Robin Morrison

Study finds female mountain gorillas prefer to join 'buddies' When female gorillas leave one social group and join another, they tend to seek out groups with other females that they've lived with in the past, showing the power of long-term relationships.

When female gorillas leave one social group and join another, they tend to seek out groups with other females that they've lived with in the past, showing the power of long-term relationships.

Female gorillas can change groups many times across their lives. These decisions are undoubtedly shaped by mating opportunities and infant protection, but what about the wider social relationships females have across groups? Check out this thread to see what we found!

@vicmartignac.bsky.social Who is now on blue sky!!

Gorillas seek out old female friends when they move A study in Rwanda reveals the significance of a social connection between female mountain gorillas.

'Moving around is something that is also crucial in shaping human society. And the researchers say that studying its roots in other great apes can shed light on the evolutionary driving forces behind it.'

Link to original research article: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Loved listening to this discussion, and so pleased our research on the gorillas monitored by @savinggorillas.bsky.social, led by the fantastic Vic Martignac is resonating with so many!

Excited to share that we have just been awarded a NERC Pushing the Frontiers grant to work on between-group cooperation in the Shark Bay dolphins. We will soon advertise a 3 year post-doc to join the team - drop me an email if you might be interested! Pls share widely 🙏🏻

Indirect genetic effects among neighbors promote cooperation and accelerate adaptation in a small-scale human society Social effects on fertility promote population growth and the evolution of flexible cooperation in a small-scale human society.

I'm very excited to share the central paper from my PhD out now in Science Advances. We investigated how social effects among neighbors shape the evolution of reproductive cooperation and the pace of adaptive population growth among the Indigenous Tsimane of Bolivia.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Great days at the #IPSMadagascar2025 with @sanchezmegias.bsky.social and Adriana Hernandez-Aguilar, presenting our research @ub.edu @psicologiaub.bsky.social @janegoodallespana.bsky.social

Always a pleasure to come to this conference and interact with primatologists from all over the Word!
🐒🦧🦍

PhD Assisted Migration

*Job alert*
Within our recently funded collaborative project focusing on assisted migration of #mountain #plant species, we are looking for a #PhD candidate based at ETH Zürich. For further details and instructions, see the job ad:
jobs.ethz.ch/job/view/JOP...
Please repost!
🧪🏔️🌿

Opportunities — ASAB

the journal Animal Behaviour, which is run by @asab.org, is looking to hire a new Managing Editor. Please share advert with folks with a Life Sciences degree (ideally postgrad) who might be interested www.asab.org/opportunities

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

The Local Organizing Commitee welcomes behavioral ecologists from across the world and of all career stages to enjoy a five-day meeting rich in top-notch science and ample networking opportunities in Turin (Italy), 20-24 July 2026.

Do you have field work experience? Do you want more? Our team wants YOU to manage our field site studying Kinda baboons in Kasanka National Park, Zambia!

Start date is this August 2025 so apply ASAP!

Job ad here: tinyurl.com/KindaBaboon

📢 2 PhD positions (E13 TV-L, 75%) in our DFG-funded project on great ape communication & the evolution of common ground!

🧠 Backgrounds in biology, psychology or linguistics welcome.
🗓️ Deadline: Aug 13
🔗 bit.ly/4l8p7hy & bit.ly/46jcfAq

Please share!
@elmanubohn.bsky.social @meanwhileina.bsky.social

We studied the evolution of infant-directed communication by comparing vocal input rates across great apes!

A collaborative study led by @carolinefryns.bsky.social, Johanna Schick and me;

www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....

I could not be more proud of my lab, and my fantastic colleagues for the study they just published in @nature.com revealing a massive expansion of our species' niche before dispersing out of Africa. Have a read, because it's an amazing paper 🤩

How cognitively demanding is the urban niche? Reconsidering exaptation and habituation - Animal Cognition Urbanization is hypothesized to create a myriad of cognitive challenges for animals because it creates novel environmental conditions in evolutionary terms. The consensus is that these novel urban cha...

