iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Katie Abson @katieabson.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Our paper is out! 📣 we find that molecular measures of genetic variation do not predict heritable genetic variation across species - important implications for the application of genomic data for conservation! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

pnas.org

Nucleotide diversity is a poor predictor of short-term adaptive potential | PNAS

The capacity to adapt is essential for a population to avoid extinction in a changing world and is recognized as a global conservation priority. Ad...

110167

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Barbara Tschirren @btschirren.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

New paper out: Artificial selection for increased reproductive effort accelerates actuarial senescence and reduces lifespan in a precocial bird url: royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article... @uniexecec.bsky.social @erikpostma.bsky.social @joelpick.bsky.social y.social @oscarvedder.bsky.social

03928

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Erik Postma @erikpostma.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

And if you want to read more about the survival cost of reproduction in our own species 👩‍🍼, @euantheyoung.bsky.social's @nlseb.bsky.social 2025 Prize-winning 🏆 paper is a must-read. doi.org/10.1126/scia...

doi.org

Mothers facing greater environmental adversity experience increased costs of reproduction

Mothers with more children during a famine had shorter lives, suggesting that harsh conditions increase costs of reproduction.

096

Euan Angus Young @euantheyoung.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

New preprint looking at the associations between maternal mortality and having sons in preindustrial Finland from work with León van Dorp during his master’s project. Also with Mirkka Lahdenpera, @lummaalab.bsky.social, and @hannahdugdale.bsky.social

0115

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Mothers face immediate, but family-size dependent, costs of sons in preindustrial Finland www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…

074

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Jordan S. Martin @jsmartin.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

I am looking for a PhD student to join my new Socio-Eco-Evo group, hosted in Katie Peichel's Evolutionary Ecology Division @ University of Bern. We're offering a fully funded 4-year position, studying social plasticity and behavioral adaptation among stickleback in Greenland. Please share around!

17895

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Edward R. Ivimey-Cook @eivimeycook.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

Thanks to some great comments and suggestions, we've updated TADA! Read it here: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v... Transferable, Available, Documented, Annotated.

ecoevorxiv.org

TADA! Simple guidelines to improve analytical code sharing for transparency and reproducibility

11411

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Justin @ediparolev.bsky.social · 10/01/2026

“Uruguay did what most nations still call impossible: it built a power grid that runs almost entirely on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. The physicist who led that transformation says the same playbook could work anywhere—if governments have the courage to change the rules.”

forbes.com

Uruguay’s Renewable Charge: A Small Nation, A Big Lesson For The World

Uruguay built a power grid that runs 99% on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. Here’s how its bold energy overhaul became a global model.

208114534677

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Piret Avila @piretavila.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

📢 I'm hiring! 3-year postdoc in theoretical evolutionary ecology at University of Helsinki 🇫🇮 Apply: jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki-Postdoctoral-Researcher-in-Theoretical-Evolutionary-Biology/1348955157/ #AcademicJobs #Postdoc #EvolutionaryEcology #TheoreticalEcology #ScienceJobs #AcademicChatter

jobs.helsinki.fi

Postdoctoral Researcher in Theoretical Evolutionary Biology

05965

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

Life-history traits as predictors of expected genetic contributions 15 years later in a cooperatively breeding bird www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…

054

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Pierre de Villemereuil @pdevillemereuil.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

Took me a year (😱), but I finally published a blog post about our article on the #quantgen variance partition of phenitypic plasticity with @lmchev.bsky.social, published in @peercomjournal.bsky.social. 🇬🇧 devillemereuil.legtux.org/quantitative... 🇫🇷 devillemereuil.legtux.org/fr/genetique...

devillemereuil.legtux.org

Quantitative genetics of reaction norms: an onion partitionning – Pierre de Villemereuil

12010

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Sasha Gusev @sashagusevposts.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

So there you have it, twin study estimates were greatly inflated, and molecular data sets the record straight. I walk through possible counter-arguments, but ultimately the uncomfortable truth is that genes contribute to traits much less than we always thought.

