What makes this parrot look green? It's more than just a pigment! We found that the color comes from the interaction of pigments, nano- and even microstructures of the feather itself. @jessica-dobson.bsky.social @michaelnicolai.bsky.social @wybouw.bsky.social @lilianadalba.bsky.social.
Michaël Nicolaï
@michaelnicolai.bsky.social
Proud dad of three. Post-doc at the EON lab (UGent). Lover of color. Nothing makes sense in evolution except the biology of (f)light.
1/ Nature doesn't come with labels. Biological patterns are often continuous, overlapping, and difficult to categorize. That's why we built BioPatternNet: a pipeline that quantifies pattern variation from biological images without relying on predefined pattern categories dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn...
The Brock Lab is hiring a postdoc to help us study sensory ecology and sexual selection in urban reptiles! 🐍🦎🌆 Comes with a $5K travel stipend. App closes July 1! careers-sdsurf.icims.com/jobs/20539/p...
Prospective Employees | SDSU
careers-sdsurf.icims.com
Jetlag brain is awesome. Upon arrival I was excited to have spotted a MEGA: the second Common Grackle for the Netherlands.. Except I was not in the Netherlands 🤦♂️
I am hiring a PhD student to join our group in Lund, Sweden working on an ERC-funded project to untangle color and polarization vision in some amazing crustaceans – minute water fleas and pugnacious mantis shrimp! Please forward this to promising students. Apply here: lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/...
The state of natural history institutions across Europe reflects decades of neglect and lack of vision from administrators, present and past
We often assume that reflectance is “spectrally well‑behaved.” If an animal is bright or dark in the (human) visible, surely the rest of the spectrum just… follows along? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Color and Near‐Infrared Reflectance Covary in Distinct Ways Across Taxa
Solar reflectance across ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared wavelengths was analyzed in integuments and eggs of 322 species. We found consistent positive correlations between UV and visible refl....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
New preprint🚨happy to share work from my first PhD chapter, evaluating the ways in which we can integrate ancestral state estimations into disparity workflows, completed alongside @tguillerme.bsky.social , Gavin Thomas & @nhcooper123.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧪
Roll up, roll up! Looking for a postdoc? Want somewhere that's academia adjacent? Interested in seabirds, plastics, and conservation? Come work with me and @adriftlab.bsky.social! If you want to help develop an application, get in touch! #ornithology #seabirds #PhDjobs #PostdocJobs
Big opportunities for researchers 🌍 We are investing nearly €400 million to help researchers share their work and collaborate with the best scientific teams across the EU. The 2026 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships are now open. More: link.europa.eu/PNxpxw
Want to switch countries for a postdoc? Specifically, are you European, or are you non-European wanting to come to Europe? Now's the time to reach out to potential host labs! (It's very normal to cold-email a PI about potentially hosting -- don't be shy!)
Big opportunities for researchers 🌍 We are investing nearly €400 million to help researchers share their work and collaborate with the best scientific teams across the EU. The 2026 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships are now open. More: link.europa.eu/PNxpxw
Hi all. I am very excited that after 6 years I finally got my phylogenetic comparative methods book and online exercises online. Feel free to use and share. The book is here: nhcooper123.github.io/pcm-primer/. Note that it is not finished, we had to abandon it before the sunk costs fallacy broke us
Phylogenetic Comparative Methods
Phylogenetic Comparative Methods
nhcooper123.github.io
Are you (or something you know) looking for a PhD? Like trait macroevolution but also yearn for an applied topic? Think plants are neat? Want to live in beautiful northeast Scotland?! 🌊🐬⛰️🏴 I'm advertising a PhD in my lab! Deadline April 22, email me any questions. www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
QUARTILES DLA CASE: Trait-based drivers of the ornamental plant trade at University of Aberdeen on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - QUARTILES DLA CASE: Trait-based drivers of the ornamental plant trade at University of Aberdeen , listed on FindAPhD.com
findaphd.com
Awesome work by Jess! And an opportunity for me to see the Zaglossus attenboroughi holotype. bucketlist✅
Back again with more cool mammal updates, this time in maybe the coolest mammal - the platypus! Thrilled to share the second chapter of my PhD, out today in Biology Letters. We found spherical hollow melanosomes in the fur of the platypus, maybe a total vertebrate first! doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...
