Luca Hahn

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

Complex dynamics of social learning in groups of wild Arabian babblers
#Bird #SocialCognition

doi.org/10.1093/behe...

PhD opportunity: MOVE
Details: blogs.reading.ac.uk/crocus-dla/c...
Deadline: 12/01/26
Supervisors: @shoalgroup.bsky.social, @inesfuertbauer.bsky.social, @wlallen.bsky.social, @nhcooper123.bsky.social, @marinapapa.bsky.social
Apply: blogs.reading.ac.uk/crocus-dla/p...

Graphic showing the paper title “Monk parakeets ‘test the waters’ when forming new relationships” in the journal Biology Letters. Also features photos of the co-authors (Claire, Annemarie, Gerry, and Liz) as well as the issue cover photo of two marked monk parakeets from Claire’s work grooming each other. Also shown are some of the main plots of the paper showing how the parakeets escalate their behaviors from low risk/low investment (like proximity) to higher risk/higher investment interactions (like preening/grooming)

In an increasingly divided world, how do strangers become friends? Parakeets might have something to teach us! New paper on formation of affiliative relationships, led by Dr. Claire O’Connell doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...

Vocal convergence during formation of social relationships in vampire bats | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences In many group-living birds and mammals, the formation of affiliative relationships is hypothesized to cause vocal convergence (an increase in call similarity between individuals). However, testing this causal effect can be difficult, because it requires ...

Vocal convergence during formation of social relationships in vampire bats royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Exciting PhD opportunity to develop tech and software to record and understand wild animal behaviour. Fully funded by EPSRC DLA. Based at @uniexecec.bsky.social; co-supervised by Alex Thornton (@cornishjackdaws.bsky.social), @kjhockings.bsky.social and collaborators. Apply: tinyurl.com/5fr73snt

The final chapter of my thesis has just been published in Ecology and Evolution! @ecol-evol.bsky.social

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Here we find that the social environment, notably vocal and aggressive interactions, are linked to cognitive development in magpie fledglings.

Each dyad (a, b) moves through four discrete states over time, represented by coloured circles. The dyad remains in a given state for a certain duration, or "holding time", before transitioning to a new state according to state-specific transition probabilities, indicated by arrows showing all possible (non-zero) transitions. Paintings by Sofia M. Pereira & Judith von Nordheim.

New paper!

We propose a framework to empirically study animal social relationships by modelling social network (SN) data as time-series—that is, without the need to aggregate them over time.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

POSITIONS default description

I am looking for a postdoc to work in our long-term system of food-caching mountain chickadees in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The expected start is April 2026. Please see details here: chickadeecognition.com/positions
If interested and qualified, please contact me directly (email on the website).

Very happy to see this collaboration with @babeheim.bsky.social published in Animal Cognition: 'Vocal mimicry in corvids'. Since posting the first preprint, we have identified evidence for vocal mimicry in 8 more species, thanks to the community highlighting additional sources #communityscience

Primate Society of Great Britain (PSGB) Meeting
National Museum Cardiff, 27-28 November

www.psgb.org/pages/14-mee...
Registration and abstract submission coming soon! Please share!

@mckinneymonkey.bsky.social @inesfuertbauer.bsky.social @willallennz.bsky.social @primatesocietygb.bsky.social

Now that we're properly moved in & set up in the new Life & Mind Building, we're pleased to restart our tradition of Friday afternoon seminar speakers, kicking off with Alex Thornton of @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social at 3.30pm on 31 Oct. Also live streamed: see below for details. Corvid-themed for 🎃

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

Out today in @plosbiology.org (1/5)

Siblings and non-parental adults provide alternative pathways to cultural inheritance in juvenile great tits 🐦🧩

Link to study:
10.0.5.91/journal.pbio...

Co-authors:
@lucymaplin.bsky.social
@galarconnieto.bsky.social

📢🚀 Are you an early-career researcher working on anything related to culture, behaviour or learning? 🧠🌍 Join ESLR, an interdisciplinary research community! We have a NEW website and our membership is now FREE. 👉 Sign up here to get updates and become a member: www.eslrsociety.com/membership

A causal framework for the drivers of animal social network structure Author summary Behavioural ecologists ask mechanistic questions about behaviour—causal questions. When studying animal societies, these questions often concern the drivers of social network structure....

Are you studying animal sociality?