413443

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Erik Postma @erikpostma.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

A lot has happened since our first announcement of #ExE2026, an evolutionary ecology conference hosted by @uniexecec.bsky.social in #Cornwall from June 29 to July 3 2026. Have a look at our new website to see our confirmed plenary speakers, the mid-conference excursions, and more. 👉 evoxeco.uk 👈

11922

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Juliet Turner @juliet-turner.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

POV: you are a young woman celebrating a recent academic success

3112201933200

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Alexei Maklakov @alexeimaklakov.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

1/6 In a new preprint we ask a question: Why do males and females so often age and die at different rates? We argue that sex-specific mutation accumulation may be the most parsimonious evolutionary explanation for sex-biased ageing: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

ecoevorxiv.org

Sex-specific mutation accumulation: A parsimonious explanation for sex differences in lifespan and ageing

22714

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

This is terrifying. "[AI agents] can... infer a researcher's latent hypotheses and produce data that artificially confirms them." ... "We can no longer trust that survey responses are coming from real people" -@seanjwestwood.bsky.social

7310120

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Hansraj Gautam @hansraj88.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Join us for this interesting project on fitness consequences of early life experiences in humans 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 or elephants 🐘🐘🐘!!

003

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Barbara Tschirren @btschirren.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

**PhD opportunity at @uniexecec.bsky.social** How does host microbiome dynamics affect wildlife disease? Combine molecular techniques, statistical modelling, and field sampling to understand how microbiome dynamics in 🦡 affects their susceptibility to bTB. 🔬🦠🧪 Please repost! shorturl.at/q3OxV

shorturl.at

Investigating the Role of Host Microbiome Dynamics as Drivers of Wildlife Disease Using a One Health Framework at University of Exeter on FindAPhD.com

PhD Project - Investigating the Role of Host Microbiome Dynamics as Drivers of Wildlife Disease Using a One Health Framework at University of Exeter, listed on FindAPhD.com

097

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Dugdale Research Group @hannahdugdale.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

Congratulations to Dr @euantheyoung.bsky.social who defended his PhD yesterday on 'Family matters: The role of trade-offs in shaping human life-histories and health' research.rug.nl/en/publicati... @rug.nl supervised with @erikpostma.bsky.social @lummaalab.bsky.social 🎉

1376

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing: a 🧵 1/n Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/... Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...

A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below.

1. The four-fold drain
1.1 Money
Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for
whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who
created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis,
which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024
alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit
margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher
(Elsevier) always over 37%.
Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most
consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial
difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor &
Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American
researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The
Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3
billion in that year.

A figure detailing the drain on researcher time.

1. The four-fold drain

1.2 Time
The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce,
with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure
1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material
has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs,
grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for
profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time.
The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million
unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of
peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting
widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the
authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many
review demands.
Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of
scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in
‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow
progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to
volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier,
local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with
limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging
with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks
intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision.

A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below:

1. The four-fold drain
1.1 Money
Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for
whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who
created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis,
which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024
alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit
margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher
(Elsevier) always over 37%.
Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most
consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial
difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor &
Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American
researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The
Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3
billion in that year.

The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised
scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers
first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour
resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.

8644453

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Claudia Bank @cbank.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

We have an open PhD position (application deadline 9 January 2026) in "Theory of fitness landscapes" at @unibe.ch 🤓⛰️📊👩‍💻🎓: banklab.github.io/positions/ Please share widely! #QueerInSTEM #DisabledInSTEM #BlackInSTEM #WomenInSTEM #CarersInSTEM #AcademicSky #HigherED

03641

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

EcoEvoRxiv @ecoevorxiv.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

"Asynchrony of ageing among traits in a wild bird population" doi.org/10.32942/X27...

The age-specific trajectories of 13 phenotypic traits in individuals the Seychelles warbler population of Cousin Island (dates differ per dataset, minimum date 1981, maximum date 2022) identified through Generalized Additive Models. The x-axis is age in years, and the y-axis is the trait value; all traits, except for annual reproductive success, survival and malaria, are z-transformed. The solid black line depicts the model-predicted curve and the grey shaded areas depict the standard error. Blue points are raw data points. RTL = relative telomere length. ARS = Annual Reproductive Success. For buffy coat (Fig 1h & i), F indicates female, M indicates male.