Back again with more cool mammal updates, this time in maybe the coolest mammal - the platypus! Thrilled to share the second chapter of my PhD, out today in Biology Letters. We found spherical hollow melanosomes in the fur of the platypus, maybe a total vertebrate first! doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...
Our work is part of @zoologysthlm.bsky.social and @scilifelab.se! ☺️
🦎 Funded 4-year PhD position on Lizard Evolutionary Ecology in our lab at UCLouvain (Belgium)! Apply before 9 March! jobs.uclouvain.be/Personnelsci...
New paper out! 🐦📊 We realease AVONICHE, a global dataset with detailed information on the proportional use of 32 foraging niches, combining dietary categories with the behaviours and substrates used to access resources. Openly access the paper and data in GEB: doi.org/10.1111/geb....
Thrilled to share our new review online with @scottvedwards.bsky.social in @Trends Ecol & Evo! “pangenomics is rapidly transforming our ability to dissect the genetic basis of ecological and evolutionary change in natural systems.”
Online now: Pangenomes: new tools for ecological and evolutionary genomics
Currently recruiting PhD students to follow up on this result - please come to have a chat if interested #ASABWinter2025
Compared to warning colouration, camouflage is more affected by the sensory enviro 👀 🦋 #ASABWinter2025
🚨Two funded PhDs on the evolutionary ecology of antipredator colouration 🦋 with myself and Iliana Medina. One in Swansea tinyurl.com/4thtbph6 deadline Jan 12th @crocus-dla.bsky.social The other in Melbourne - deadline Jan 1st Please share among potential students!
Our new paper is out today in Journal of the Royal Society Interface (link below). All about eggshell roughness: "Scratching beyond the surface: examining macroecological patterns in avian eggshell texture". Congrats first author Marie Attard, and thank you @leverhulme.ac.uk for the funding.
Like big trait databases? Think biology should think about humans more? Fascinated by house plants? My fantastic colleagues and I are advertising a PhD project based at the University of Aberdeen on the ornamental plant trade. Come join us! www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
QUARTILES DLA CASE: Trait-based drivers of the ornamental plant trade at University of Aberdeen on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - QUARTILES DLA CASE: Trait-based drivers of the ornamental plant trade at University of Aberdeen , listed on FindAPhD.com
findaphd.com
Back from #BOUasm25. I can’t praise the organisation enough? An amazing line-up of speakers! I’ve come back feeling inspired! I can now also check "seeing Cook and Darwin specimens" from my bucket list thanks to the amazing team at Tring.
Anyone looking for a Australia-based postdoc? Like animal behaviour / coding / birds? My fantastic collaborator, Iliana Medina, is advertising a position researching bird nests: unimelb.wd105.myworkdayjobs.com/en-GB/UoM_Ex...
Research Fellow in Behaviour and Ecology
Role type: Full Time; Fixed Term for 2 years Faculty: Faculty of Science Department/ School: School of Biosciences Salary: Level A: $87,266 - $118,416 (PhD Entry Level - $110,319) plus 17% super Colla...
unimelb.wd105.myworkdayjobs.com
We’re kicking off session 1 with a keynote from Alex Bond, “From specimens to solutions: the evolving role and current challenges of natural history collections” 💭 Andreanna Welch joins us as Chair for this session. @thelabandfield.bsky.social #BOUasm25 #ornithology #naturalhistory
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...
Excited to share our new paper where we find that the rise, decline and fall of clades is not explained by the usual suspects (diversity-dependence, ecological opportunities) but rather by species' insidious loss of macroevolutionary fitness: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/3
Loss of macroevolutionary species fitness explains the rise and fall of clades - Nature Ecology & Evolution
The interplay between speciation and extinction rates shapes clade diversity dynamics. Using a novel phylogenetic model that includes living and fossil lineages, the authors estimate speciation and ex...
nature.com
Hechenleitner, E.M., Martinelli, A.G., Rocher, S. et al. A long-necked early dinosaur from a newly discovered Upper Triassic basin in the Andes. Nature (2025). doi.org/10.1038/s415...
A long-necked early dinosaur from a newly discovered Upper Triassic basin in the Andes - Nature
Discovery of a nearly complete skeleton of Huayracursor jaguensis, a Carnian dinosaur from the Northern Precordillera Basin in northwestern Argentina provides evidence of increased body size and early...
doi.org