Bibiana Rojas

📣 New paper out!
We explored how fungal infection 🍄 affects the bright warning colours of wild poison frogs 🐸. Neither melanin nor carotenoid colouration reliably signals infection status. Defensive signals may remain consistent even under pathogen pressure 👩‍🔬🧪
Thread from @biobiiana.bsky.social 👇

Ooops! Something went wrong with that last figure, so here it is again!

And (2) neither their melanin- nor carotenoid-based coloration are reliable indicators of Bd infection, suggesting that links between coloration & pathogen presence are more context- and taxa-dependent than often assumed (3/3)
Link to the (early version of the) paper 👉 doi.org/10.1093/behe...

We studied the prevalence of a pathogenic 🍄 (Bd) in six populations of dyeing poison frogs (N = 239) in French Guiana 🇬🇫 and quantified the characteristics of both their melanin- & carotenoid-based coloration, and found that (1) there are huge differences in prevalence among populations (2/3)

New paper out in @behavecol.bsky.social!

Multiple studies show that sexually selected traits such as colours can reflect the presence of pathogens/parasites, but, can defensive coloration do the same? L. Schlippe Justicia, @carodittrich.bsky.social, O. Nokelainen & I tackled that question (1/3)

PLEASE SHARE

🚨🚨 6-month RA position available at the Univ. of St Andrews to work with Sue Healy (@cogwild.bsky.social), Simone Meddle (@simonemeddle.bsky.social) and I on the behavioural neuroendocrinology of early reproduction in zebra finches.

tinyurl.com/577cx9tj

Deadline: 03/12/2025
⬇️

Honored to announce the Hamilton Lecture 2026!

Leigh Simmons, Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Western Australia has made an outstanding contribution to the field of sexual selection acting from the whole organism to its gametes, and to our Society.

🐸From vanishing frogs to rising malaria: @washingtonpost.com features @karenrlips.bsky.social who first identified the wave of frog die-offs caused by fungus. Her work revealed that losing frogs led to a fivefold increase in malaria: a powerful One Health insight linking biodiversity & human health.

“First, the frogs died. Then, people got sick”. I love this example of how animals, the environments and us are intrinsically connected! #OneHealth

Meet our Plenary Speaker Daniela Rößler

Fueled by curiosity and a deep love of natural history Daniela discovered a REM-like sleep state in spiders and uses integrative field, lab and comparative approaches to investigate the function, ecology, and evolution of sleep across the spider tree of life.

Incredibly honored and utterly excited to have been asked to give a plenary at @isbe2026.bsky.social hope to see you in Turin! #ISBE2026 #sleep #behavior

Infographics: Mediterranean lizards in recently burned areas rapidly develop lighter coloration, as a thermoregulatory response

Nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) ordination of adult lizards in ~1-year postfire showing dissimilarities between burned and unburned in terms of coloration.

Rapid postfire color shift in a Mediterranean lizard
@jzoology.bsky.social

#Lizards inhabiting recently burned areas display lighter coloration, as a #thermoregulatory response
zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🧪🌍🔥🦎📏 #trait #fauna #zoology #wildfire #fireecology #fire

How Inventors Find Inspiration in Evolution (Gift Article) Soft batteries and water-walking robots are among the many creations made possible by studying animals and plants.

There's a word for learning from evolution's inventions: bioinspiration. Here's my interactive story on the way animals and plants fuel technological creativity. Gift link: nyti.ms/4otNQyl

In case you needed a reminder of the importance of basic science! 🤩

1/13 New paper out! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Historical records across thousands of women showed that mothers with more children had shorter lifespans during a famine, fitting an evolutionary explanation for why we age
@hannahdugdale.bsky.social
@lummaalab.bsky.social
@erikpostma.bsky.social

Evaluating the roles of signaling and camouflage in the evolution of iris color in Tyranni passerines Abstract. Iris color is a conspicuous and diverse trait across animals, but its evolutionary drivers are poorly understood. In over 1000 species of Tyranni

Evaluating the roles of signaling and camouflage in the evolution of iris color in Tyranni passerines. Evolution
doi.org/10.1093/evol...

This paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Sexy fingers: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

The story on chemical communication in #poisonfrogs doesn't stop with the sexy fingers! "Histological and Gene Expression Analyses of the Arm and Finger Macroglands of Two Hyloxalus Frogs" is the new paper by the super talented Diana Abondano (Link in comments)! Out now in MolEcol. #cienciacriolla🇨🇴

Don’t miss this opportunity to attend #ISBE2026 next year!

Meet our plenary speaker Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi

Director of the India Program for the Snow Leopard Trust working on snow leopards and human-wildlife coexistence in the high Himalaya. His work focuses on the interactions between large carnivores, their wild prey, and farming communities.

Start planning your stay in Turin! Accommodation can be easily booked directly on our website ➡️ isbe2026.com/accommodation/

Meet our plenary speaker Eva Ringler!

Professor at the University of Bern, Eva Ringler and her research group are interested in understanding variation in animal behaviour from an ecological and evolutionary perspective focusing on Neotropical poison frogs and glassfrogs.

Meet our plenary speaker Renata Sousa-Lima!

Professor at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil), Renata ‘s research focuses on bioacoustics of aquatic mammals and has pioneered the field of ecoacoustics and soundscape ecology in Brazil.

Meet our plenary speaker Felicity Muth!

Assistant professor at the University of California Davis, her lab group are broadly interested in cognition, especially aspects of learning and memory that have a clear function in the natural world, focusing on captive and wild bumblebees.

BehaveAI is live!

Our biologically inspired video analysis tool sees motion as colour. Track animals or objects, classify their behaviour, and handle complex natural scenes with ease.

Semi-supervised annotation, no GPUs required, user-friendly, free & open source.

Pre-print tinyurl.com/BehaveAI

Text: Society for the Study of Evolution Dobzhansky Prize to recognize the accomplishments and future promise of an outstanding early-career evolutionary biologist. Nominations due December 1, 2025.

The Dobzhansky Prize recognizes the accomplishments and future promise of an outstanding early-career evolutionary biologist. The awardee will present the Dobzhansky Prize plenary at #Evol2026. Apply by December 1! shorturl.at/p70wY

Award alert! 🎖️🚨 Every other year, the Ethologische Gesellschaft awards the Niko Tinbergen Award to outstanding post-doc level researchers in Behavioural Biology (<=6yrs post PhD exam).
...and this year is one of these years! Please send us your nominations! 🫵 Infos: www.etho-ges.de/wordpress/aw...

Sweet

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Congrats, Thomas! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

Do not miss this fantastic opportunity, people! 🤩👇🏼