We just released a new open resource for studying evolution, ecology, colour, behaviour & biodiversity. OzButterflies 🦋 ✨ 4,000+ individuals 🌈 Visible + UV images 🧬 CO1 barcodes 📈 Spectral reflectance data 🏞️ 125 species doi.org/10.1093/data... @mherberstein.bsky.social @livuni-ives.bsky.social
Sandra Winters
@sandrawinters.bsky.social
ecology & evolutionary biology, animal coloration, evolution of diversity Postdoc at CU Boulder @colorado.edu (she/her)
New paper out now! Biologically inspired warning patterns deter a passerine, Parus major, from digital turbine blades academic.oup.com/beheco/artic...
Biologically inspired warning patterns deter a passerine, Parus major, from digital turbine blades
By mimicking the warning colours of animals that ward off birds, we can produce wind turbine patterns to which birds are averse, reducing the likelihood of
academic.oup.com
New pre-print out, how behaviour shapes camouflage evolution for spiders! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
PI presenting their group’s work at a conference.
Steve is trying his best at middle management.
Not wanting a king in America is one of the most foundational, patriotic, and non-partisan ideals in this country. This is not about left versus right. It’s about whether we want to be ruled by a king or dictator, and we do not. ❌👑 📍NO KINGS CHANDLER, AZ
Events are underway across the U.S. in today’s historic protest! #NoKings ❌👑 Find yours at NoKings.org
between this and the "orange monarchs" thing the entomologists are really having a field day
LICE protesters at #nokings DC
Thanks for all you do Joe! I'm excited to vote in Colorado for the first time in November! #NoKings
After debating on the House Floor late into the night yesterday, grateful to make it back from Washington D.C. just in time to march with THOUSANDS of Coloradans at the #nokings protests in Boulder and Longmont!
So excited to have received an #HFSPResearchGrant to study trilobite eyes with Luke Parry @oxuniearthsci.bsky.social and Gil Ju Lee (Pusan National University)!🥳 I'll be recruiting a postdoc @bristolbiosci.bsky.social - if 3D data, optical modelling, and fossils tickle your interest, stay tuned!
Attention scientists from all over the world🙃 The 2026 #HFSPResearchGrants are out! 🥳 117 scientists from 31 countries will pursue bold, interdisciplinary research, from #neuroscience to #ecology and beyond! 🧪 Are you one of the new #HFSPAwardees? 🔗https://bit.ly/4uGmMQ3 #sts #HFSP
Our BehaveAI paper has just come out! Easy & effective tracking & behavioural classification, even with tiny (2px), fast moving, camouflaged objects. Paper: doi.org/10.1371/jour... Download: github.com/troscianko/B... @uniexecec.bsky.social @kevinjgaston.bsky.social @jimamclgalloway.bsky.social
New bowerbird paper out, we asked whether male great bowerbirds care about the light environment around the bower where they display to females. Short answer: not really. What they do care about is having a display arena with strong visual contrast on the ground. 🐦 tinyurl.com/2v7rycdz
🚨NEW PAPER🚨 Need to #camouflage on the move? Easy - simply seek out something that's coloured like you and move along with it! 🐠 Read the latest #trumpetfish instalment here: tinyurl.com/4tb5h5hk @royalsociety.org #shadowing #predator #experiment #marine #movement
Excited to soon start my new role as Academy of Finland Research Fellow 🦋🐛I’ll later be advertising a PhD position on tiger moth colour and genomics, and will be speaking at #ESEB2025 this week if you want an idea of what’s going on!
🔴New #trumpetfish content!🔴 This species is colour #polymorphic so we dove (pun intended) into how the relative abundance and saliency of each morph influences the #behaviour of their prey. Find out more via the link below! 🎺🐠 🔗 tinyurl.com/39vn5skp #behavioralecology
Antagonistic effects of predator color morph abundance and saliency on prey anti-predator responses
Predators can have different color morphs, but whether morph abundance or saliency is more influential in shaping antipredator behavior in prey remains unc
tinyurl.com
"I don't know why people have such a hard time getting papers accepted. Back in my day I published in Nature all the time."
Paper in Nature 150 years ago. Beats reading any single-cell experiment…
🐠💥2 year postdoc in fish sensory ecology!! 💥🐟 If you’re into animal colour, collective behaviour, predator-prey interactions, enjoy behavioural experiments and fieldwork, please apply! Based in Oxford with fieldwork in northwest Thailand (and elsewhere). Please repost! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNM294/p...
Mandatory reading for anybody in German academia: #ichbinHanna #WissZeitVG
“There is far too much power in the hands of professors in the German system,” says @leising.bsky.social. My latest @nature.com story digs into efforts to tackle the entrenched structural heirarchy that enables academic bullies.
📢 Meet the speakers: Johanna Mappes 📢 @JohannaMappes is an evolutionary ecologist from the University of Helsinki (@helsinkiuni), Finland. Read more about her here: eseb2025.com/team/johanna-mappes
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... New paper in pre print!
Biologically inspired warning patterns deter birds from wind turbines
Wind power has been at the forefront of investment and innovation in renewable energy. However, bird fatalities from collisions with wind turbines present an ecological and social challenge to the gro...
biorxiv.org
It's not a dire wolf. It's a gray wolf clone with 20 dire-wolf gene edits, and with some dire wolf traits. And here's my story! Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/s...
I say this every time de-extinction comes up: it makes no sense to devote science to bringing back extinct animals when we can’t be bothered to keep extant ones alive in the first place.
Great kick-off by my team @aplantaginis.bsky.social at #OIKOSFin25! 🎉 @zowioudendijk.bsky.social shared fascinating insights on the evolution of reflex bleeding in Arctiinae, and @theobrown.bsky.social made a compelling case for 'why to pay to be lazy'(—if you’re a toxic butterfly!) 🦋🔥
The DOGE firings have nothing to do with “efficiency” or “cutting waste.” They’re a direct push to weaken federal agencies perceived as liberal. This was evident from the start, and now the data confirms it: targeted agencies overwhelmingly those seen as more left-leaning. 🧵⬇️
Firings are happening right now at the National Science Foundation. Essential staff are being cut. This isn’t about the budget. If it was, they’d be going after the military (17%) or state appropriations (38%). NSF is 0.7% of the federal budget. All federal employees make up only 4% of the budget.
PLEASE SHARE: Postdoc Opportunity in Montpellier France. 18 months starting May 2025: Generative AI for Studying the Influence of Habitats on the Diversification of Bird Color Patterns. Applications and information here: tinyurl.com/2368teak @evoldir.bsky.social
*POSTDOC JOB* If you are excited about animal sociality/cognition, are computationally-inclined, and are looking for a postdoc, I'll be hiring soon! Please come talk to me today or tomorrow at #SICB2025, or reach out over email. Official ad coming soon!
Fully-funded PhD: Comparative analysis of collective behaviour in natural and artificial systems. Supervised by Andrew King and myself at Swansea University, @rjpheathcote.bsky.social (Oxford) and Marina Papadopoulou (Tuscia). Come fly in the swaRmverse! www.swansea.ac.uk/postgraduate...
If you like genomics, speciation, and primates, this PhD position is for you! Unraveling the genomic architecture of speciation and gene flow in a crazy group of monkeys at U of Edinburgh . Do reach out with questions! evol.mcmaster.ca/brian/evoldi...