My (now published) first PhD chapter proposes a Bayesian + causal framework to infer the factors shaping the social relationships that animals form with one another.

journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

YouTube video by Selection shapes diverse animal minds The fish challenge to vertebrate cognitive evolution

Selection Shapes Animal Minds: More completely free videos of talks from our Royal Society Discussion meeting last year. Today's highlighted talk: Dr Zegni Triki (Neuchatel) @zegnitriki.bsky.social @royalsocietypublishing.org @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social youtu.be/WQLjnfhSyD4?...

Image showing Hobson Lab logo (with parakeets, a social network, and R code), two Monk Parakeets, and several individually-marked parakeets with the text "Now recruiting PhD students!!"

**PhD POSITIONS** I am recruiting 1-2 PhD students to work on sociality and cognition in Monk Parakeets, starting Fall 2026. Full ad is here: hobsonresearch.com/index.php/20... (please help spread the word!)

We are hiring - PDRA position exploring how information access shapes social dynamics in killer whales. Collaboration with @samellisq.bsky.social @drwhale.bsky.social Prof Dan Franks (York) start 1st Nov (or ASAP) end 31st Oct 2028. Apps close on 19th Oct.

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOT336/p...

Please share!🙏
🚨 PhD Oportunity in Avian Behavioural Ecology in Spain
The BirdBond Project (MNCN & IREC) studies how pair bonds form, change & affect reproduction/survival in the spotless starling 🐦

New paper led by @josharbon.bsky.social. Adults jackdaws often bully youngsters, but we show they can learn to be tolerant and attend to juveniles as sources of information. @uniexecec.bsky.social. Funded by @leverhulme.ac.uk & @swbiodtp.bsky.social

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Wild jackdaws learn to tolerate juveniles to exploit new foraging opportunities | Biology Letters Social tolerance can enhance access to resources and is thought to be crucial in facilitating the evolution of cooperation, social cognition and culture, but it is unknown whether animals can optimize...

New @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social paper out today in @royalsociety.org Biology Letters. We found adult jackdaws can learn to tolerate usually bullied or ignored juveniles when they provided information about a new foraging resource.

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

ESLR is currently undergoing a transition, and a new committee (@alexschakowski.bsky.social, @ahnisnaahsi.bsky.social, @katebonner.bsky.social, @lucahahn.bsky.social, @mariapykala.bsky.social) is working on reinstating its presence and shaping its future. Please feel free to get in touch!

The first papers from our special collection on vocal communication in corvids are now live. Most are still under review, stay tuned for more updates as they’re published! link.springer.com/collections/...

Pinyon Jays (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus) and Clark’s nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) can discriminate between pilfering and non-pilfering conspecifics, but not between heterospecifics - Animal Cogni... When foraging, individuals often need to assess potential risk from competitors. Within many food-caching (food-storing) species, individuals can modify their caching behavior depending on whether oth...

Late to the party but the last paper of my PhD was published earlier this year!
Pinyon jays (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus) and Clark’s nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) can discriminate between pilfering and non-pilfering conspecifics, but not between heterospecifics link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Join us!!! 2 (!) PhD positions on wild chimpanzees and bonobos in the Ape Behaviour & Ecology Group and Wildminds Lab!!! 🤩🤩🤩

NEW PAPER🎺
How does cognition determine an individual’s fitness? A systematic review of the links between cognition, behaviour and fitness in non-human animals

Lots of studies try to explain how cognition might evolve, by taking a behavioural ecology approach

Has this approach made any progress?🧵

Tolerant and despotic macaques show divergent temperament but similar theory of mind | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences The social intelligence hypothesis proposes that the demands of social life shape the evolution of cognition, but different aspects of social interactions may be relevant. To test how competitive vers...

Check out our new paper comparing #socialcognition in #tolerant and #despotic #macaques, by @awad-schwob.bsky.social, Rosie Bettle, Megan Mulhinch & @zeppypearl.bsky.social!

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences: Vol 380, No 1929 Can't sign in? Forgot your password?

Part of the Phil Trans special issue "Selection Shapes Diverse Animal Minds", edited with @ellileadbeater.bsky.social.

Thanks to co-authors Andoni Sergiou, @josharbon.bsky.social, @inesfuertbauer.bsky.social & @shoalgroup.bsky.social and all the special issue contributors.

tinyurl.com/35mn84ty

The coevolution of cognition and sociality | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Cognition serves to resolve uncertainty. Living in social groups is widely seen as a source of uncertainty driving cognitive evolution, but sociality can also mitigate sources of uncertainty, reducing...

Societies might shape minds, but minds can shape societies. In this new paper we discuss how this feedback changes how we think about social and cognitive evolution. Led by @lucahahn.bsky.social

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...