Fragkiskos Darmis

Evidence for Environment‐Specific Pace‐of‐Life Syndromes The correlation between behaviour and life-history depends on environmental conditions. We show this is true when considering the quality of the food in the environment.

Pace-of-life syndromes fascinate me as they offer an intuitive way to understand striking individual variation across levels, yet evidence remains mixed. Our study at @ecol-evol.bsky.social shows that POLS are environment-dependent, in line with recent theory onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Two house mice interacting in an enclosure

🎉 What a way to end the year!

Very excited to see our new paper on 🐭 innovation and mate choice out in @currentbiology.bsky.social!

doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2025.11.077

With the amazing @fragdarm.bsky.social, @valmazza.bsky.social & Anja Guenther

Seasonal increase in blood serum osmolality reflects environmental harshness in the striped mouse: a decade-long field study Highlighted Article: Osmolality is a biomarker for dehydration in mammals: data from 12 years show that striped mice have increased blood osmolality during the dry season, especially when food availab...

Here we show - using long-term data of 12 years - that serum osmolality increases in striped mice in the dry season, and the harsher the dry season, the stronger the increase, indicating dehydration. @antoinestier.bsky.social @iphc-strasbourg.bsky.social
journals.biologists.com/jeb/article-...

Playing dice with behavior: drivers of stochastic individuality Animal behavior is often viewed as stemming from predictable genetic and environmental factors. However, despite our best attempts to control genetic …

Our new paper offers an explanation for the universal law that "under carefully controlled conditions.... an animal behaves as it damn well pleases." We explore how stochastic mechanisms may play an underappreciated role in generating individuality. (1/7 🧵)

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

Condition‐Dependent Responses to Risk in a Small Mammal Responses to a predation risk gradient vary as a function of the resource environment and individual condition in a small mammal.

🧪ETHOLOGY: Condition-dependent risk-taking in mice! 🐭💥🍔
Lopez-Hervas et al. show that diet quality and body mass shape mice’s reactions to risk — heavier or better-fed individuals play it safer, supporting the asset-protection hypothesis! Read here, it's #OpenAccess: doi.org/10.1111/eth....