@ljnbrent.bsky.social
Social evolution, social aging & the benefits of social network ties. Professor @crab-exeter.bsky.social, Dept. of Psych, Uni. of Exeter. Big team science collaborations: #MacaqueNet #CBRU. Editor: Animal Behaviour. She/her. http://linktr.ee/laurenbrent
Come and join our lab! We have TWO fully funded PhD positions AND a paid field assistant opportunity in our Behavioral Ecology group @uni-goettingen.de & @primatenzentrum.bsky.social. Projects will be part of @rtg2906-curiosity.bsky.social & @sfb1528.bsky.social!!
Details in thread. Please re-post!
Excited to introduce the Latent Layers Framework – now out in @behavecol.bsky.social – to help think through when and why network differences confound inference in (comparative) social network analysis! 🧵
tinyurl.com/3k3yahwy
Meerkat pups in the Kalahari, South Africa
Rhesus macaques in Cayo Santiago
Dwarf mongoose staring at a camera, South Africa.
📢Two fully-funded #PhD opportunities to work with us:
Topic: Social monitoring & manipulation
UK-domiciled black-heritage scheme: tinyurl.com/aja54nr6
NERC DLTP: tinyurl.com/4jfy47pp
Cosupervisors: #PatrickKennedy @ljnbrent.bsky.social
@bristolbiosci.bsky.social
#bioacoustics #mammals #fieldwork
🌟Fully funded #PhD🌟
Social monitoring and manipulation of cooperative exchanges.
#NERC funding
With @ljnbrent.bsky.social, #PatrickKennedy & me.
Based in @bristolbiosci.bsky.social
#LongtermData #Fieldwork
#Mongooses #Macaques
Deadline: 8th Jan 2026
Please share!
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
Apply now for a NERC-funded PhD position with @andyradford.bsky.social & Patrick Kennedy at @bristolbiosci.bsky.social (with me as friendly 2nd supervisor down the road in @crab-exeter.bsky.social). Network cognition, cooperation, competition...what's not to like?
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
Decision-making in slime moulds! Competitively funded PhD project in the UK (lead supervisor Andy Higginson in @crab-exeter.bsky.social, with co-supervisors in Bristol, Exeter and Macquarie, including me!), open to students worldwide. Deadline 3rd December 2025 www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
12.11.2025 15:19 — 👍 2 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0Behavioral data can be very detailed but are usually aggregated and normalized in ways that smother the dynamics. Ben wrote a continuous-time Markov model to improve on this, and also wrote simulations for exploring and validating pipelines. All the code is here: github.com/BenKawam/ASN...
12.11.2025 12:05 — 👍 53 🔁 17 💬 1 📌 0Yes. it's not my area but I was surprised to learn how strong they are.
27.10.2025 14:20 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Thank you for the apology. And sorry if I read your quote of my post as being directed at the initiators of the motion.
27.10.2025 11:52 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0If only you could direct your mansplaining to them instead...
27.10.2025 08:34 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Final motions are often not the same as the one submitted, and can be altered during the process by special interest groups or lobbyists
27.10.2025 08:25 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Looking for a #PhD?
Interested in #SocialBehaviour #BiologicalMarkets #Fieldwork?
Want to be based in #Bristol?
Check out this project with me, @ljnbrent.bsky.social & #PatrickKennedy:
tinyurl.com/aja54nr6
For UK-domiciled Black-heritage applicants
Get in touch for more information
Please #share
@uniofexeternews.bsky.social @crab-exeter.bsky.social
24.10.2025 12:39 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
the IUCN have passed the Longevity Conservation motion put forward to them by @kellerfish.bsky.social and @pili-scotland.bsky.social and based on the paper we wrote on the value of older individuals in animal societies.
www.cdu.edu.au/news/global-...
MSc by Res opportunity - developing behavioural indicators to inform killer whale conservation with
@exeter.ac.uk @whaleresearch.bsky.social @seadocsociety.bsky.social
People from underrepresented groups in marine science encouraged to apply.
