Do social bird species have more stable demographic histories? We do not find this to be the case in our new preprint doi.org/10.32942/X2N... Together with @ryangermain.bsky.social and many others
Louis Bliard
@lbliard.bsky.social
Postdoc at Aarhus University. Social evolution, population ecology, ornithology, and open science. Data editor at Proc B.
What drives the variation in mutation rates between seals and walruses, gulls and pelicans? Maybe selection counteracting the burden of deleterious mutations- or maybe it is a spandrel, a neutral byproduct of the diversification of development and life-history academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...
Mutation rate variation as the neutral byproduct of developmental and life history diversification
Abstract. Understanding why species differ in their rates of mutation is central to explaining patterns of molecular and phenotypic evolution. Mutation rat
academic.oup.com
🚨 Exciting news! The Swiss Ornithological Institute is starting a collaborative program that offers multi-sensor geolocators and analytical support for bird migration research, focusing on underrepresented species & regions. Interested? geopressure.org/GeoCollabForm/ Please share!
We are looking for two field managers‼️Starting end of August South Africa 🌍 If you have fieldwork experience and want a job with added responsibility of overseeing the field activities, see below for more information. 🐣 Deadline 15/06/2026 sociableweaverproject.com/recruitment/... #fieldjobs
Are you interested in doing local ancestry inference (LAI) using imputed #aDNA? Take a look at our preprint, together with @bodkan.bsky.social: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Promises and limitations of local ancestry inference in imputed ancient genomes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.19.725905v1
🚨FULLY FUNDED PHD POSITION!🚨 If you are interested in trying to answer the question of "How did climate shape the movements, interactions, and evolution of hominin populations?" Come join my lab at @humanorigins.bsky.social 🧬🧪 deadline 7th of June ⬇️ uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet...
🚨New (very special) preprint! 🚨"What is the human germline mutation rate? methodological innovations, challenges, and evolutionary implications" doi.org/10.32942/X2T... The product of many coffees & pains au chocolat with @hhydrochaerus.bsky.social debating the knows and unknowns about mutations 🧬🧪
Ecological harshness has a weak influence on reproductive trade-offs in a #greattit population: @lbliard.bsky.social et al. 2026: doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...
Ecological harshness has a weak influence on reproductive trade-offs in a great tit population
Abstract. Lack’s seminal work on bird clutch sizes has spurred expansive research on reproductive trade-offs, especially focusing on offspring quantity–qua
doi.org
In a sea of opinions about the role of LLMs in academics I offer my own. Apart from being harmful, exploitive plagiarism machines, LLMs rob us of the opportunity to experience the gift of friction in writing, which changes how we think. We must not give away that gift. doi.org/10.1002/fee....
Thinking like a mountain in the age of AI
Click on the article title to read more.
doi.org
New paper out in @jevbio.bsky.social Using 58 years of data, we look at the effect of environmental variation on reproductive trade-offs in great tits. With @jsmartin.bsky.social, @dzchilds.bsky.social, Ella Cole, @sheldonbirds.bsky.social, @paniw.bsky.social & Arpat Ozgul doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...
Ecological harshness has a weak influence on reproductive trade-offs in a great tit population
Abstract. Lack’s seminal work on bird clutch sizes has spurred expansive research on reproductive trade-offs, especially focusing on offspring quantity–qua
doi.org
We have published a new pre-print showing a decline in great tit adult and nestling mass of around 1 gram in 47 y. [rate of approx. -0.040 Hadanes] With @ellafcole.bsky.social, @devisatarkar.bsky.social, Sam. Crofts, @mcmahok.bsky.social & @sheldonbirds.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
How do we know our research results are REAL? We replicate them! Most folks agree but lament on how hard it is to publish these replications. My dearest gentle reader, lament no more! Delighted to unveil: Replication Studies, a new section of Behavioral Ecology 1/ academic.oup.com/beheco/artic...
