Joseph Williamson

Two sets of revisions back in the space of 59 minutes! Busy weeks ahead but cool science very much on the horizon 😎🦋🔥

HUGE paper alert. 🚨Lowland tropical insects likely at their thermal limits 🚨 Big congrats to Kim and colleagues on this. Protein stability matches up with thermal limits across families too. 🧬🔥

Anybody who has tried to take photos in the perpetual twilight of the tropical forest understory knows how frustrating it can be.
This is where you need an artist.
Debby Cotter Kaspari is a whiz with pen and ink. And this is one of her understory drawings from Isla Barro Colorado, Panama, 2001.

Climatic variability drives greater thermal tolerance breadth and enables larger range size in butterflies Abstract. Although climatic variability has been proposed to shape physiological tolerances, and in turn, species distributions, relatively few studies hav

We found support for the Rapoport effect in butterflies 🦋 species that live in more variable climates have broader thermal tolerances and larger range sizes. A collaboration with Aaron Yilmaz and @sarahdiamond.bsky.social 🔬

academic.oup.com/biolinnean/a...

Origins of the kiss - DISI Exploring our world's diverse forms of mind—human, animal, machine—from diverse perspectives.

My interview with @manymindspod.bsky.social! Come for a deep dive into the evolution of kissing 💋, stay for the earth-shattering insights 🤯

"fish don't run" 🐠🏃

"monkeys tend to loll around quite a lot" 🙈

"chimps have moved on to grass-in-bumhole behaviour" 🍑🌱

disi.org/origins-of-t...

Species on east-west coastlines are more likely to go extinct than those on north-south shores – new study 500 million years of fossils reveal how ‘escape routes’ along coastlines can decide who survives climate change.

theconversation.com/species-on-e...

Lecturer in Marine Conservation at University of Hull Discover Lecturer in Marine Conservation jobs and more in higher education on jobs.ac.uk. Apply for further details on the top job board.

Job reminder: lectureship in Marine Conservation available at Hull. Deadline is the 19th. We're friendly and you can still buy a house on an academic salary here. 🧪 www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQF022/l...

Narrow thresholds of canopy disturbance determine the microclimate buffering potential of tropical forests The importance of protecting logged and recovering tropical forests has gained much attention. Disturbed forests can, however, have hotter microclimat…

🚨NEW PAPER🚨 It doesn't take much canopy disturbance in tropical forests to push surface temperatures above the thermal limits of many invertebrate groups. 🦋+🪲💩+🪱🧛‍♂️+ 🐜 Led by the wonderful Mike Boyle! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Narrow thresholds of canopy disturbance determine the microclimate buffering potential of tropical forests The importance of protecting logged and recovering tropical forests has gained much attention. Disturbed forests can, however, have hotter microclimat…

New paper led by Michael Boyle: Narrow thresholds of canopy disturbance determine the microclimate buffering potential of tropical forests www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This is a *great* opportunity for early career researchers to get their work out into the public domain!

I had a fab time talking to Laura about my research on the evolution of masturbation 🐒👋🍆💦🦧🌮👈:

open.spotify.com/episode/3Xy9...

Strange discovery that an email about inclusive fitness was forwarded to Jeffrey Epstein, with the emailer quoting Jerusalem and comparing themself to Einstein. Are you one of the >100 evolutionary biologists now in the Epstein files? www.justice.gov/epstein/file...

Very excited to share that my first first-author pre-print is out today! Many thanks go out to all of our collaborators, especially those who helped with the fieldwork in Peru - it really wouldn't have been possible without you! 🦋

Our paper on the mysterious Devonian organism Prototaxites has now finally been published! See the paper here (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...) and our explainer thread below!
Prototaxites reconstruction by Matt Humpage

New paper alert! Microclimate temperatures are more extreme than we previously thought! Near-ground temperatures are amplified in hot weather, cool refugia is lost and replaced with heat traps ☀️🔥🥵 escape from heat will be very hard for small ground-dwelling organisms
doi.org/10.21425/fob...

Me standing by my poster detailing research from my first chapter, titled 'Bees sir, can I have some more? Post-spring resource supplementation increases farmland bumblebee colony survival'

Group photo of postgrads from UCL East at the BES2025 poster session

Had an absolutely fantastic time at #BES2025 and a massive well done to all speakers and presenters. Really enjoyed displaying my poster and research, representing two great unis, and meeting so many great people and potential collaborators. Glad my title brought as much joy to others as it did me!!

