iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Chinmay Hemant Joshi

Yichao Zeng @yichaozeng.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Just out in Syst Biol! What are the macroevolutionary rates of species interactions such as mutualisms and antagonisms? @cromanpa.bsky.social We developed a new Approximate Bayesian Computation approach to estimating speciation and extinction rates from cophylogenies. doi.org/10.1093/sysb...

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Anna Dornhaus @dornhaus.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Message me if you qualify and are interested in working on a proposal together

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Social Transfer Network @socialtransfernet.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Looking for a post doc? You can study the evolution of Socially Transferred Materials in Amsterdam and become part of an international team!

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Chelsea Cook @phdbee.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

@nstroeymeyt.bsky.social is hiring! Collective behavior, disease, and social organization - if you’re looking for a PhD or postdoc! #IUSSI26

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I just gave a talk on how different errors may affect collective foraging outcomes and how communication mitigates the effect of these errors. In case we did not get a chance to chat after the talk, I'm at the conference. So do say hi! Also, check out the pre-print of this work! #IUSSI26

biorxiv.org

Frequent errors are the worst: robustness to individual failures in collective foraging

The collective behavior of complex systems emerges from the actions and interactions of their individual components. But what if these individuals make mistakes, or deviate from behavior tuned to lead...

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iussi-nas.bsky.social @iussi-nas.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

📢 Introducing @uissi-social.bsky.social, the Bluesky home of the XX International Congress of the IUSSI. The Congress runs 16–20 August 2026 in Freiburg, Germany, hosted by the University of Freiburg. Tag your posts, abstracts, and travel plans with #IUSSI26 so we can find each other.

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Reposted by Chinmay Hemant Joshi

Avery Russell @draverbee.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

How do 🐝 evaluate costs & benefits of foraging w/in 🌸mimicry systems? Turns out 🐝 attend more to costs than to benefits, similar to animals in other contexts! For more, read our new pub in @behavecol.bsky.social ! doi.org/10.1093/behe... therusselllab.net/wp-content/u... @jentomology.bsky.social

track.smtpsendmail.com

Bees attend primarily to aversive costs, not pollen rewards, to avoid exploitation by floral mimics

We varied the benefits and costs of flower mimics and models (rewardless flowers and rewarding flowers, respectively) and investigated how bees responded.

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Congratulations @sachi1n.bsky.social and @tlinksvayer.bsky.social for getting this work out! Hope this inspires a lot more empirical work in aculeate Hymenoptera! Also, thanks for tagging my paper in the earlier thread!

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Reposted by Chinmay Hemant Joshi

Tim Linksvayer @tlinksvayer.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Heard of the haplodiploid hypothesis (=¾ relatedness hypothesis)? It’s long been a staple of biology textbooks – you may’ve run into it in Intro Biology, Genetics, Evolution, or Behavior. It’s also been very influential on social evolution theory, yet surprisingly, it long remained untested.🧵

shots of pages from biology textbooks featuring the haplodiploid hypothesis for the evolution of eusociality

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

These results suggest that evolution of social insect communication may have been shaped by selection on efficient exploitation as well as error mitigation. Our study may motivate further empirical and theoretical work on the evolution of errors in complex systems (5/6).

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Surprisingly, communication mitigated rather than exacerbated the effect of errors! Moreover, the extent of error mitigation differed across communication systems, demonstrating that this mitigating ability is a result of the fundamental design of the communication system (4/6).

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Moreover, these two errors exhibited a steep performance decay even at lower error rates (i.e., a convex performance curve). On the contrary, other errors showed a more ‘graceful’ decline in performance (i.e., a concave performance curve) (3/6).

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

We found that errors in combination with various communication types differed in their impact on foraging outcomes. The most frequently occurring errors (i.e., false positive and forgetting errors) were most detrimental to exploration and exploitation (2/6).

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Pre-print alert 🚨🐜🐝! Social insect foraging is far from perfect. @dornhaus.bsky.social and I designed an agent-based model to examine how different error types affect collective foraging outcomes and whether communication mitigates or exacerbates these effects. See the thread below! (1/6).

biorxiv.org

Frequent errors are the worst: robustness to individual failures in collective foraging

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Moreover, these two errors exhibited a steep performance decay even at lower error rates (i.e., a convex performance curve). On the contrary, other errors showed a relatively ‘graceful’ decline in performance (i.e., a concave performance curve) with increasing error rates (3/6).

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

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Reposted by Chinmay Hemant Joshi

Avery Russell @draverbee.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Would love to support a Smith Fellowship #postdoc application for projects on our Southwest #Missouri #Prairies! Incredible #pollinator & flowering #plant diversity, & thus lots of possible topics! Years of experience & collab with conservation agencies on these prairies to help scholars network 😇

Low horizon view of a Southwest Missouri Prairie, with flowers in the foreground (red paintbrush in the center) and blue, cloud-spotted sky in the background

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Reposted by Chinmay Hemant Joshi

Daniel Kronauer @danielkronauer.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Our lab at Rockefeller University is looking for a Research Technician to help with our studies of ant social behavior and evolution. 🐜 🧠 🐜 🧬 🐜 Please share and apply here if interested: hhmi.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Extern...

hhmi.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com

Research Technician I - Kronauer Lab

Primary Work Address: 1230 York Avenue, New York, NY, 10065 Current HHMI Employees, click here to apply via your Workday account. About the Role: The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is seeking ...

