨ Field Assistant positions - four of them!! - working with the long-term Wytham project this coming spring. Details below. Previous year's field team - come and join us! Details below β¬οΈ
16.01.2026 15:07 β π 9 π 14 π¬ 0 π 1
New paper published! π§¬π₯π¦
Host WGS data can be repurposed to uncover endoparasite diversity at low cost, without destructive sampling, and outperform 18S metabarcoding. We test it in silvereyes.
This work was led by PhD student Sarah Nichols @biology.ox.ac.uk
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
New preprint!
We explore how bird migration shapes parasite dispersal π€ π¦
Led by PhD student Sarah Nichols.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Just a quick reminder of tomorrow's EGI seminar: please see joining etc details below
15.01.2026 08:22 β π 4 π 1 π¬ 0 π 0
Delighted to begin this term's seminars with Malcolm Burgess @piedflynet.bsky.social from @rspb.bsky.social @uniexecec.bsky.social on Migration behaviour, demography & phenology of declining migratory birds. Seminar at 3.30 on 16 Jan in LT1 in the LaMB @biology.ox.ac.uk: all welcome - see details β¬οΈ
12.01.2026 07:55 β π 21 π 9 π¬ 0 π 1
Looking forward to an excellent series of seminars for the forthcoming term - programme now full till late March & will share programme very soon when we have a few last details. All seminars will be at 3.30 on Fridays in the Life & Mind Building (and usually streamed live)
11.01.2026 14:49 β π 9 π 7 π¬ 0 π 0Newly published and led by @andreaestandia.bsky.social - how dispersal and immigration drive the spatial genetic structure of wild great tits in Wytham Woods
15.12.2025 10:08 β π 4 π 1 π¬ 0 π 0
This week's seminar - last of this term - is our annual Christmas Seminar. We're welcoming Prof Tim Birkhead back to where he studied as a DPhil student ~50 years ago (can you can spot him in this 1978 photo?) Tim will be talking about "Sperm to Egg: Making a Biologist" - 3pm LT1 in the LaMB
09.12.2025 08:16 β π 5 π 4 π¬ 0 π 1
New paper out today in Ecology and Evolution! Link below. Congrats PhD student @smthmpsn.bsky.social, on your first paper. All about how wild birds learn to avoid a novel aposematic warning signal. And a nice nod to Britney Spears in the paper title.
04.12.2025 14:56 β π 32 π 11 π¬ 2 π 2Just a reminder of this weekβs Seminar - 3.30 in LT1 in the LaMB
05.12.2025 08:56 β π 1 π 1 π¬ 0 π 0
This weekβs EGI seminar will be given by @peterkorsten.bsky.social from Aberystwyth on the ecology of behavioural variation in the wild at 3.30pm Friday 5 Dec - LT1 in @biology.ox.ac.uk. All welcome & live-streamed: see joining details below.
02.12.2025 17:01 β π 9 π 5 π¬ 0 π 1
Amazing work from Daniel Field on origin of modern birds and diversity in todayβs EGI seminar
28.11.2025 16:49 β π 7 π 1 π¬ 0 π 0
Our new paper is out today in Journal of the Royal Society Interface (link below). All about eggshell roughness: "Scratching beyond the surface: examining macroecological patterns in avian eggshell texture". Congrats first author Marie Attard, and thank you @leverhulme.ac.uk for the funding.
26.11.2025 07:25 β π 46 π 15 π¬ 2 π 0
Interested in how life history may shape the gut microbiome of a wild mammal? Keen on getting to work with an iconic long-term study system in Scotland?
Check out this PhD opportunity with me, Josephine Pemberton and @gfalbery.bsky.social
Reach out to chat more!
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
This weekβs seminar will be given by Prof Daniel Field of @zoologymuseum.bsky.social & @cambridge-earthsci.bsky.social on the origins of modern birds. 3.30pm Friday 28 Nov in LT1 in the Life & Mind Building @biology.ox.ac.uk - all welcome & see below for live streaming joining information
24.11.2025 09:19 β π 6 π 5 π¬ 0 π 1
A great seminar from @mmoiron.bsky.social walking us through how to disentangle the causes of similarity among partners & the estimation & implications of indirect effects in natural populations
21.11.2025 16:53 β π 21 π 4 π¬ 0 π 0
#Wisdom is back!
The worldβs oldest known living banded bird, MΕlΔ« (Laysan albatross) queen, has returned to Kuailhelani (Midway Atoll). #Birds
This week's EGI seminar is being given by Dr Maria Moiron @mmoiron.bsky.social of the University of Bielefeld at 3.30pm on Friday 21 Nov in LT1 in the Life & Mind Building @biology.ox.ac.uk. See below for online joining details - all welcome!
17.11.2025 09:11 β π 19 π 8 π¬ 0 π 2
πππ Delighted to announce that this year's EGI Christmas Seminar will be given by Prof Tim Birkhead at 3pm on Friday 12 December - in LT1 in the Life & Mind Building in @biology.ox.ac.uk πππ
11.11.2025 19:14 β π 3 π 2 π¬ 0 π 0
Welcome to this week's EGI seminar in @biology.ox.ac.uk when Prof Craig White @craig-white.bsky.social from @monashbiol.bsky.social will talk on The Evolution of Metabolic Rate and Life History: 3.30pm Fri 14 Nov in Lecture Theatre 2 in the Life & Mind Building. Also live-streamed: instructions β¬οΈ
10.11.2025 16:22 β π 4 π 6 π¬ 0 π 1
The date is set for the next EOU Fledglings Meeting π₯ in Gdansk, Poland! Share the news with your peers! π¦
09.11.2025 18:56 β π 29 π 23 π¬ 0 π 2Thread β¬οΈ @joewoodman.bsky.social explains key results of these analyses in much more detail. Last of four papers from Joe's DPhil thesis:
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
bsky.app/profile/joew...
New paper from @joewoodman.bsky.social et al in @asn-amnat.bsky.social uses the long-term study of Great Tits in Wytham Woods to ask how differently aged birds are distributed in space & what consequences this has for spatial variation in reproductive output
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
A superb seminar from Kristen Ruegg on the Bird Genoscape Project and the insights into annual cycles, local
adaptation and climate change.
