📢 EMAILS HAVE OFFICIALLY GONE OUT! 📢 We thought about using other forms of communication but given the distance, we figured facial displays, bird song, and olfactory signals probably wouldn't carry as far as we needed.

European Conference on Behavioural Biology@ecbb2026.bsky.social · 2mo ago

After a relaxing bank holiday weekend, we're right back to #ECBB2026 organising. Today's task: Abstracts! Keep an eye on those emails this week!!

🚨4-year fully funded PhD in the lab of @magicmicrobe.bsky.social (& collaborating with me!): How does iron availability shape the ability of pathogens to invade the gut microbiome? Apply by Jan 26th Advert: research.reading.ac.uk/foodbiosyste... How to apply: research.reading.ac.uk/foodbiosyste...

Pre-holiday preprint! We experimentally manipulated resource availability in a wild rodent population and found pervasive effects on host biology and diverse effects across the parasite community in a naturally co-infected host. Check it out! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Late advertisement of our new pre-print: Contact structure and population immunity shape the selective advantage of emerging variants www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

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

Interested in how life history may shape the gut microbiome of a wild mammal? Keen on getting to work with an iconic long-term study system in Scotland? Check out this PhD opportunity with me, Josephine Pemberton and @gfalbery.bsky.social Reach out to chat more! www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

🚨 Exciting new work out today led by @carolinecummings.bsky.social! Do bats host deadly viruses? Yes - but only specific bats (that just happen to be found in a lot of places!). Challenging some big ideas in the zoonosis world with data. Well done Caroline and team!!

Communications Biology@commsbio.nature.com · 9mo ago

just in time for #batweek --Phylogenetic and ML analyses show that viral epidemic potential is not uniform among bats: virulence, transmissibility, and death burden cluster within distinct clades.🦇@carolinecummings.bsky.social @colincarlson.bsky.social @viralemergence.org go.sn.pub/acnbg1

I'm v excited to be recruiting a PhD student to work on badger behaviour and ecology! Starting date is March 2026; see the ad here, or message me for more details: www.gregalbery.me/s/March-2026...

New preprint! We unexpectedly discovered that some Caenorhabditis species delete parts of their somatic genome early in development, which fragments their chromosomes and eliminates key germline genes. Multiple lines of evidence suggest this bizarre process was present in the ancestors of C. elegans

bioRxivpreprint@biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Programmed DNA elimination was present in the last common ancestor of Caenorhabditis nematodes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.23.681605v1

I'm v excited to be recruiting a PhD student to work on badger behaviour and ecology! Starting date is March 2026; see the ad here, or message me for more details: www.gregalbery.me/s/March-2026...

2 job adverts on a NERC project w myself + @darrenobbard.bsky.social on “What determines the virome: ecology and the environment, evolution, or species history?” early 2026 in @uniexecec.bsky.social - Postdoc: jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr... - RA: jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr... Pls share!

New preprint! 🥳🎉 We looked at viral coinfection patterns at the largest scale ever in wildlife. We found a strong association among CoVs, PMVs, and influenza A, and higher coinfection rates in wildlife trade; plus, evidence that bats accumulate persistent infections. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Celebrating the publication of our big collaborative spatial-social meta-analysis of density-dependent transmission effects, out now in Nature Eco Evo! doi.org/10.1038/s415... (or rdcu.be/eD6eB)

🧠 What?! A meeting just on disgust?! Yes!! 📍 @iast.fr, France | 🗓 Dec 4–5, 2025 💥 Keynotes by Paul Rozin @upenn.edu, @cr-amo.bsky.social, Philip Powell @sheffielduni.bsky.social & Cindy Kam 🌍 From Psychology to Politics, Biology & beyond 🎓 Abstract submissions until Aug 31: forms.gle/QBmkUB3aLDjY...

Very excited to contribute to this symposium organized by @delphinedemoor.bsky.social and colleagues, on comparative research on animal sociality. Join us if you are attending @behaviour2025.bsky.social this August!