066

Euan Angus Young @euantheyoung.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

1/13 New paper out! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Historical records across thousands of women showed that mothers with more children had shorter lifespans during a famine, fitting an evolutionary explanation for why we age @hannahdugdale.bsky.social @lummaalab.bsky.social @erikpostma.bsky.social

14231

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Edward R. Ivimey-Cook @eivimeycook.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

Back in Ingelheim for another Evolution of Ageing workshop (massive thanks to The Gutenberg Workshops in the Life Sciences for hosting). It’s set to be a great three days of talks and presentations!

162

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Dugdale Research Group @hannahdugdale.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

Come & work with us - fully funded 4 year PhD on Social Ageing: Social environment effects on senescence, using an epigenetic clock www.rug.nl/about-ug/wor... @rug.nl @david-s-richardson.bsky.social @keesvanoers.bsky.social @seychelleswarbler.bsky.social photo: @charlisdavies.bsky.social

14639

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Royal Society Publishing @royalsocietypublishing.org · 17/09/2025

New in #ProcB - From policy to practice: Progress towards #data- and #code-sharing in ecology and evolution @asanchez-tojar.bsky.social @eivimeycook.bsky.social tell us more in our blog royalsociety.org/blog/2025/09...

02923

Euan Angus Young @euantheyoung.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

Well that’s the “highlight” of my week for sure! Thrilled to see our recent paper covered in Nature’s Research Highlight: www.nature.com/articles/d41... Also see @markspa.bsky.social’s neat explainer below.

nature.com

Will a child survive? Older siblings have a powerful influence

Swiss birth data from 1750 to 1870 reveal that girls who had lots of older brothers close to their own age were less likely to survive than were those who did not.

072

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Erik Postma @erikpostma.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

With #eseb2025 coming to a close, it is time to start making plans for 2026. Interested in the interface of evolution 🧬 and ecology 🌳? Come to our #ExE conference hosted by @uniexecec.bsky.social in beautiful #Cornwall. Leave your email address at tinyurl.com/EvolxEcol to join our mailing list!

112176

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Barbara Tschirren @btschirren.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

**Postdoc opportunities**👇👇 Find me at poster 302 today between 17:30-18:00 for a chat. 🦡🦠🔬🧬 #eseb2025

0219

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Erik Postma @erikpostma.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

What do you think, can we forecast evolution❓ @sevans.bsky.social and I would love to hear your thoughts, so if you are going to #ESEB2025, submit a talk to our symposium (S24: Forecasting evolution in natural populations) and join @colingarroway.bsky.social and Patrik Nosil! Deadline April 25.

01010

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Pierre de Villemereuil @pdevillemereuil.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

👋 Interested in working on the evolution of genetic architecture 🧬 of complex traits using linked-read sequencing of thousands of common lizards 🦎 from a wild population and common garden experiment? #evolution #genetics Well, I have a PhD offer for you 👇 devillemereuil.legtux.org/erc-funded-p...

devillemereuil.legtux.org

ERC-funded PhD position available – Pierre de Villemereuil

13752

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Edward R. Ivimey-Cook @eivimeycook.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Reminder - the deadline for abstracts is in less than a month's time! #openscience

032

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

SPAAM @spaam-community.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

The SPAAM has organized a virtual speed-networking event between PIs and young researchers (MSc/PhD/Postdocs)! When? Wednesday April 9th 11.00AM-01.00PM CET. Registration deadline: April 2nd. Grab your slot! For more information and registration, check:

docs.google.com

Speed networking between PIs and young researchers - April 2025 edition

Interest and registration form for PI speed networking for April 9th, 11:00 AM - 01.00 PM CET The following PIs are open to meeting with interested junior researchers (prospective masters, PhDs,…

031

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Dugdale Research Group @hannahdugdale.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

Congratulations Dr. Chik on defending your PhD thesis yesterday on "The evolutionary and ecological drivers of senescence in two wild passerine systems" 👏🎉 doi.org/10.33612/dis...

