Will Smith
@willjsmith.bsky.social
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Nottingham Uni. Evolution @ the wild-domestic interface: focusing on feralisation 🕊️🦆🐓 I study wild-type Rock Doves (doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.065). https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=UW64SScAAAAJ&hl
"if it looks like a wild boar, and it behaves like a wild boar, then it is a wild boar” The article is interesting, the paper even more so. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Edward Pollard@epollard.bsky.social · last wk.Fascinating article from @torynwhead.bsky.social kingsglobalaffairs.substack.com/p/feral-pigs...
Rock Dove and feral pigeons, perhaps the most pressing issue in British bird conservation. follow @willjsmith.bsky.social to learn more, Rock Doves cooing in a sea cave is one of the best wildlife experiences you will have onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Rapid assessment of the extent of feral introgression in British and Irish Rock Dove (<fi>Columba livia</fi>) populations
Interbreeding of related forms following anthropogenic activity can lead to genomic homogenization, contributing to decreasing biodiversity. Assessing spatiotemporal variation in the extent of introg....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
What do you do with a day off, when you're on an island off an island off an island in Seychelles. Get permissions and use jaffa cakes to catch some Moorhens and measure their visual fields! And interesting they are too! New paper in Ecology and Evolution @britishecologicalsociety.org. Link below.
Pleased to share that my first, first-author publication was published yesterday in @pnas.org ! We (me + @jrossibarra.bsky.social) did a little bit of detective work to better understand the age and origin of a mutation that played a key role in maize domestication. doi.org/10.1073/pnas... (1/n)
Big new @adriftlab.bsky.social paper - we show for the first time that plastics affects seabirds at the POPULATION level. Plastic ingested as a chick reduces recruitment of birds to the breeding population. And the story is pretty grim. 🧵 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
🥳 New paper out in the Journal of Biogeography! I am excited to share the first PhD chapter from Zhichang Cheng, who I co-supervise with Fred de Boer. Habitat and Thermal Breadth Shape Climate-Driven Range Shifts in Arctic Birds onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #ornithology
😇🐕 Our work on “The Indian street dog crisis and multispecies coexistence in tropical urban futures” has made it to the cover & banner www.nature.com/articles/s44.... It is an ordinary Indian street, with people, dogs, food, traffic, homes, trees, and all the negotiations that make a city alive.
Any moth experts: is this a Spectacle, or a Dark Spectacle? Also I’m stuck on these other two… 🤔 (in Leicestershire) #TeamMoth
I was honoured to make a small contribution to this paper published today in Cell, detailing the first T2T genome assembly of the zebra finch, a crucial model species for neurobiology: tinyurl.com/tguttata
The complete genome of a songbird
Bird genomes are the smallest among amniotes; however, they remain challenging to assemble due to their structural complexity. This study presents a f…
tinyurl.com
Awesome new paper about wild/domestic interbreeding in DUCKS*, just out in @currentbiology.bsky.social 🦆🧬 #ornithology *not quite pigeons, but still very interesting 😅... doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...
Redirecting
doi.org
Humans changed islands, not just holiday destinations, but home to 10% of humans, including us here 🇬🇧. What is the ecology of islands today, and how are island organisms adapting? Neatly summarised by @ferransayol.bsky.social, our new paper lead by Tom Matthews on the 'Anthropocene' on islands.
Ferran Sayol@ferransayol.bsky.social · last mo.New paper out! 🖨️ Glad to be part of this study, out in Science Advances: "Emergent patterns of island biodiversity in the Anthropocene" www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Much of what looks natural in island biodiversity is a legacy of human impacts going back millennia. See main findings 👇🧵 (1/8)
Really nice research on a familiar to system to all of us - pigeons in buildings.
British Ornithologists’ Union (BOU)@bou.org.uk · 2mo agoNEW on #theBOUblog from Will Smith The secret lives of Outer Hebridean Rock Doves: What can we learn from studying the wild counterparts of domesticated pigeons? bou.org.uk/blog-smit... Based on this paper doi.org/10.1093/orni... #ornithology 🪶
Thanks @bou.org.uk for the opportunity to write a bit about our ongoing PIGEON SCIENCE 🕊️ including work funded by @btobirds.bsky.social @scottishbirding.bsky.social @britishbirds.bsky.social 🐦
British Ornithologists’ Union (BOU)@bou.org.uk · 2mo agoNEW on #theBOUblog from Will Smith The secret lives of Outer Hebridean Rock Doves: What can we learn from studying the wild counterparts of domesticated pigeons? bou.org.uk/blog-smit... Based on this paper doi.org/10.1093/orni... #ornithology 🪶
Our new commentary rdcu.be/ftx6h in @natecoevo.nature.com written with folks from @inaturalist.bsky.social and @cornellbirds.bsky.social shows that use of AI to manipulate existing or create new wildlife images undermines the huge value of vast citizen science databases. 🌍🪰🪶 #Ornithology 🧵 1/10
Citizen science platforms must mitigate against the threat of generative AI
Nature Ecology & Evolution - Citizen science platforms must mitigate against the threat of generative AI
rdcu.be
Our new review paper is out - iOrnithology: a review of the use of web-sourced photographs and videos in ornithological research, published in Ibis @connorpanter.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
<fc>iOrnithology</fc>: a review of the use of web‐sourced photographs and videos in ornithological research
The internet hosts vast quantities of digital media across webpages, repositories and social media platforms, providing unprecedented opportunities for ecological research. The use of web-sourced med...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Nice YouTube-summary of the 2025 study on bird nests by @jezierskimt.bsky.social, @willjsmith.bsky.social and their colleagues. www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzN6... Here is the link to the original paper: royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article... #ornithology
Scientists Can't Explain Why Bird Nests Are So Different
YouTube video by SciShow
youtube.com
I'm proud to be an associate editor for this journal: please send us your fun bird science! 🤓🐣
Richard K Broughton@richardkbroughton.bsky.social · 2mo agoPleased to announce new 2025 Impact Factor for #BirdStudy = 1.3, ranking 9/29 in #Ornithology, Q2. www.tandfonline.com/journals/tbi... A @btobirds.bsky.social society journal, we welcome papers on all aspects of ornithology, esp field studies, tracking & conservation in Western Palearctic & flyways.
