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Jingyi Yang

@jyang19.bsky.social
137 followers 112 following 18 posts

Ornithologist-to-be in data science, and vice versa. Postdoc-ing at Imperial College London.

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Jingyi Yang @jyang19.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
ooops, certainly! should've highlighted THE central role of XC 👏 and the many recordists behind!
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Jingyi Yang @jyang19.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
cheers!
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Jingyi Yang @jyang19.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Big thanks to the cool team! 👏 Chiti Arvind, @ra-barber.bsky.social, Oscar Johnson, Katie O'Brien; Richard Stanley, Gustavo Bravo, Evan Buck, @sclaramunt.bsky.social, Robb Brumfield, Mike Harvey, Elizabeth Derryberry, and @josephtobias.bsky.social.
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Jingyi Yang @jyang19.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Overall, our findings challenge the common assumption of sexual selection driving signal elaboration, and highlight the combination of social, cultural and ecological factors driving birdsong evolution.
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Jingyi Yang @jyang19.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
... and is consistently constrained by ecological factors such as habitat density and species morphology.
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Jingyi Yang @jyang19.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Testing the evolution of song complexity of >1,200 bird species in 6 social and ecological contexts, we found song complexity does NOT increase with sexual selection (more polygynous mating systems), but instead with higher social competition (more territorial behaviours).
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Jingyi Yang @jyang19.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Happy to see my PhD work on birdsong complexity published today! doi.org/10.1098/rspb... 🐦‍⬛ 🎶 ⬇️ Why are some birdsongs simple and some extremely complex? The answer is long thought to be ‘sexual selection favouring complex signals’. But - really?
doi.org
Song complexity in suboscine birds: evolutionary drivers and ecological constraints
Abstract. Acoustic signal complexity varies widely in animals, from single notes to highly sophisticated vocal displays. In birds, vocal complexity can evo
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Jingyi Yang @jyang19.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
Every bird lover should know this!
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Andy Purvis @andypurvisnhm.bsky.social · 27/11/2025
Land-use change undermines the stability of avian functional diversity - new #OA @nature.com paper with @patrickawalkden.bsky.social @josephtobias.bsky.social, combining #PredictsProject with #Avonet doi.org/10.1038/s415...
doi.org
Land-use change undermines the stability of avian functional diversity - Nature
Large-scale analyses of bird species traits reveal that land-use change reduces resilience of key ecological functions more than previously thought.
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Nature Ecology & Evolution @natecoevo.nature.com · 25/11/2025
This Perspective discusses how the field of behavioural ecology has contributed to fundamental science and global challenges, ranging from understanding how natural selection leads to adaptation to optimizing biocontrol of pest species www.nature.com/articles/s41... Free to read: rdcu.be/eRKbv
nature.com
Behavioural ecology in the twenty-first century - Nature Ecology & Evolution
This Perspective discusses how the field of behavioural ecology has contributed to fundamental science and tackling global challenges, ranging from understanding how natural selection leads to adaptat...
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Jingyi Yang @jyang19.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
So much fun & learning happened in this PhD that it seemed impossible it could all fit in three years. Tremendous thanks to my supervisor @josephtobias.bsky.social , former lab mates & many friends @ra-barber.bsky.social, and Cris and Gavin for making the final day truly enjoyable.
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Joseph Tobias @josephtobias.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
Another unexpected angle on bird wing evolution: skeletal measurements suggest that wing bone length is shaped not only by aerodynamics of flight but also by thermoregulation (1/4) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #macroecology #ornithology 🧪🌎🌐🪶
Scatterplot showing positive correlation between avian wing bone length and temperature across ~1500 bird species, along with diagrams comparing wing bones with low versus high proportional length
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Richard D. Gregory @richgreg3.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
