Sofia Forss

Our latest newsletter from the field is out — projects & troops updates 💡
Enjoy the read!
urbanvervetproject.weebly.com/newsmonthly-...

This is THE Summer school you want to do: expand your knowledge and your view on intelligence whilst getting to network across disciplines and inspiring people ⭐️🤟🏼👇🏼

🚨New Paper on Bonobo and Chimpanzee tool flexibility. As so often performance is leveraged by the captivity effect yet the two species differ in explorative behavior and how readily they switch between tool types. For more 👇🏼 royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article... @rachelaharrison.bsky.social

Investigating Anthropogenic and Social Influences on Diet of Semi‐Urban Vervet Monkeys Using DNA Metabarcoding We used eDNA metabarcoding of faecal samples to quantify the dietary composition of two vervet monkey populations in a semi-urban environment in South Africa over a 4-month period, and compared these...

urban impacts on primate diet in areas of human co-existence - find out more in our latest paper 🐒🏡@urbanvervetproject.bsky.social

Anthropogenic and Social Influences on Diet of Semi‐Urban Vervet Monkeys Using DNA Metabarcoding - Ecology and Evolution - onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

sometimes you have to pause and just be grateful ✨for having such kind and awesome colleagues - who knows exactly what you need 🫶🏼

So proud and happy to have such an amazing field team, wishing you all a very joyful festive season with our latest Newsletter ✨👇🏼

How getting richer made teenagers less free We value children more than ever. But we're suffocating them.

Excellent piece from Kelsey Piper at The Argument. How getting richer made teenagers less free . I really like The Argument, in general, worth checking out.
open.substack.com/pub/theargum...

Why matriarchs reign supreme in the meerkat world As a corner of Africa heats up, new research shows how the future of the species rests with powerful matriarchs making tough choices for survival.

Lovely piece on how meerkats deal with climate change by @chameauleon.bsky.social in National Geographic: www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti... I had the pleasure to chat with Camille about the importance of understanding how extreme heat changes food availability 🐛 for meerkats

Can’t imagine a better PhD topic 😉👇🏼 Cognitive development i. ecologically relevant settings 💪🏻

Exciting PhD opportunity to develop tech and software to record and understand wild animal behaviour. Fully funded by EPSRC DLA. Based at @uniexecec.bsky.social; co-supervised by Alex Thornton (@cornishjackdaws.bsky.social), @kjhockings.bsky.social and collaborators. Apply: tinyurl.com/5fr73snt

From preferences to pollination: do hummingbirds and bees differ in how they choose flowers?

#PhD position!

Comparing #foraging and #cognition in #hummingbirds and #bumblebees

Fieldwork in the Canadian Rockies, lab experiments at @newcastleuni.bsky.social, and ecological modelling at @uniofstandrews.bsky.social

Details (including my email) here: iapetus.ac.uk/studentships...

3 year postdoc funded by @ukri.org NERC on between-group cooperation in the Shark Bay dolphins is now live - please share widely 🙏 www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

🚨Who wants to work with Kalahari meerkats? A MSc project with @mathildemartin.bsky.social at the University of Zurich.
#bioacoustics 🧪

Developmental trajectories of cognitive traits in meerkats match socio-ecological demands Understanding cognitive development is fundamental to contextualize adult cognitive phenotypes, and thus the operational pathways for cognitive evolution. The ontogeny of specific cognitive traits is ...

Interested in early life learning and cognitive development ? In our new pre-print we present data on developmental trajectories of three cognitive traits spanning wild meerkat pups critical life transitions 👇🏼
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Field Activities 🙌🏼

Congratulations Danai 🥂 Fantastic!

Funded PhD open to UK-domiciled, home fee applicants of Black African, Black Caribbean or other Black or mixed Black heritage - Biological market monitoring and manipulation in social animals at Unive... PhD Project - Funded PhD open to UK-domiciled, home fee applicants of Black African, Black Caribbean or other Black or mixed Black heritage - Biological market monitoring and manipulation in social an...