Replication studies: a win-win for early-career training and behavioral ecology
Replicating previous research builds confidence that results are real and meaningful. But close replications are rare due to limitations in resources and d
academic.oup.com
I am looking for a PhD student to join my new Socio-Eco-Evo group, hosted in Katie Peichel's Evolutionary Ecology Division @ University of Bern. We're offering a fully funded 4-year position, studying social plasticity and behavioral adaptation among stickleback in Greenland. Please share around!
🚨 PhD offer (please share) Fascinated by bird migration and movement ecology? 🦜🌍 Join us at @vogelwarte.bsky.social to study annual cycle energetics with multi-sensor loggers in multiple species Deadline: 20 Feb 2026 Starting: June 2026 Supervision: Martins Briedis & me Info: tinyurl.com/2dbv9nzh
We've got ISSUES. Literally. We scraped >100k special issues & over 1 million articles to bring you a PISS-poor paper. We quantify just how many excess papers are published by guest editors abusing special issues to boost their CVs. How bad is it & what can we do? arxiv.org/abs/2601.07563 A 🧵 1/n
Happy to hare that the preprint I was advertising below has been published by the Journal of Evolutionary Biology: academic.oup.com/jeb/advance-... Thanks @jevbio.bsky.social for supporting responsible publishing!
Time to publish responsibly: DAFNEE, a database of academia-friendly journals in ecology and evolutionary biology
Abstract. The current economics of scientific publishing reveal a profound imbalance: academia pays prices far exceeding the actual costs of publication. R
academic.oup.com
New preprint: we advertise DAFNEE, a database of academia-friendly eco-evo-archaeo journals. 1/6 #AcademicPublishing #ecoevo #archaeology #EthicalPublishing #SocietyJournals #DiamondOpenAccess doi.org/10.32942/X24...
Our paper in the PNAS Special Feature on 🐕 is out! We demonstrated the accuracy of imputing ancient canid genomes, looked at inbreeding levels over the past 10,000 years and found genomic regions resistant to ROH which were enriched for immunity and chemosensory genes. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Imputation of ancient canid genomes reveals inbreeding history over the past 10,000 years | PNAS
The multi-millennia-long history between dogs and humans has placed them at the forefront of archaeological and genomic research. Despite ongoing e...
pnas.org
I’m excited to announce the launch of my lab at EPFL in Jan 2026 🎉. We’ll combine evolution & synthetic biology to study and (re)engineer bacterial communication. I’m recruiting PhD students to start in the first semester of 2026. Apply via EPFL PhD programs by Nov 1 drive.google.com/file/d/1cm-t...
Interested in a PhD in ornithology? Funding available for projects at the interface of ecology, behaviour & evolution from Oct '26 working on long-term population studies of tits at Wytham, based in @biology.ox.ac.uk in the new Life & Mind Building in Oxford www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
📣 Hot off the press at #ProcB! 🔍 Our study checked data/code-sharing policies in 275 eco/evo journals and compliance in Proc B (n=2,340) & Ecology Letters (n=571). Policies exist, but clarity and strictness vary, affecting reproducibility. 🔗 doi.org/10.1098/rspb...
🚨 The #SMBE2026 website is live! 🚨 The call for symposia is now open ➡️ smbe2026.org/symposia/ 📅 Opens: Sept 1, 2025 📅 Closes: Oct 15, 2025 📢 Results: Nov 3, 2025 We can’t wait to welcome you to beautiful #Copenhagen 🌍✨ @official-smbe.bsky.social #evolution #science
Symposia - SMBE 2026 - Copenhagen Denmark
SMBE 2026 Symposia Check deadlines and important dates below. Days Hours Minutes Seconds Conference Symposia We are now accepting proposals for symposium for the 2026 Annual meeting taking place in C...
smbe2026.org
My first solo author paper is now available in early view at Methods in Ecology and Evolution! I develop a covariance reaction norm (CRN) model for estimating continuous, multivariate, and nonlinear environmental effects on G and P matrices. besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Covariance reaction norms: A flexible method for estimating complex environmental effects on trait (co)variances
Estimating quantitative genetic and phenotypic (co)variances is crucial for investigating evolutionary ecological phenomena such as developmental integration, life history trade-offs and niche spe...
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com