New 🗒️led by Alex Pigot - Macroecological rules predict how biomass scales with species richness in nature -Standing biomass increases with richness when large-bodied spp are numerically rare but independent when spp size & abundance are uncoupled. @ucl.ac.uk - Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Macroecological rules predict how biomass scales with species richness in nature
Despite advances in theory and experiments, how biodiversity influences the structure and functioning of natural ecosystems remains debated. By applying new theory to data on 84,695 plant, animal, and...
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Jingyi Yang @jyang19.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
This is my first PhD paper @imperiallifesci.bsky.social! and absolutely amazing teamwork with @josephtobias.bsky.social, @alexanderlees.bsky.social, Chenyue Yang, and @homewaylin.bsky.social. (8/8)
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Jingyi Yang @jyang19.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
🚨This paper is #OpenAccess and presents FOUR new global datasets – elevational ranges, flight modes, aerial lifestyle scores, and hand-wing areas for all birds – to facilitate research in ecology & evolution. Download here: doi.org/10.6084/m9.f.... (7/8)
doi.org
Elevational constraints on flight efficiency shape global gradients in avian wing morphology
Data and code to reproduce the analyses and figures presented in the manuscript ''Elevational constraints on flight efficiency shape global gradients in avian wing morphology'' (Current Biology).Datas...
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Jingyi Yang @jyang19.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
Our results support the ‘thin-air’ hypothesis, suggesting that elevational constraints on flight efficiency are a general mechanism shaping wing evolution in flying animals. (6/8)
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Jingyi Yang @jyang19.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
We also show that wing-shape gradients are generally steeper at highest elevations, where aerodynamic and physiological challenges are most extreme. (5/8)
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Jingyi Yang @jyang19.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
The results of phylogenetic analyses on all extant birds confirm that species living at higher elevations have increased wing elongation (hand-wing index) and wing area, even accounting for 8 factors related to climate, habitat and species ecology, including migration. (4/8)
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Jingyi Yang @jyang19.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
However, testing this idea is not straightforward and previous results are mixed, partly because other factors associated with higher elevation - including elevational migration and differences in foraging ecology – may drive parallel or opposing trends in wing morphology. (3/8)
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Jingyi Yang @jyang19.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
Flying animals are proposed to have longer and larger wings at higher elevations to provide increased lift and improved flight efficiency, compensating for ‘thin-air’ effects including low air density and low oxygen supply. (2/8)
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Jingyi Yang @jyang19.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
Do montane birds evolve more efficient wing shapes for flying at high elevations? Our global analysis published today suggests that they do! 🧵(1/8)⬇️ www.cell.com/current-biol....
White-fronted Ground-tyrant, a resident species at extreme high elevations in the tropical Andes with very elongated wings. Photo: Matti Rekilä.
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Joseph Tobias @josephtobias.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
🚨 Macro-scale analyses linking bird traits and genomics reveal that the ancestors of modern birds underwent major pulses of evolutionary change related to ecological niche expansion immediately after the Cretaceous–Palaeogene transition. 🧪🌐🪶 www.nature.com/articles/s41... @jyang19.bsky.social
nature.com
Drivers of avian genomic change revealed by evolutionary rate decomposition - Nature
Genomic evolutionary rates are decomposed to identify the dominant lineages and genes driving rate variation across the phylogeny of birds.
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Jingyi Yang @jyang19.bsky.social · 31/12/2024
Arts of 2024 🎨 (from four.. continents! 😲🙊)
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Rob Barber @ra-barber.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
Big news! 🎉 My first PhD chapter has been published in @PLOSBiology, and it just made the cover! 🐦🌍 Perfect time to dive into the key findings from our global study on sexual selection in birds. 🧵👇 📖 Read the paper: doi.org/10.1371/jour...
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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 29/03/2024
A must watch lecture on 50 years of advances in avian taxonomy & identification from Pär Alström youtu.be/YDuUMbUOXJs?...
youtu.be
per alström BirdLife Finland Dec 2023
Lecture given at BirdLife Finland's 50th Anniversary and Bongariliitto's annual meeting in Helsinki, 9 December 2023. Title: Bird identification and taxonomy...
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