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Congratulations, Erica! I do remember this project! Glad to see that its out :) !!!

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Chelsea Cook @phdbee.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

We (me and @njdowdy.bsky.social) are hiring a PhD student! Come work with us! We seek a PhD student to investigate the evolution of acoustic behavior in Lepidoptera within a comparative evolutionary framework... Job closes this week! Apply ASAP! njdowdy.gitlab.io/balogh-fello...

njdowdy.gitlab.io

Kenneth F. Balogh Graduate Student Fellowship

A PhD position investigating the evolution of acoustic behavior in Lepidoptera, co-advised by Dr. Nicolas J. Dowdy (Milwaukee Public Museum) and Dr. Chelsea Cook (Marquette University). Apply by June ...

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Dr Nathalie Stroeymeyt @nstroeymeyt.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

🚨 PhD opportunity 🚨 Fully funded PhD at the University of Bristol (UK) on how ant colonies remodel their nests to optimise performance under pressure, combining experimental work, quantitative analysis, and field work. Detail/how to apply: stroeymeyt-lab.co.uk/open-positio... Deadline: 5 June 2026

stroeymeyt-lab.co.uk

Open positions – Ant epidemiology Lab

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Anna Dornhaus @dornhaus.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Lecture on what we can learn from collective behavior about the world in general - www.youtube.com/watch?v=oioL...: algorithmic thinking, how to make groups behave better, how to get at truth despite our failing intuition

youtube.com

Seminar Series 2026: 1. Dr. Anna Dornhaus

YouTube video by Animal Behaviour Live

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Rebecca Wang 王思寧 @rebeccawang.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

For Day 1 of #Invertefest - I'm (once again) highlighting the Hong Kong Biodiversity Museum @hkbm.bsky.social! 🏛️ Specifically it's wonderful "Meet Your Neighbors / 左蟲右里" series on BSky (as well as IG and FB) that showcases some of the stunning insects 🇭🇰 has to offer!

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Rebecca Wang 王思寧 @rebeccawang.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

Day 2 of #Invertefest! Amplifying some cool insect papers that have crossed my feed recently!📣 ~~ Q: Why do rewardless flowers still exist, rather than being shed? 🌺 A: 🤷‍♀️ We still don't know, but this test with bees & fake flowers show it's probably not "decoy" effects! doi.org/10.1111/een....

bsky.app

Tomer J. Czaczkes (@tomerczaczkes.bsky.social)

Some plants change the colour of flowers which were already pollinated, and are now rewardless. We thought perhaps they were using a behavioural economic trick - the decoy effect - to make the…

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

I took this modeling course in 2022 and really enjoyed it! The course provided me with a great framework to understand modeling papers. So if you are interested in modeling in biology in any capacity, check out the pre-print below!

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Reposted by Chinmay Hemant Joshi

Animal Behaviour Live @animalbehaviour.live · 14/04/2026

📣SEMINAR SERIES 2026📣 Our 1st seminar of this year ! 📆Tuesday 28th April 2026 at 2pm GMT on Youtube: Dr. Anna Dornhaus (@dornhaus.bsky.social) on “What we learned about the world from studying collective behavior: algorithms, replicators, and strong inference” 🐜 🔗 www.youtube.com/watch?v=oioL...

youtube.com

Seminar Series 2026: 1. Dr. Anna Dornhaus

YouTube video by Animal Behaviour Live

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Check out my latest paper! I have written a 🧵on this paper: bsky.app/profile/chjo...

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Future experiments examining how individual abandonment affects colony-level foraging will allow us to disentangle these explanations. Moreover, application of this framework in a comparative context can allow us to understand how and when robustness is prioritized in collective systems (6/6).

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

This implies a lack of robustness against pheromone trail disruption. However, colony-level foraging may be modular due to several concurrent pheromone trails. This would allow workers to switch to an intact trail, thereby buffering them against such a perturbation (5/6).

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Most ants continued to make random choices, showing a high reliance on pheromone trail for navigation. Fire ants can easily monopolize a food source with a huge and aggressive workforce, thereby reducing colonies’ investment per forager in being successful at food recovery (4/6).

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

We found that most ants abandoned the food source in response to trail perturbation! However, ants were more persistent and less likely to abandon a high-quality food source. But this persistence did not translate to successful foraging. Why? (3/6)

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

We removed a small section of the pheromone trail leading to a low or a high-quality food source on a T-maze setup and examined individual ant responses. We utilized the robustness mechanism framework from systems biology to interpret ant responses to this perturbation (2/6).

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

The majority of ants continued to make random choices, showing a high reliance on pheromone trail for navigation. Fire ants can easily monopolize a food source with a huge and aggressive workforce. This may reduce colonies’ investment per forager in being successful at food recovery (4/6).

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

The majority of ants continued to make random choices, showing a high reliance on pheromone trail for navigation. Fire ants can easily monopolize over a food source with their huge and aggressive workforce. This may reduce colonies’ investment per forager in being successful at food recovery (4/6).

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

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Chinmay Hemant Joshi @chjoshi.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

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Thejasvi Beleyur @beleyurthejasvi.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Two Masters thesis position openings up on the lab website: activesensingcollectives.com/openings Especially interesting perhaps if you're into acoustics, graphical design, realtime visualisations, and algorithms. Please do spread the word and forward in your circles.

activesensingcollectives.com

Openings | Active Sensing Collectives

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