Simona Kralj Fišer

Revisiting the human sociobiology debate What have we learned 50 years on?

🚨 New, short article by myself, Clark Barrett and @kevinlala.bsky.social on the legacy of Wilson's 'Sociobiology: The New Synthesis', which was published 50 years ago.

@science.org #ehbea #histbiol #evobio #psyscisky

Revisiting the human sociobiology debate |Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A photo of a Pacific beetle mimic cockroach (Diploptera punctata) with her nymphs. Photo credit: Sinead English.

Pregnant people often struggle to sleep and now it turns out that disrupted sleep extends cockroach pregnancies by reducing the quality of the milk that feeds the developing young so they take longer to grow. Cockroaches need their beauty sleep too!

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

Context-dependent effects of developmental and adult diet on life-history traits in Drosophila melanogaster Abstract. Life-history traits such as body size, reproduction, survival, and stress resistance are fundamental to an organism’s fitness and are highly infl

What you eat when you eat matters!

Diet during development vs adulthood affects survival, fertility, and stress resistance — differently in male & female fruit flies.
Same calories, different outcomes.

Chandrakanth et al.: doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

College means being confronted with hard truths.

Chemical Ecology of Widow Spiders We are hiring for a funded PhD positionapply here Untangling pheromonal communication between and within the sexes of widow spiders Our group is undertaking a comprehensive exploration of the chemi…

🎓 #PhD in Animal Metabolomics & Ecology @unigreifswald🇩🇪
Sexual and non-sexual communication in a widow spider 🕷️⚗️
DFG-funded | 3 years | behavioral ecology & chemical ecology
Details: bit.ly/widow-phd
Apply by Sept 24, start in February 2026
#AcademicSky #pleaserepost

Looking forward!

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

Nutritional geometry and non-genetic paternal effects 🐭! We show how dietary macronutrients influence the proteome of brown adipose tissue (metabolically important), with a nongenetic paternal effect in daughters www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Mercury levels in chicks of a long-lived seabird – parental effects and links with growth and survival Environmental mercury levels continue to rise, leading to increased exposure, especially in long-lived species at high trophic positions, such as many…

Bertram et al. Mercury levels in chicks of a long-lived seabird – parental effects and links with growth and survival www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #ornithology #seabirds

Postdoctoral researcher: avian microbiomes and reproduction We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher to join our team working on avian reproductive microbiomes at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) in the group of Dr. Melissah Rowe. The postd...

We are looking for a postdoc to join our group to work on an ERC funded project on avian reproductive microbiomes. nioo.knaw.nl/en/vacancies...
Please RT! #microbes #microbiomes #sparrows #postdoc

Congratulations to our Carmen Noske, who defended her M.Sc. Thesis on the sexual signals of a cursorial spider. She brought us several steps closer to identifying the elusive sex pheromone and the role of physical signals in this multimodal communication system. Great show and great data!

Austria is offering 4-year postdoc fellowships at Vetmeduni for research in population genetics and evolutionary biology. Applications are due by July 27, 2025. More info: http://www.vetmeduni.ac.at/en/population-genetics/ #postdoc

Volume 38 Issue 6 | Journal of Evolutionary Biology | Oxford Academic Journal of Evolutionary Biology

⭐Issue 6 of JEB is now online!⭐

This issue is headlined by a Target Review from @josselin-clo.bsky.social et al. on #matingsystems evolution, accompanied by several #invitedcommentaries expanding on this key discussion comparing concepts in plants and animals:

academic.oup.com/jeb/issue/38/6

A photo of two women and a man holding certificates. Behind them three men in suits. The text reads: New call. Humboldt Alumni Awards

📣 Great opportunity for our Humboldt Alumni: We’re awarding €30,000 to support your innovative networking initiatives.

Apply by 30 November: www.humboldt-foundation.de/en/apply/alu...

😱

Introduction to genome-wide association studies (GWAS) Dates 23-27 June 2025

Join the "Introduction to Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS)" online course from June 23-27. A few seats left! Ideal for those with a biology background. More info: https://www.physalia-courses.org/courses-workshops/course49/ #course

Rosemary Gillespie 🕷️ 🕸️ was awarded the 2025 Molecular Ecology prize🏆 - so well deserved!

www.molecularecologist.com/2025/05/21/2...

Pajki: ogromne kanibalske samice in majhni iznajdljivi samci Simona Kralj-Fišer preučuje zlate mrežarje, pri katerih sta samec in samica različno velika.

🧬 🕷️ I spoke about the wild side of evolutionary biology—sexual dimorphism, maternal effects, even sexual cannibalism.
Grateful for the chance to share how nature really works!
📖 Read the article: www.delo.si/novice/znano...
#EvolutionaryBiology #ScienceCommunication

Join the Ruder Boskovic Institute in Zagreb as a postdoc in Molecular Biology, focusing on cave adaptation. Apply by May 23, 2024. More info: https://bilandzija.irb.hr/Projects-and-Funding #postdoc

Lots of ppl are (correctly) critical of AI bc it's destroying the planet & when you ask it something it's usually wrong. But my biggest complaint is that the internet is now FLOODED with AI-generated sites about foraging and farming, two things I'm super into right now. It has literally killed ppl.

European arachnology meeting in Croatia: registration is open!

35th European Congress of Arachnology Fourwaves - 35th European Congress of Arachnology

For all the students, check out the grants we offer at our website - event.fourwaves.com/eca2025/pages. We offer at least 4 grants covering the congress registration fee and several travel grants. Also, Arachnologische Gesellschaft - arages.de - added a student award opportunity for their members.

Applications now open for UNIL Summer School on Modelling for Evo Bio (1–6 Sept 2025, Lausanne)!
Aimed at PhD students interested in formal approaches to evolutionary ecology questions like sexual selection, social & life-history evolution. Scholarships available.
Pls share! www.shorturl.at/znk5g

YouTube video by Turismo Torino e Provincia Torino the place To be - short 1'

ISBE26-the 20th International Society for Behavioral Ecology Conference will take place in Turin, Italy, from 20-24th of July 2026. We invite you to join us to enjoy a 5-day meeting rich in top-notch science and ample networking opportunities, in our beautiful city. Website out soon!
#ISBE26

On Thursday, the XXXI. "Generations of Science" were held at ZRC SAZU. Among the awardees was our Simona Kralj-Fišer, who received the ZRC SAZU Gold Award for top scientific research results. The award was presented to her by the former awardee and colleague, our Matjaž Kuntner.

Congratulations!

Humboldt Discoveries. Feodor Lynen Research Felloship for postdocs and experienced researchers from Germany: Online info event for potentioal fellows and hosts. Join us online!

📢 Are you a postdoc or experienced researcher in Germany and would like to do research abroad?

At our information event on 8 April, you will learn everything you need to know about the Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship!

👉 www.humboldt-foundation.de/en/connect/i...

Thank YOU!

The representative from McDonald Island has tried to filibuster our renaming of the island but did not have the same stamina as @booker.senate.gov and stood for only 24 minutes.

A California two-spot octopus amongst some seaweed. Photo credit: Jerry Kirkhart, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

The arms of an octopus are multifunctional and they can even sense light. Chang & Hale recently showed that when light hits the skin of the arm, it sends a signal all the way to their brain suggesting this feature might help camouflage themselves

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

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