Looking for a #PhD?
Interested in #SocialBehaviour #BiologicalMarkets #Fieldwork?
Want to be based in #Bristol?
Check out this project with me, @ljnbrent.bsky.social & #PatrickKennedy:

tinyurl.com/aja54nr6

For UK-domiciled Black-heritage applicants
Get in touch for more information
Please #share

Dwarf mongoose

Rhesus macaques grooming

Meerkat

❓ Want to join us?
📢 Fully funded #PhD for UK-domiciled Black heritage candidates
🐵 Biological market monitoring & manipulation in social animals #mongooses #macaques #fieldwork

👥 With me, #LaurenBrent & #PatrickKennedy
🎓 @bristolbiosci.bsky.social

ℹ️ www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

🙏Share widely

Our findings suggest that vervets do not integrate evolutionary novel labels in their responses but instead react to dogs with ingrained adaptive behaviors.

Living with urban fear: vervet monkey response to an evolutionarily new predator Humans have facilitated contacts between prey and predator species that have originally not co-evolved, reshuffling the prey-predator arms race. How do prey cope with an evolutionarily new predation r...

🚨In this new Pre-print we present our findings on Monkey-Dog interactions
🐒🐕‍🦺🐒🐕‍🦺 @UrbanVervet
Living with urban fear: vervet monkey response to an evolutionarily new predator www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Analysis of communication and collective behavior in animal groups

⭐PhD position available!⭐
Come join us @imprs-qbee.bsky.social to study communication and collective behavior in animal groups! We're looking for someone excited to use computational approaches to tackle biological questions, using our full-group tracking datasets
imprs-qbee.mpg.de/121465/analy...

in the beginning of September the UVP hosted a few days with our collaborators from the Sinergia project on gut-microbiom axis & behavior. Looking forward to see what the urban diet reveals in terms of health 🐒🍕🐒 @UrbanVervet Project @SimbithiEcoEstate

oh that is adorable! Looking at this reminds me, we totally should do some site comparative stuff at some point 👍🏻

Image showing Hobson Lab logo (with parakeets, a social network, and R code), two Monk Parakeets, and several individually-marked parakeets with the text "Now recruiting PhD students!!"

**PhD POSITIONS** I am recruiting 1-2 PhD students to work on sociality and cognition in Monk Parakeets, starting Fall 2026. Full ad is here: hobsonresearch.com/index.php/20... (please help spread the word!)

We are hiring - PDRA position exploring how information access shapes social dynamics in killer whales. Collaboration with @samellisq.bsky.social @drwhale.bsky.social Prof Dan Franks (York) start 1st Nov (or ASAP) end 31st Oct 2028. Apps close on 19th Oct.

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOT336/p...

@durhampsych.bsky.social current has 5 (FIVE!!) PhD studentships being advertised!

3 to work with me on children as agents of cultural evolution

2 to work with @drboothroyd.bsky.social on examining school-based body image interventions.

Please share and apply!

www.durham.ac.uk/departments/...

Simbithi study reveals health crisis in urban monkeys caused by human food | North Coast Courier Experts warn against feeding monkeys as human food is doing more harm than good.

The Urban Vervet Projects educational work is featured in local South African news 🐒 Thanks Stef 🙏🏻 www.citizen.co.za/north-coast-...

🚨 Junior Research Fellow position (+possible PhD conversion) studying Emergent Collective Intelligence for Ephemeral Resource Tracking. Based with Akanksha Rathore at BITS Pilani (India) and including visits to Konstanz (Germany) to collaborate with us! Apply by 12 September. More info 👇

🐕 Dogs, 🐺Wolfs & 🇸🇪 Sweden - sounds like a fantastic combination to me 👇🏼

News from Kalahari on Meerkat foraging ontogeny 👇🏼