051

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

SORTEE @sortee.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Do you have a project in ecology and evolution that exemplifies open science? If so nominate the project for a SORTEE Commendation Award: More details about the SORTEE Commendation Award:

buff.ly

SORTEE awards

Awards of Society for Open, Reliable, and Transparent Ecology and Evolutionary biology (SORTEE)

02423

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Sinead English @englishse.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

To be, or not to be, part-time in academia? This is a tricky question that has faced many of us and in @elife.bsky.social we discuss the benefits and challenges of being part-time. With @emiliapsantos.bsky.social and a fantastic, interdisciplinary team! elifesciences.org/articles/106...

elifesciences.org

Point of View: To be, or not to be, part-time in academia

Part-time working can be beneficial for individual academics, and also for academia as a whole.

25631

Euan Angus Young @euantheyoung.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

1/11 New preprint out with @hannahdugdale.bsky.social, @lummaalab.bsky.social, and @erikpostma.bsky.social: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Why do we age? And can a “natural experiment” during the Great Finnish Famine with long-term data help provide some answers?

12118

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Marianthi Tangili, PhD @mtangili.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

🚨 New preprint alert! More siblings, fiercer competition, extra food—but stunted growth! 🐦🍕📏 In zebra finches raised in large broods, increased energy spent on begging—not less food—causes reduced growth. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

biorxiv.org

Begging costs rather than food received cause brood size effect on growth in zebra finches

Altricial species rely on parental provisioning for early-life sustenance, and a larger brood size leads to higher levels of competition between siblings for food provided by the parents. Early-life s...

054

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Erik Postma @erikpostma.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

Want to use a unique dataset to study the spatial and temporal dynamics of genomic diversity and its drivers in a wild bird population? Apply for this #NERC #PhD position @uniexecec.bsky.social @animalecol-nioo.bsky.social. www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin... 🐦🌍🧪🧬 #ExeterCEC #Vlieland #NIOO-KNAW

03439

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Andy Young @andyyoung.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

* NEW #PhD * #Evolution #Ecology of Immune #Senesence in Wild Badgers - exciting project with me, @btschirren.bsky.social & our awesome collaborators @ APHA. Based at @exetercec.bsky.social in Cornwall, UK. !PLEASE SHARE! See www.animalsocieties.org and apply: www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin... 🌏 🧪 🦑

45969

Reposted by Euan Angus Young

Paolo Crosetto @paolocrosetto.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

The Economist covered our "Strain on scientific publishing" paper. What is this all about? We collectively churn out more & more papers *per scientist*, an increasing pace, in a rapidly changing publication landscape. Why? How? Want to make sense of this? 🧵 www.economist.com/science-and-...

economist.com

Scientific publishers are producing more papers than ever

Concerns about some of their business models are building

714460

Euan Angus Young @euantheyoung.bsky.social · 31/07/2024

I had a fab week in Montreal at #Evol2024. For those that missed it, my talk examining the genetic basis for how life-history traits shape breast cancer risk among Dutch women is available now on YouTube: youtu.be/CBHrGi9t4Ps?... Happy to answer questions or hear feedback!

010

Euan Angus Young @euantheyoung.bsky.social · 24/05/2024

This Sunday I’ll be doing the Edinburgh Marathon to raise money and awareness for Empty Kitchens: an amazing charity providing meals to those who need it using surplus food. Any donations would be greatly appreciated and you can do so here: www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding... Thanks!

justgiving.com

000

Euan Angus Young @euantheyoung.bsky.social · 08/11/2023

Happy to see this paper w/ @erikpostma.bsky.social finally out there! Low interspecific variation and no phylogenetic signal in additive genetic variance in wild bird and mammal populations - doi.org/10.1002/ece3... Big thanks to everyone who helped with revisions and gave their encouragement.

doi.org

https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.10693

Wiley Online Library requires cookies for authentication and use of other site features; therefore, cookies must be enabled to browse the site. Detailed information on how Wiley uses cookies can be fo...

060