Thomas MacGillavry

Fun to give a plenary at the annual conference of the Austrian Ethological Society, though a tough act to follow from Rosemary Grant a day earlier!

The Pokémon Company Is Actively Recruiting PhD Holders With Backgrounds in Ecology to Work in Tokyo - IGN The Pokémon Company is actively recruiting PhD holders with backgrounds in ecology to work in Tokyo. This is perhaps the closest chance Pokémon fans have to channel their inner Professor Oak in real l...

This could be your dream job!
PhD in ecology, and English and Japanese language skills required... working for POKEMON!!!

www.ign.com/articles/the...

Last year, J. Endler published an inspiring essay in @behavecol.bsky.social on what we should be doing as behavioral ecologists 👉 doi.org/10.1093/beheco/araf029. According to him, "we need to put Ecology back into Behavioural Ecology: we need to make a lot more use of Natural History" (1/5)

📣 JOBS!!! We're looking for new colleagues in the School of Biology @bioscienceleeds.bsky.social - two associate profs (plant sci and animal biology) and a lecturer (ecology/zoology)...

jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...
jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...
jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...

Nature Report, Killed by Trump, Is Released Independently

🌎 Scientists and other experts were preparing a first-of-its-kind assessment of the health of nature in the U.S. when Trump returned to the White House and canceled it. They compiled it and released a 868-page draft for public comment/scientific review. Gift Link
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/c...

Do dim forests select for bigger butterfly eyes? Surprisingly, no. Across 59 species, eye size evolution reflects ancestry and scaling—not ecology. By @sridharhalali.bsky.social and @lepphylo.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/evle...

“My wish is that this will provide a positive message to the young girls who would like to follow the path of science and to show them that women in science can also have an impact through their research.”

Emmanuelle Charpentier, Nobel Prize winner and since this year ERC Scientific Council member.

Introducing the campest katydid of all time. 🦄💅🏽👸💞 Why would this animal (Arota festae) have evolved this way, other than to look utterly fabulous? We have unleashed some (slightly whacky) thoughts, now out in @esajournals.bsky.social. Photo credit: @zekerowe.bsky.social doi.org/10.1002/ecy.... 1/n

I get yelled at for saying this but for many hundreds of years people went to university not to get diplomas or be employable but because immersion in the humanities was considered foundational to a good life, and school must return to its original purpose: the joy of learning.

Been a bit slow with reading this year finishing up my PhD, but book nr. 4 this year is Rick Shine’s classic “Australian Snakes: A Natural History”. A real joy to read; highly recommended!

“Music may not just be culture — it arguably reflects a fundamental biological capacity: musicality.”

Next week in Current Biology…

Rising temperatures pose a threat to tropical insects An assessment of sensitivity to increasing temperature for thousands of insect species in mountainous terrain reveals a risk of insect biodiversity loss in tropical lowlands.

There is also an amazing news article in @nature.com on our recent paper in the same journal.

Rising temperatures pose a threat to tropical insects www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Big effort, exciting results - our paper on the constraints of thermal limits in tropical insects is now out in @nature.com! 🦋🐝🪰🪲🦗
@ecoresearchzoo3.bsky.social
@biologie-uniwue.bsky.social
@uni-wuerzburg.de

We are one of the potential host labs for a Lecturer position in Molecular Genetics & Genomics — please share, and get in touch for more info! 🧬📣

BLM Announces Plan to Fell Oregon's Last Great Forests One billion board feet per year... 30 days to make your voice heard.

morethanjustparks.substack.com/p/blm-announ... there's info on who to complain to to try to stop this at the end of the article, lets share this message and try our best to stop it.

A Reddish Egret spreads its wings over a laptop floating on a water surface

Waterbirds is hiring!

We're currently seeking a Social Media Communications Coordinator (paid position, 3-5 hrs/week!) to help grow communication with our society members & the world at large. Job advertisement & application instructions: waterbirds.org/wp-content/u...

#ornithology #waterbirds

Nice end to a fun PhD 🎉

Picture of Marjane Satrapi alongside a quote from her. The quote reads: The world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same... - Marjane Satrapi, Iranian-French graphic novelist

Thinking about this quote from Persepolis creator Marjane Satrapi again.

New research from #JRSocInterface: Postural control in an upright snake royalsocietypublishing.org/rsif/article... | #Biomechanics #Biophysics

Are AI-generated summaries suitable for studying and research? Despite didactic, ethical, and environmental concerns, the use of GenAI is on the rise in academia. For most applications, the jury is still out on whether and how they will benefit education and rese...

This is one of the most reasoned & persuasive arguments for not allowing LLMs anywhere near reading & writing intensive classrooms. We can 100% choose not to outsource our reading & writing labor to a bot, and model for our students why they should do the same. #EduSky

www.tue.nl/en/our-unive...

Music is not a universal language — but it can bring us together when words fail Societies, animals and even machines have music in common. Our varied experiences of it might tell us about the origins of language.

“Understanding deep evolutionary origins of music & language requires inclusive & equitable collaborations across cultures & disciplines, weaving together Indigenous knowledge & the humanities with natural & social sciences.” Informative engaging essay by @patrickesavage.bsky.social in @nature.com.🧪

writing a song for every single bird species: Gambel’s Quail edition…

Congratulations 🥂, Dr. Hanna Algora! Thesis on nesting ecology featuring Finnish #waders, ruffs and dunlins, defended convincingly today. Another fledgling 🪺🐦🐣 from @oulu.fi and @mpiforbi.bsky.social

Australia spends $18b more on harming nature than protecting it: Study The Australian government spends more money on activities that harm biodiversity than those that protect biodiversity, a new study suggests. Australia is a biodiversity hotspot, home to more than…

Australia spends far more on activities that harm biodiversity than on protecting it, a new study finds.

Researchers estimate A$26.3B in harmful subsidies — mostly fossil fuels and transport — versus less than A$0.8B for conservation. Reform is key, they say, to meeting global biodiversity targets.

Evolutionary correlates and consequences of sociality in feliform carnivorans We take a phylogenetic comparative approach to investigate the evolutionary correlates of sociality in feliform (cat-like) carnivores. We find that sociality evolved eight times in this group of mamm....

Our new paper on the evolution of sociality in cat-like carnivores is out today in @jzoology.bsky.social. This resulted from Izzy Scully's Mres project investigating the factors that might facilitate sociality and its long-term consequences.

zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

What enables human language? A biocultural framework Explaining the origins of language is a key challenge in understanding ourselves as a species. We present an empirical framework that draws on synergies across fields to facilitate robust studies of l...

“Even though a large proportion of modern day human communication is vocal, the key underlying brain infrastructure operates in a flexible amodal way ... language is flexible because its neural basis is.” Great e-letter by @ybecker.bsky.social & Trettenbrein, responding to our @science.org article.🧪

Fascinating watching this Jay from my office window. Buries acorn - looks around for something to cover it with, and then looks for another object to go on top (perhaps to help relocate?), regurgitates next one ready, and flies off.

a chaffinch staring at the photographer

New paper led by @alperyelimlies.bsky.social with @caglaonsal.bsky.social where we examine the repeatability of aggression in urban and rural chaffinches. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...