🐝 Are you advertising a job or PhD in social insect biology? Get the word out by adding it to the PhDs/jobs noticeboard on the main IUSSI website! www.socialinsects.org/positions @iussi-nwes.bsky.social @ceiussi.bsky.social @iussi-nas.bsky.social #IUSSI2026 #IUSSI

Student and Postdoc Positions in Social Insect Biology

PhD, masters, and postdoc positions in social insect biology.

socialinsects.org

Are you part of a social insect lab group? Is your lab proudly displayed on our shiny new map of all the social insect labs around the world? If not, why not?! Add your lab here! www.socialinsects.org/map #IUSSI

“When I browse among my sixty-five albums of these selected photographs, my most cherished possession, I live once more in a vanished world.” - Wilfred Thesiger, ‘Visions of a Nomad’

Currently taking Swahili lessons, but on the lookout for a more perfect word than “mihang’o” from Kikuyu, which a friend defines as “being busy in a useless way” 🤣

@crab-exeter.bsky.social are a fantastic group of researchers, and a real beacon of excellence for Exeter. What a huge and deeply sad act of self sabotage this would be. Please consider signing their open letter👇🏻

Stu West@stuwest.bsky.social · last mo.

The University of Exeter have announced a programme of academic staff cuts, including all of www.exeter.ac.uk/research/gro... Sign the open letter of support at docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... @crab-exeter.bsky.social

Very cool new pre-print from @rmash.bsky.social and team “…parental care shapes the storage, expression and release of genetic variation…” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Parental care is a genetic capacitor

Parental care is widespread across the animal kingdom and plays a critical role in offspring development. Yet, its broader genetic and evolutionary impacts remain underexplored. Here, using the bipare...

biorxiv.org

“The very concept of an artificially generated video of wildlife is profane, operating on a level of self-interest that I struggle to comprehend. These videos make me fear the future”

Sabrina Imbler@sabs.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I wrote about one specific way AI is ruining my life defector.com/ai-animal-vi...

Just came across this a beautiful 20 minute film about fig wasps - apparently produced as an MSc project at the University of Leeds! www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg73...

Incestuous fig wasps: death in paradise [HD]

YouTube video by Peter Chen 2.0

youtube.com

Great week with Bristol 2nd year biology students on our Animal Behaviour field course, Pembrokeshire coast. Anemones fighting, bats echolocating, puffins hunting, gannets plunging, barnacles hiding, and 420 million year old fossils - all going on! @bristolbiosci.bsky.social

New paper in @pnas.org - using playback experiments we provide further evidence that bottlenose dolphins can use individual identity signals + social memory to guide decision-making. Female dolphins use individual vocal labels to track coercive males | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Deeply shocked not to see wasps at the top

Arvid Ågren@arvidagren.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Alister Hardy’s ladder of evolution.

There’s basically no public debate in the UK about how we have massively slashed aid, but it is really terrible. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Some of the world’s poorest countries to lose UK aid due to 56% budget cut

UK’s bilateral aid to African countries, which funds areas such as schools and clinics, to be cut by almost £900m by 2028-29

theguardian.com

My lab is recruiting a #postdoc! Please share! See ad below. If interested please reach out to me via email. Deadline to apply is Sept. 1st, 2026. #wasplove

🚨Job claxon🚨 4-year #Postdoc available in our lab in @camzoology.bsky.social developing molecular and anatomical approaches to mapping evolutionary changes in the brain, using #Heliconiini butterflies. Come join us, we are nice. 🧪 www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/researc...

For #DavidAttenborough’s 100th birthday, new research on the Panamanian wasp stars of his series #LifeInTheUndergrowth! Co-wasped with: @andyradford.bsky.social, Chris Wyatt, Emily Bell, Daisy Taylor @ucllifesciences.bsky.social @bristoluni.bsky.social royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Happy 100th birthday to David Attenborough! 🐋 🦀 🐆 At the launch of @bristolbiosci.bsky.social, I fed mealworm brownies to him and the Lord Mayor (whilst randomly wearing a beekeeping suit). Here's him raving about my insect cooking on the radio 😆 So I hope he celebrates properly - mealworm cake?