Tips and tricks for writing constructive peer reviews Peer review has been the cornerstone of scientific inquiry for centuries and is considered the backbone of scientific quality and rigour (Spier, 2002). Des

In my first Editorial as Associate Editor for @conphysjournal.bsky.social, we help combat this lack of training by providing some "tips and tricks" for writing constructive peer reviews, based on our collective experiences as editors for multiple scientific journals.

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We are looking for PhD applicants! ‼️Interested in genomics, ecophysiology and adaptation? Look at our TREES DLA project:
www.trees-dla.ac.uk/projects/und...

We also offer more projects via ROUTE2. Get in touch and let’s have a chat 💬

Great to be a part of this study quantifying the potential negative effects of conservation work to protect one taxon on others! Turns out studying eels did not negatively affect water birds in this case🦆🦢👍

The impact of boat activities associated with an acoustic fish telemetry study on waterbird populations in a Special Protection Area It is widely recognized that the research techniques used to monitor and study wildlife have the potential to disturb and alter the behavior of the study species. However, other impacts on sensitive,...

New paper out! 📢 We tested whether boat activity from an eel telemetry study disturbed protected waterbirds in a UK reservoir.

🦆 No evidence of disturbance.
🌦️ Bird numbers varied with weather + season.

conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Temporal Increases in Mercury Concentrations are Associated with Increased Risk of Death by Infectious Disease in Harbour Porpoises (Phocoena Phocoena) Trace elements, particularly heavy metals like mercury, pose significant risks to marine ecosystems due to their toxic and bioaccumulative properties. Concentrations in some marine species show concer...

📣New paper out today!

We’ve found concentrations of mercury in UK-harbour porpoises is increasing. 📈🐬

We also found concentrations of mercury were associated with an increased risk of dying from infectious disease.☠️

pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

A comparative approach to the evolution of kissing Kissing can be observed across the animal kingdom. This presents an evolutionary puzzle, since the fitness benefits of kissing are unclear. We use a n…

"we ... employ Bayesian phylogenetic methods to reconstruct the evolutionary history of kissing."

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Kissing evolved at least 21 million years ago. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @matildabrindle.bsky.social

🚨Job opportunity🚨

We are hiring a 3yr research technician. If you love fieldwork, are passionate about forests & mountains, and want to up-skill in remote sensing, sensor networks and running field experiments this could be the dream job for you!
🧪🌳⛰️🛰️🌡️🍄

www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

Fish embryos under the microscope

Interested in thermal biology? Please join our new and growing grass roots initiative, the Thermal Ecology Alliance, initiated by @patricepottier.bsky.social. 🧪🐟🦑🌡️

Sign up here: www.thermalecologyalliance.org#participation

Check who already signed up:
www.thermalecologyalliance.org#community

Have had a very exciting and unexpected start to this week, travelling to Salford for an interview with BBC Breakfast talking all things #wasps! Many thanks to @waspwoman.bsky.social for trusting me with this opportunity, and the fantastic #WorldOfWasps at @uclgrantmuseum.bsky.social for the props!

UCL – University College London UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

We are recruiting for a Research Technician to support our lab's experimental evolution work with Drosophila melanogaster at UCL. Do you have recent insect husbandry experience and want to be a key part of an academic research environment? We'd love to hear from you www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Seeing a lot of racist pinkwashing bullshit about Muslims and homosexuality and it’s a good time to share how I was on the gay marriage beat for a decade and racist gays never believed me when I shared how US Muslims favored equal LGBT rights (52%) over Christian evangelicals (34%)!

🚨 Important paper for understanding limits on range expansions under climate change. 🚨 Wall Brown's shift their life history to expand polewards, but are ultimately limited by winter tolerance. Perhaps physiological tolerances just can't evolve at the same pace as other traits... 🦋❄️

New paper in @pnas.org — and this is my favourite one out of my PhD thesis! Field transplants of wall brown butterflies show life history evolution during climate change-driven range expansion, BUT non-evolving winter tolerance still sets the range limit.🧵1/12. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...