Stu West

Mike Hassell dressed as a parasitic wasp, modelling pose.

A pictorial guide to parasitoids (11/11). Parasitoid population dynamics can be studied with modelling. Silwood Park, 1992.

CONTENTS Introduction: Organismality and Its Discontents J. Arvid Ågren and Manus M. Patten .................................................................................... 1 I. CONSIDERATIONS OF CONFLICT Resolving the Paradox of the Organism with Inclusive Fitness Thomas W. Scott and Stuart A. West .............................................................................. 9 In What Sense Can There Be Conflict Between the Levels of Selection? Pierrick Bourrat .................................................................................................................. 32 Internal Conflicts that Organisms Can Live With Manus M. Patten ................................................................................................................ 53 II. IMPLICATIONS OF CONFLICT A Metaphysical Paradox of Organismal Identity Ellen Clarke and Will Morgan .......................................................................................... 75 The Conflict Behind the Conflicts: Organisms as Agents and as Ecosystems Philippe Huneman ............................................................................................................. 96 Cooperation and Conflict in Metazoan Development: Toward a Neo-Darwinian Embryology David Haig ......................................................................................................................... 125 Selfish Genetic Elements and the Evolution of Sex Determination and Inheritance Systems Martijn A. Schenkel, Laura Ross, and Nina Wedell .................................................... 200

II. APPLICATIONS OF CONFLICT Clinical Implications of the Paradox of the Organism Amy M. Boddy and J. Arvid Ågren .................................................................................. 235 Internal Conflict in Genomes and in Persons Samir Okasha .................................................................................................................... 255 Host–Symbiont Conflict in Reef-Building Corals and the Risk of Coral Bleaching Dakota E. McCoy, Brendan Cornwell, Sönke Johnsen, and Jennifer A. Dionne ........ 273 Conclusion: The Eternal Disquiet Within Manus M. Patten and J. Arvid Ågren ............................................................................... 328 CONTRIBUTORS ............................................................................................................... 339

The book has so many great contributors. To name a few:

@amyboddy.bsky.social @martijnschenkel.bsky.social @stuwest.bsky.social @reallymccoy.bsky.social @tomwscott.bsky.social @ellenclarke.bsky.social @laurarossevo.bsky.social @philippehune.bsky.social

Very excited that it's finally coming out!

@natecoevo.nature.com making this free to read in front of the paywall for a month. Thanks guys!

Brings back happy memories of ISBE 2024 where the conversation about this paper began.. great to see it out in @natecoevo.nature.com. Thanks to co-authors and to the organisers of that brilliant conference 🙏🏽. @bbmwong.bsky.social @stuwest.bsky.social, Suzanne Alonzo🫶, Sasha Dall, “Dr Cunningham”

I was interviewed by Newsweek about the backlash to my DPhil announcement. You can read it here:

www.newsweek.com/gen-z-woman-...

Behavioural ecology in the twenty-first century - Nature Ecology & Evolution This Perspective discusses how the field of behavioural ecology has contributed to fundamental science and tackling global challenges, ranging from understanding how natural selection leads to adaptat...

Behavioural ecology in the 21st century..... www.nature.com/articles/s41... @asgriffin.bsky.social

Sadly not a reenactment. Just an AI image that had been amusing us.

The sheer volume of women magnificently owning the ‘Alpha male’ dissing this woman’s doctorate makes it one of 2025’s very best things on Twitter Time to return – briefly – to the world of Twitter, where it turned out the very worst people can sometimes be a spark for the very best of things. It all began when ‘Alpha male’ type Richard Cooper –...

Strong response to the pathetic trolling of Juliet.
www.thepoke.com/2025/11/19/t...

