Klaudia Szala

Recent breeding experience improves egg ejection behaviour Abstract. Recognizing one’s own eggs is crucial for birds, especially for hosts of brood parasites that must identify and reject different-looking parasiti

Hot off the press 🐣 Do birds have any idea of what their eggs look like? Contrary to our expectations, we show that barn swallows don't, nor do they learn it over time. Yet that doesn't stop them from successfully ejecting foreign eggs!
🔗 Read more here: doi.org/10.1098/rsbl... #OpenAccess

Deep-sea fish reveal an alternative developmental trajectory for vertebrate vision Hybrid photoreceptors in larval deep-sea fish reveal evolution of an alternative developmental trajectory for vertebrate vision.

#Fish #vision #deepsea

"The current dogma is that vertebrates develop cone-dominated retinas first, adding rods later. Here we show that larval deep-sea fishes have “hybrid” photoreceptors, expressing cone-specific genes in rod-like cells."

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🐴🐄 ISAE Regional Conference in Prague in June! 🐴🐄

@applied-ethology.bsky.social

🗓️ June 9-12, 2026

📍Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague

📋 Abstracts can be submitted from March 1, 2026

#ISAE #AppliedEthology #AnimalBehaviour #AnimalWelfare #Conference #SaveTheDate #FromSensorsToCognition

My collaborator at University of Copenhagen, Anders Garm, is looking for a 3 year postdoc to work on bioluminescence, neurobiology and ecology of ctenophores. More information here:
candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...

Got Beef With Cowbirds? This Researcher Wants to Change Your Mind The nest parasites get a bad rap for making other birds raise their young, but study by study, Mark Hauber and his “Cowbird Lab” have revealed a species worthy of respect.

Update on some of our decades long cowbird research in @audubon.org magazine: www.audubon.org/magazine/got...

A u shaped structure made out of sticks called a bower, built under a small tree. In front of the bower is a pile of grey, white and green objects that make up the display court. The whole scene is in dappled sunlight and shade created by the tree above.

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

Slide Reading Future applications and directions • Quantifying displays in situ from the perspectives of mates and predators • Examining angle-dependent reflection and transmission of glass (window strikes) • Quantifying color change and startle displays • Synchronizing with other existing packages to handle patterns

Amazing technological developments in video - really promising potential applications for multispectral videography in animal research 🎥! #ASABWinter2025

Excited to share that in October, I started a 2-years postdoc in Hanley Color Lab at @georgemasonu.bsky.social. We're going to study bird color vision in the wild 🔎🪺🐦 Many challenges ahead! 😁 The position is funded by @nawapoland.bsky.social Bekker Programme.

Egg colour mimicry in the common cuckoo results from coevolutionary alternation, not coevolutionary arms races The exquisite eggshell mimicry found in many cuckoo-host systems has been the textbook example of a coevolutionary arms race [1]. In this system, cuckoos lay their eggs in their hosts' nests leaving t...

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Text: Society for the Study of Evolution Dobzhansky Prize to recognize the accomplishments and future promise of an outstanding early-career evolutionary biologist. Nominations due December 1, 2025.

The Dobzhansky Prize recognizes the accomplishments and future promise of an outstanding early-career evolutionary biologist. The awardee will present the Dobzhansky Prize plenary at #Evol2026. Apply by December 1! shorturl.at/p70wY

Humans perceive but animals don’t: pitfalls in using plasticine models for assessing biotic interactions buff.ly/7hcLYXx | #ProcB #Ecology

Greenland from above. Not so green after all, but magnificent anyway!

‪Come join us at the @asab.org Winter Conference 2025: how sensory info affects behaviour.

15th & 16th Dec, abstracts due end Aug. More info and registration asabwinter.github.io/2025

Co-hosted with @jtroscianko.bsky.social and Innes Cuthill

How animals discriminate between stimulus magnitudes: a meta-analysis Often, as the magnitude of a stimulus increases, it becomes harder to detect small changes in this stimulus (termed the magnitude effect). We investigated

My first paper just dropped 😳 We found that animal perception tends to follow Weber's law across a wide range of species and types of stimuli, although we saw a lot of variation too. With @jj255.bsky.social and Tanmay Dixit doi.org/10.1093/behe...

I'm very pleased to share that my picture of the red-backed shrike eggs made it on the cover of Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 😊

Many thanks to all who contributed to the project in any way! The study was funded by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education as a part of the Diamond Grant Programme for years 2019-2023.
📷K.Szala

Recently, the 1st chapter of my thesis was published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. We found that colour of spots on eggshells is related to condition of females and chicks, but not to male provisioning effort in the red-backed shrike.
rdcu.be/epVxu
📷K.Szala

In April, I successfully defended my PhD thesis at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Many thanks to all who supported me along this long journey, especially my supervisors Adrian Surmacki & Marcin Tobółka, family & friends. New challenges ahead! 😀
📷 H.Szala