How nice is it when you spot other species while doing fieldwork?
New issue of #BirdStudy today! www.tandfonline.com/toc/tbis20/7... Moroccan Little Terns Scottish Water Rails (OpenAccess) Nightjars & wind-damaged forests Urban Coots & disturbance Trail cameras for Corncrakes (OpenAccess) Age effects on bird monitoring Moorland Curlews in Nth England #ornithology
A cool chicken paper 🐓. Such work benefits from having healthy comparator populations of domesticated species' wild forms (in this case, Red Junglefowl). We wrote about this: doi.org/10.1093/orni.... It's part of why @jezierskimt.bsky.social and I visit Uist regularly, to study the wild pigeons.
Science X / Phys.org@sciencex.bsky.social · 3mo agoA single pigmentation gene helps explain why domestic chickens come in so many colors. In chickens, 18 variants were identified, with mutations that can shift pigment production in different directions. doi.org/hb7j94
Why pigeons deserve more respect.
The pigeon fanciers of the Bronze Age
Why pigeons deserve more respect.
tcnv.link
New paper in @journal-evo.bsky.social and I'll be defending my thesis in a few hours! Relaxed selection diminishes social memory and expression of host defenses against cuckoos academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...
Relaxed selection diminishes social memory and expression of host defenses against cuckoos
Behavioral traits are thought to be rarely or slowly lost when selection relaxes, but attempts to confirm this are rare. At the same time, behaviors can be
academic.oup.com
It was very nice to be asked by @theconversation.com to write about this fascinating new research. Pigeons in Bronze Age Cyprus! Big congrats to the authors. Excited to see what more we can learn about the early stages of the human-pigeon relationship… doi.org/10.64628/AB....
The pigeon fanciers of the Bronze Age
Why pigeons deserve more respect.
doi.org
Separately, whilst on St Kilda last month working on these endemic Wrens, a Redpoll which flew into our nets already had an ID ring. Turns out it was ringed in September 2025 as a first-year bird, on Sula in Norway. That's 1135km away from St Kilda! @jezierskimt.bsky.social @stkildawhs.bsky.social
Michał Jezierski@jezierskimt.bsky.social · 3mo agoOur (Jenny Dunn, Carolina Chagas, @willjsmith.bsky.social) paper on the evolution of island Wrens is finally out @evojlinnsoc.bsky.social! We describe the evolution of island gigantism in the St Kilda and Shetland subspecies. academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a...
Grateful to any visitors this season that are able to photograph any of @jezierskimt.bsky.social 's colour-ringed birds in the Village. If you're able to read a darvic ring, please report the alphanumeric code, time and location to NTS staff for contribution to Michal's research 🙏
Michał Jezierski@jezierskimt.bsky.social · 3mo agoWhat next? Well, I just slept for 10h, after returning from a month of fieldwork. We've set up a ringing project of St Kilda's Wrens + other passerines, supported by @stkildawhs.bsky.social @britishecologicalsociety.org @leverhulme.ac.uk. With this, we hope to study how island syndromes evolve.
St Kilda Wrens weigh ~14g (large birds >16g!). 7-11g is usual for mainland GB/continental Wrens. So this subspecies can weigh the same as some Great Tits or Blackcaps. GINORMOUS! Congrats @jezierskimt.bsky.social on the paper! #ornithology doi.org/10.1093/evol...
Michał Jezierski@jezierskimt.bsky.social · 3mo agoOur (Jenny Dunn, Carolina Chagas, @willjsmith.bsky.social) paper on the evolution of island Wrens is finally out @evojlinnsoc.bsky.social! We describe the evolution of island gigantism in the St Kilda and Shetland subspecies. academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a...
Our (Jenny Dunn, Carolina Chagas, @willjsmith.bsky.social) paper on the evolution of island Wrens is finally out @evojlinnsoc.bsky.social! We describe the evolution of island gigantism in the St Kilda and Shetland subspecies. academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a...
Uist's wild Rock Doves seem to be having a solid breeding season so far, with lots of nests (which is good, since they had quite a tough winter). Also nice to see @jezierskimt.bsky.social give a talk on his island Wren research.
NEW Friend or foul? Analysis of pigeon bones from Bronze Age Cyprus sheds light on their ancient relationship with humans for the first time, suggesting they were domesticated centuries earlier than previously attested. 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology
