Andrea Flack

✨New paper✨
How do juvenile ravens find social groups?

We describe how juvenile common ravens, who have left their natal territories seeking to join non-breeder flocks, use space with respect to other birds, and discuss what this means for social integration.

www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

Last years field assistant holding a Manx Shearwater on the isle of Rum (under a towel), retrieving a GPS device after a bird has returned from a foraging trip!

We are looking to hire a Seabird Field Assistant for 2026 for our Manx Shearwater research project.

Please share this to anyone who'd like to get out in the field this summer and learn about biotelemetry, bird handling and research into animal behaviour.

drive.google.com/file/d/1SGZt...

33% der Menschen in Sachsen-Anhalt wollen eine Revolution, 22% wollen die Bundesrepublik abschaffen, über ein Viertel würde den Einsatz von Gewalt befürworten.
Ein Interview mit dem Leiter des Sachsen-Anhalt-Monitors, Gert Pickel.
(Geschenklink)

www.zeit.de/politik/deut...

Sachsen-Anhalt-Monitor: "Autoritär verhält sich die AfD ja nur gegenüber anderen" Ein Drittel der Sachsen-Anhalter will laut einer Umfrage eine Revolution. Ein Gespräch mit dem Forschungsleiter über fragile Demokraten und rechte Umsturzfantasien.

Jetzt gerade @zeit.de: Ein interview von @christianbangel.bsky.social, dessen Inhalt unser aller Aufmerksamkeit bräuchte (geschenkt): www.zeit.de/politik/deut...

interested in a collaborative project at #unifreiburg linking tick ecology and vector-pathogen interactions
check out a PhD position in my lab here
uni-freiburg.de/stellenangeb...

We are happy to announce that the next EOU Conference will be in Brno, Czech Republic in 2027! Check our website eounion.org and follow us on social media for regular updates! #ornithology #EOU2027

Hester and myself with her PhD hat.

Happy and proud of the next fledgling of the Flack flock. Dr Hester Brønnvik @hbronnv.bsky.social defended her PhD thesis today. She has done a wonderful job. I could not be happier! @imprs-qbee.bsky.social @animaltracking.bsky.social @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social

🚀 Guess who’s back? 🛰️🥳💫
ICARUS, our global wildlife-tracking system, returns to orbit aboard the GENA-OT satellite, which launched from Vandenberg SFB today 🎉
This is step one for ICARUS 2.0: full global coverage, smaller sensors, near-real-time.
Congrats @animaltracking.bsky.social + team ICARUS

Jolie, an adult female chimpanzee of the Ngogo community in Kibale National Park, Uganda, with sleeping infant son, Zawinul. CREDIT: Kevin Langergraber

After the Ngogo chimpanzee group killed 21 members of neighboring groups and expanded their territory by 22%, female birth rates more than doubled and infant survival increased sharply—showing clear fitness benefits from intergroup killing. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/TKmf50XuPjY

Take three minutes to look at pretty birds, explore radar data, and see how we connect the structure of skies to MacArthur's ideas of niche partitioning. 📡🐦☁️🎧

YouTube video by Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior Hester Brønnvik | Ontogeny of stock migration

How do storks learn to migrate efficiently? IMPRS-QBEE student @hbronnv.bsky.social, working with @anflack.bsky.social use GPS ani accelerometer tags to study how white storks balance the costs and benefits of migratory decisions

@mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social

youtube.com/shorts/A-kNB...

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

Three decades of declines restructure butterfly communities in the Midwestern United States | PNAS Insects are declining worldwide. These declines have been documented across taxonomic groups and are worrisome given ecosystem services provided by...

More bad news for butterflies. Our new paper led by Wendy Leuenberger shows common species are declining even more rapidly than rare ones. @ZipkinLab

Three decades of declines restructure butterfly communities in the Midwestern United States | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2501340122

I found this in the forest next to my house today… any idea what on earth this could possibly be??? I am a biologist - but come on… this is sick!! I am sure these are 👾 that have arrived here without anyone noticing!!? 🤯

From biologging to conservation: Tracking individual performance in changing environments | PNAS Under an accelerating biodiversity crisis, increased urbanization, habitat fragmentation, and climate change require new approaches to assess conse...