Seeking a motivated postdoc (2+3 yrs) to study links between cognition, behavior, and fitness in lemurs at our long-term field site in Kirindy Forest, Madagascar. Join an interdisciplinary team working on wild populations. @primatenzentrum.bsky.social. Apply here: www.dpz.eu

🥇Poster prize awarded to #AylaWebb at @asab.org #ASABSpring2026 🐝Reproductive hierarchies & queen succession in paper #wasps 🌟CONGRATULATIONS Ayla 🎉 @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social #ProudSupervisors @bristolbiosci.bsky.social @asab-meetings.bsky.social #fieldwork #ECR #PhD #experiments #evolution

Always get a thrill from flying over the (absolutely vast) Sahara!

🔊 Calling UK early career researches in astro, particle & nuclear physics. Please sign this open response to the proposed cuts at STFC ⚛️🧪🔭 "Protecting the UK's reputation as a science superpower requires not only investment, but continuity, confidence, and people" ✍️ ecr-openletter-stfc.github.io

Christopher Berry@cplberry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

An excellent open-letter enumerating the dangers to early career researchers and then wider society of proposed changes to UK science funding ecr-openletter-stfc.github.io Early-career researchers may like to add their signatures 🧪⚛️🔭 #AcademicSky #UKpol

🆕 The threat of large-scale deforestation is well known, but this new study reveals a surprising risk factor: small clearings of tropical forest account for more than half of net carbon losses across the Tropics. 📷 These satellite images show how deforestation has expanded in Peru’s Loreto region.

Four days left to apply for two postdocs in social evolution with me and @dustinrubenstein.com Based at the University of Bristol (UK), conducting fieldwork with wasps in Cameroon, Kenya, and South Africa.

Patrick Kennedy@patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 8mo ago

POSTDOC ALERT🚨 Two exciting social evolution postdoc positions live today! We're looking for two excellent field biologists. Join us to explore the evolution of sociality in wasps across Africa. Apply by 11th January. Collaboration with @dustinrubenstein.com @bristolbiosci.bsky.social

🚨Roll up, roll up, fully-funded #PhD deadlines approaching... 6th Jan: tinyurl.com/aja54nr6 8th Jan: tinyurl.com/4jfy47pp Social monitoring & manipulation #meerkats #mongooses #macaques #fieldwork #long-termdata @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social @ljnbrent.bsky.social @bristolbiosci.bsky.social

Honoured & humbled to receive a #Nature #Award for #Mentoring in #Science yesterday. ☺️ Testament to the wonderful #ECRs I've been privileged to work with. THANK YOU to all who nominated me. 🙏 #proud #support @natureportfolio.nature.com @bristolbiosci.bsky.social www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2025/de...

Sad to be missing the #ASABWinter2025 @asab-meetings.bsky.social conference this week, but two postdocs that may interest ASAB members:

Patrick Kennedy@patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 8mo ago

POSTDOC ALERT🚨 Two exciting social evolution postdoc positions live today! We're looking for two excellent field biologists. Join us to explore the evolution of sociality in wasps across Africa. Apply by 11th January. Collaboration with @dustinrubenstein.com @bristolbiosci.bsky.social

blown away by this, given the names of previous winners - recent and not so recent - hugely grateful to @zslofficial.bsky.social, and all the many students, postgrads, postdocs and collaborators who have helped make the last 14 years so fun and exciting Will go back to avoiding cameras now… 🫣

ZSL@zslofficial.bsky.social · 8mo ago

The ZSL Scientific Medal is also awarded to Professor Stephen Montgomery, @bristolbiosci.bsky.social whose research has provided insights into the relationships between ecological niche specialisation, brain structure, and cognitive function 🏅 @ebablab.bsky.social

Please repost or forward to those who may be interested! @bristolbiosci.bsky.social @asab.org @iussi-nwes.bsky.social @iussi-nas.bsky.social @britishecologicalsociety.org

Patrick Kennedy@patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 8mo ago

POSTDOC ALERT🚨 Two exciting social evolution postdoc positions live today! We're looking for two excellent field biologists. Join us to explore the evolution of sociality in wasps across Africa. Apply by 11th January. Collaboration with @dustinrubenstein.com @bristolbiosci.bsky.social

POSTDOC ALERT🚨 Two exciting social evolution postdoc positions live today! We're looking for two excellent field biologists. Join us to explore the evolution of sociality in wasps across Africa. Apply by 11th January. Collaboration with @dustinrubenstein.com @bristolbiosci.bsky.social