Working with @wildcognition.bsky.social on this paper was so much fun: drawing from our research with mammals (primates & hyenas) we discuss to what extent the urban niche poses novel cognitive challenges or whether they are exapted to exploit urban resources
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

We are looking for a Research Assistant to contribute to our ongoing analysis of dolphin acoustic data from West Wales - collaboration between @wtsww.bsky.social @bristolbiosci.bsky.social 🐬
Deadline is 29th June - please share widely!
www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

been a long time coming, there's now a preprint along with Will Hoppitt describing our new R package for creating, fitting and interpreting bayesian NBDA models (STBayes). www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1.... Documentation is here michaelchimento.github.io/STbayes/inde...

Researchers doing infectious disease surveillance in rural Kenyan communities that work closely with animals, including cattle, sheep, goats, and camels. It is common for infectious diseases to spill over from animals to humans and then spread via human-to-human transmission around the globe -- this happens with flu all the time. Image courtesy of WSU Global Health Kenya.

📢 On Friday, the NIH pulled funding for 10 centers monitoring infectious diseases around the globe -- diseases highly likely to cause the next pandemic (1). Let's look at just one of these diseases: Rift Valley Fever, monitored by my collaborators at WSU Global Health Kenya. 🧵

Hot off the press 📣: one of the most surprising and unsettling findings of my PhD. A novel social tradition emerged in the tool-using white-faced capuchins of Jicarón island… abducting and carrying the infants of another species. Thread with gifs, videos, and all the bizarre details 👇

The comparative anatomy of the mammalian larynx at Anglia Ruskin University ARU on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - The comparative anatomy of the mammalian larynx at Anglia Ruskin University ARU, listed on FindAPhD.com

We are delighted to advertise a 3 year fully funded PhD, generously funded by @camphilsoc.bsky.social on the evolution of the mammalian larynx, hosted @angliaruskin.bsky.social

Full details here: findaphd.com/phds/project...

Please pass it on!

📣 New paper by myself @djsmith90.bsky.social and colleagues published today in @royalsociety.org Proc B 📣

Grandmothers are often seen as key carers, but this isn’t always the case.

We explore why in Agta forgers reflecting on the implications of demography for evolution of grandmothering 👵🌍

Sumatran orangutan mothers differ in the extent and trajectory of their expression of maternal behaviour | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Mothers play a crucial role in the early development and survival of mammalian offspring, and differences in maternal care may affect offspring’s development. Whereas previous research has primarily focused on biological and socioecological factors to ...

New paper alert! Our study on consistent individual variation in Sumatran orangutan maternal behaviour is out today in @royalsocietypublishing.org! Using ~6000h of observation, we show that mothers are not all the same when it comes to parenting. (1/n)
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Chez les gorilles des montagnes, l’amitié est un subtil jeu d'équilibre Chez les gorilles des montagnes, les liens sociaux influencent la santé mais avec des effets variables selon le sexe. Cette nouvelle étude menée sur deux décennies révèle un équilibre subtil entre pro...

L’amitié est un subtil jeu d'équilibre. Selon cette nouvelle étude, les liens sociaux des gorilles des montagnes influencent leur santé mais avec des effets variables selon le sexe. Un équilibre entre coûts et bénéfices.
Avec Victoire Martignac 🦍

Chez les gorilles des montagnes, l’amitié est un subtil jeu d'équilibre Chez les gorilles des montagnes, les liens sociaux influencent la santé mais avec des effets variables selon le sexe. Cette nouvelle étude menée sur deux décennies révèle un équilibre subtil entre pro...

Check out superstar PhD student, Victoire Martignac discussing our recent paper about gorilla social relationships on @radiofrance.fr (in french) 🦍📻 🤩www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/avec-sciences/chez-les-gorilles-des-montagnes-l-amitie-est-un-subtil-jeu-d-equilibre-7971718

Thanks so much Jake! 😊

Postdoc job alert! I'm hiring a 3-yr postdoc to work on our Social Modifiers of Primate Lifespans grant. Job info and how to apply below. Deadline June 1. Pls share! jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...

Gorillas offer clues to how social relationships work in humans – study Survey of 164 primates in Rwanda shows how impact of being close to others is affected by group size and sex

This finding is something that might help us explain why such a range of social strategies can seemingly exist within species! And you can read more here www.theguardian.com/science/2025...