@matildabrindle.bsky.social is doing amazing media job! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Ape ancestors and Neanderthals likely kissed

New research shows that kissing evolved in the common ancestor of humans and other large apes around 21 million years ago, and Neanderthals likely engaged in kissing too 💋

New study from @matildabrindle.bsky.social @stuwest.bsky.social 👇

Kissing evolved at least 21 million years ago. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @matildabrindle.bsky.social

So cool to see ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada) -- my native language in @asn-amnat.bsky.social 😍

Congratulations Juliet! Very well deserved for a brilliant body of research. Thank you to Shigeto Dobata and @timbarra.bsky.social for their time and being a great examiner team. 🥂 @biology.ox.ac.uk @newcollegeoxf.bsky.social

So sad to see this insane backlash. Can't quite believe it. But you are the one that just very successfully got a PhD. Well done Dr Turner!

POV: you are a young woman celebrating a recent academic success

I passed my viva! 🎊

I’m very happy to share that yesterday, after ~4 years of research, I successfully defended my DPhil thesis and will be awarded the title of doctor 😎

Thank you to my examiners, supervisors, and collaborators for all the advice and support given along the way.

Functional and evolutionary synergy of trait components can explain the existence of leaf masquerade in katydids The evolution of complex adaptations often involves synergistic changes in multiple traits that lack standalone function. This study shows that leaf masquerade in katydids evolved through concurrent m...

Leaf? 🍃 Or katydid? 🦗
Our new
@plosbiology.org paper sheds light on how these incredible mimics evolved their disguises, and what this reveals about how complex adaptations arise. We find that coordinated evolution between traits might be the answer… plos.io/4oUE741 1/n

Amazing leaf camouflage experiments paired up with phylogeny showing how they got there. journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... @benitoexplains.bsky.social

LGBTQ+ Journal Club is turning 1! 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈To celebrate, here's a bit about what we've been up to over the past year: a thread of interesting papers in queer biology (1/n) ⬇️🧵

The evolutionary and ecological consequences of cooperation | The American Naturalist: Vol 0, No ja

The evolutionary and ecological consequences of cooperation

-in American Naturalist by @stuwest.bsky.social, @annadewar.bsky.social, @ryosukeiritani.bsky.social, Laurence Belcher, and @asgriffin.bsky.social

www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

A pictorial guide to parasitoids (10/11). Parasitoids can be studied in a parasitoid workshop. Silwood Park, 1992.

Join us! Oxford is advertising an Associate Professorship in Animal Behaviour. my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

Mike Ritchie emphasising the huge importance of supporting society journals like JEB in his ESEB presidential address, Barcelona. @eseb.bsky.social @eseb2025.bsky.social

Evidence that lifestyle drives genome fluidity from @annadewar.bsky.social today. Keeping everyone going on last day of @eseb2025.bsky.social! Great talk Anna!

When can replicating experiments lead to misleading conclusions? An example from human public goods games. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Exciting looking meeting at the Linnean Society London on organismal resilience. November 20th 2025 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hybrid-day...

Environmental Predictability in Phylogenetic Comparative Analysis: How to Measure It and Does It Matter? Aim Abiotic environmental conditions shape ecological and evolutionary processes, yet quantifying their influence on organisms remains challenging due to variation among metrics and their intercorre...

what is environmental variability and how can you measure it? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @mingpapilio.bsky.social

Global hotspots of mycorrhizal fungal richness are poorly protected - Nature Machine-learning algorithms trained on 25,000 geolocated soil samples are used to create high-resolution global maps of mycorrhizal fungi, revealing that less than 10% of their biodiversity hotspots a...

Where are mycorrhizal fungi and are the protected? (spoiler alert - no, they aren't) www.nature.com/articles/s41... @tobykiers.bsky.social

Who lives underground?

Find out now in our new paper published in @nature.com.

Key finding: 90% of predicted mycorrhizal biodiversity hotspots lie outside protected areas.

Read here: buff.ly/WmDqAP3 🧵

A pictorial guide to parasitoids (9/11). Parasitoids may mediate competition between different host species (apparent competition). Silwood Park, 1992.