Deadline 19Dec
www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin...
All this thinking about the thing I've always wanted to know in science wouldn't have been possible without the support of the @erc.europa.eu to my FriendOrigins project. Long may funding for fundamental and blueskies science continue
16.10.2025 08:42 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0After 5 yrs of thinking, debating and endless schematic doodles, we came up with the Adaptive Relationships Framework, published in @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social
We hope it's useful, and even if turns out to be wrong, that it encourages new conversations about the evolution of social structure.
Delphine and I thought it made sense to merge ideas from behavioural ecology with ones from network science. We reasoned this would allow us to predict what types of relationships are best suited to solve the different challenges animals face.
16.10.2025 08:42 — 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0So I became a behavioural ecologist, dabbled in network science, and found some likeminded scientists who wanted to know this too, like @delphinedemoor.bsky.social.
16.10.2025 08:42 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
For what seems like forever, I've wanted to know what benefits we get from our friends - or in other words, why these relationships evolved.
tinyurl.com/55dnkeh7
The Adaptive Relationships Framework illustrating how broad socioecological pressures shape the social solutions animals use to meet these challenges, and how these lead to social strategies and emergent structures that help them gain access to those solutions.
Social relationships are powerful predictors of fitness across social animals. But *why*?
In our new @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social paper, we outline testable predictions for why relationship quality and quantity adaptively vary across socio-ecological contexts.
tinyurl.com/55dnkeh7
@biodiversityguy.bsky.social @euanritchie.bsky.social @ljnbrent.bsky.social @pili-scotland.bsky.social @chrisjolly.bsky.social @charlesdarwinuni.bsky.social @rarlinghausfish.bsky.social @shoalorg.bsky.social @sharkscience.bsky.social @amfisheriessoc.bsky.social @fishconserve.bsky.social
12.10.2025 14:15 — 👍 4 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
If you are a voting member of the IUCN - please consider supporting our motion (113) for Longevity Conservation at the Congress this week
@iucnshark.bsky.social @aciucn.bsky.social @iucn-bctf.bsky.social @sscmarine.bsky.social
iucncongress2025.org/assembly/mot...
Postdoc job alert! We are hiring a NYU-based postdoc to work on our project on the social and environmental determinants of aging. The 3 year post will be based in James Higham's lab and will focus on endocrine, immune, and inflammatory aspects of aging. Please share! apply.interfolio.com/173938
22.09.2025 09:31 — 👍 6 🔁 16 💬 0 📌 0Are you studying animal sociality? Confused about the "non-independence" of social network data: what on earth are they? are they threatening your results? should you attempt to get rid of them?
A thread summarising a part of our new paper (ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...).
Survey alert! If you're a social behavioural ecologist, please fill in our survey aimed at gauging interest in, barriers and solutions to, comparative social behaviour research. Thanks! forms.gle/KZJDMtLCJhvY...
31.08.2025 03:18 — 👍 4 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0😎😎 symposium and discussion on comparative studies in animal behaviour, organized by @delphinedemoor.bsky.social, @ljnbrent.bsky.social & Anindya Sinha at @behaviour2025.bsky.social ! Was a pleasure to be part of a 👌 speaker lineup, & present my work on interspecific variation in 🐵 social behaviour!
30.08.2025 11:22 — 👍 4 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
Animal Behaviour from Exeter and Bristol, plus some of our alumni, went to @behaviour2025.bsky.social in Kolkata and had mountains of rice. @crab-exeter.bsky.social @bristolbiosci.bsky.social @uniexecec.bsky.social
27.08.2025 17:15 — 👍 27 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0Looking forward to another gathering of MacaqueNet! In India no less, home of the best ever macaque: the rhesu....haha just kidding, the lion-tailed, obviously.
Hope to see lots of you there!
ahhh thanks Cory! ☺️
11.08.2025 09:47 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