From bio-logging to conservation 🔽

New paper by an @animaltracking.bsky.social dream team

@diegoellissoto.bsky.social @anflack.bsky.social @arispeshkin.bsky.social Timm Wild, Hannah Williams, @teagueo.bsky.social

@cbehav.bsky.social @uni-konstanz.de

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Transforming conservation with real-time data of individual animals A study co-led by ESPM postdoctoral researcher Diego Ellis Soto highlights how developing technologies for tracking wildlife can advance and democratize conservation efforts.

You can read more on wildlife.berkeley.edu/news/2025/07...

Thrilled to share our new article in @pnas.org highlighting global gaps in where we study animal movement—and outlining the next generation of smart bio-loggers.

👉 Read the full study in PNAS: lnkd.in/exP8NCeZ
1/

Genau wie viele Menschen zeigen Tiere Anzeichen von Stress, wenn sie versuchen, für eine Gruppe von Artgenossen die Führung zu übernehmen. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt ein internationales Forschungsteam unter Beteiligung von #UniKonstanz @cbehav.bsky.social BiologInnen: t1p.de/zud05

How to Stop Worrying about What the Youngs Are Doing Just keep flapping.

What migrating storks can teach us about working smarter AND harder with age: elizabethgpreston.substack.com/p/how-to-sto... 🧪

Featuring research by @anflack.bsky.social and @hbronnv.bsky.social!

Cover of OSIRIS, volume 40. The title reads "Animal Mobilities" in yellow letters on a blue background. Above there is a colorful illustration showing animals and planets on the seabed.

New special issue of OSIRIS: "Animal Mobilities" 🐫🐠🐛

The volume was edited by MPIWG Research Scholars Tamar Novick, @lisaonaga.bsky.social, and Gabriel N. Rosenberg of the working groups "Out of Place, Out of Time" and "Proteins and Fibers."

🔗 bit.ly/amv4025

#HistSci #EnvHist #STS #Zoology

Current Vacancies

4 year fixed term postdoc position in Tasmania, Australia. Drones, camera traps, population monitoring.

careers.utas.edu.au/en/job/50114...

Es ist doch einigermaßen erstaunlich, wie ein komplett haltloser Vorwurf eines angeblichen Plagiats den Ruf und die Karriere einer Richterin bedroht, während ein ehemaliger Gesundheitsminister, der Milliarden versenkt, völlig unbeschädigt weitermacht, obwohl es Belege und heftigen Widerstand gibt.

Bison in Bialowieza Forest (c) R Broughton

Poland-Belarus border fence, wiki commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Poland_Belarus_border_barrier_2023.jpg

Our new #OpenAccess paper
How can long-term #ecology studies survive & resist political & social change, authoritarianism, war, but also embrace positive change?

The Białowieża Forest as an example of the resilience of long-term studies in a changing world:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 1/

A death trap in the nest: anthropogenic nest materials cause high mortality in a terrestrial bird The impact of anthropogenic debris on wildlife, particularly in marine environments, has garnered significant attention in recent years due to the sev…

In our new paper led by Ursula Heize, we show that >90% of #WhiteStork nests have anthropogenic materials (plastics, paper, etc). Ropes are particularly dangerous: ~12% of the chicks became entangled on ropes, particularly on baler twine!

Check out the paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

A white stork in flight. Copyright Christian Ziegler.

2/5 We tracked 151 storks over up to 8 migrations (at 1 Hz!) to ask whether they improve their soaring skills to migrate efficiently. We identified > 55,000 soaring & > 6,000 flapping events that allowed us to compare flight across ages & seasons.

If there is an optimal behavior, why is there so much variation in the world? We found that, for white storks, context is everything. @anflack.bsky.social @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social

New paper! @cellpress.bsky.social doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2025.06.044
🧵1/5

Look at this beautiful new study by @hbronnv.bsky.social in @cellpress.bsky.social, and it even has a pretty animation! Experience AND motivation count when white storks migrate! #birds #migration #biologging #ontogeny #whitestork #ornithology Very proud supervisor here @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social

Unlocking the hidden biodiversity of Europe’s villages | EurekAlert! www.eurekalert.org/news-release...