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Ecology of Animal Societies

@livingingroups.bsky.social
671 followers 591 following 120 posts

Dept. for the Ecology of Animal Societies @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social & @uni-konstanz.de. Posts do not represent the views of MPI, University of Konstanz , or lab leaders.

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Reposted by Ecology of Animal Societies
Ari Strandburg-Peshkin @arispeshkin.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
We are offering 3 #PhD positions in our Ecology of Animal Societies Department @livingingroups.bsky.social at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior - check them out! imprs-qbee.mpg.de/66685/current
imprs-qbee.mpg.de
Current
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Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Our paper on how orangutan mothers plan and alter their space use at personal costs so their offspring may play with similarly aged offspring (independent of kinship and fruit productivity) has transitioned from preprint to peer reviewed publication doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
doi.org
Maternal ranging strategies facilitate offspring social play at energetic cost in the most solitary ape | PNAS
In most vertebrates, social play among peers is considered essential for behavioral development. Yet in solitary species bearing single offspring, ...
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Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Orangutan mums take their offspring on playdates to hang out with kids of the same age 👶👶 By Odd Jacobson, Maria van Noordwijk et al www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... @oddjacobson.bsky.social @bjjbarrett.bsky.social @meg-crofoot.bsky.social @livingingroups.bsky.social www.ab.mpg.de/1580677/news...
ab.mpg.de
Orangutan mothers seek out playmates for young
Mothers of the most solitary great ape plan and structure playdates, even when it comes at a cost
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Ecology of Animal Societies @livingingroups.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
with A. Ashbury, @bjjbarrett.bsky.social, @meg-crofoot.bsky.social, P. Kukofka, J. Kunz, S. S. U. Atmoko, C. Schuppli, @erinvogel.bsky.social, C. van Schaik, & M. van Noordwijk; at @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social, @livingingroups.bsky.social, @uzh-ch.bsky.social, @rutgersupress.bsky.social, & UNAS.
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Ecology of Animal Societies @livingingroups.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
In the peat swamp forests surrounding the Tuanan Orangutan Research Station, where this research is based, a major wildfire emergency is currently unfolding. Please consider reading about or donating to support firefighting efforts in the area. coreborneo.com/wildfire-app...
coreborneo.com
Wildfire Appeal
Emergency Appeal: Help Save the Tuanan Orangutan Research Station and Surrounding Peatland Forest defaultdefaultdefaultdefault The Fires Have Returned to Tuanan A major wildfire…
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Ecology of Animal Societies @livingingroups.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
See the supplemental material for more detail on how we applied causal inference and dyadic modelling to address this long-standing question!
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Ecology of Animal Societies @livingingroups.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
These findings illustrate how the social requirements of development can be met even near the solitary extreme of animal social organization.
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Ecology of Animal Societies @livingingroups.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Facilitating these play opportunities comes at a substantial cost for mothers, increasing daily travel distances and decreasing feeding time. This reveals a hidden form of maternal care in which mothers invest not only in their offspring’s growth and survival but also in their social development.
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Ecology of Animal Societies @livingingroups.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Mothers appear to plan these encounters in advance, orienting their movements toward the core areas of neighbouring mothers with potential play partners starting the day before.
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Ecology of Animal Societies @livingingroups.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
We show that mothers adjust their ranging behaviour to increase the probability of encountering other mothers with similarly aged offspring to their own, and thereby increasing opportunities for their offspring to play with peers.
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Ecology of Animal Societies @livingingroups.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Social play is key for development in many animals, yet how solitary species with single young acquire playmates has remained a quandary. We unlock this using long-term data from 31 Bornean orangutan mother-offspring pairs in our new publication in PNAS. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2621225123. 🧵
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Luke Larter @lukelarter.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
New preprint 🐸! We use microphone arrays and beamformer algorithms to take a detailed look at the social structure and chorusing behavior of an arboreal African frog. This work showcases the utility of this technology for studying vocalizing animals in the wild. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I am recruiting a PhD student to work with our group at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior! Learn more & apply here: tinyurl.com/kd4xx4ku Deadline: 15 Nov 2026 Start date: Flexible (summer-fall 2027) @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social @livingingroups.bsky.social @carlzeissstiftung.bsky.social
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Ethological Society @ethoges.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
New year, new conference! Registration for the next Annual Meeting of the Ethological Society is officially open! 🤩 Save the date, sign up, and join us in beautiful Konstanz 24–27 February, 2027 @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social www.ab.mpg.de/etho-2027
static.klipy.com
Graceful Deer Hopping at Sunset
ALT: Graceful Deer Hopping at Sunset
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Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I am part of a team guest editing a special issue of the American Journal of Primatology on "Digitization and use of legacy datasets in primatology” and we are seeking out submissions due on 1 September 2027. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal...
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Daniela Rößler @roesslerdaniela.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
🚨New paper🚨 Garden #spiders are everywhere right now—big, beautiful ladies, still in the hub of their 🕸️ But they are not just waiting, at night they also 💤! We found behavioral signatures of sleep in the wild. Out in #AnimalBehaviour w/ @mherberstein.bsky.social tinyurl.com/uznvv58y 🧵1/5
Adult female garden spider (Araneus diadematus) sitting at the center of her orb web, with orange‑brown legs and a patterned abdomen. The web’s radial and spiral threads are sharply visible, catching the light. The background is blurred green foliage with soft circular highlights, making the spider and web stand out in clear focus.
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T Revathe @revathe.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
!! New in @science.org !! How do animals learn broad skills necessary for survival in the wild? Our latest study on wild Sumatran orangutans at Suaq provides answers. 1/11 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
How 8 years of social and individual learning interact to shape ecological competence in orangutans
Cultural learning permeates human skill and knowledge acquisition. To understand its importance for nonhuman apes, we analyzed just under 7000 records of behavioral bouts of social and individual lear...
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Science Magazine @science.org · 24/09/2026
Learning over an extended childhood has been fundamental to survival during human evolutionary history. Researchers show how Sumatran orangutans use their 8 years of dependency to master a broad diet, necessary for independent survival. Read more in this week’s issue: scim.ag/4xDjOfh
Learning over an extended childhood has been fundamental to survival during human evolutionary history. Researchers show how Sumatran orangutans use their 8 years of dependency to master a broad diet, necessary for independent survival. They find that infants have individual tendencies to engage in social and individual learning, which together determine diet profile breadth acquired by independence. The finding offers insights into the evolutionary roots of the complex learning mechanisms that characterize humans.

Photo: Suzi Eszterhas/Minden
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Zoë Goldsborough @zoegoldsborough.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
📣🎓 Open #PhD Position (3.5 years) 🎓📣 Want to come work with me on culture and social bonds in apes? 🐵 Apply to join my new group in the @livingingroups.bsky.social at @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social. Full job posting: imprs-qbee.mpg.de/131133/cultu... Deadline 📅 23 October 2026 Please share widely!
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Elodie Mandel-Briefer @ebriefer.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
More on collective movements, but this time in giraffes 🦒🦒🦒 We found that female are often the ones initiating group movements, and that large groups tend to split following these events. Thanks to Herbert Kasozi for involving me in this interesting work! @behaveco.bsky.social
academic.oup.com
The socioecological correlates of collective movements in giraffes
Giraffes often travel together to find food and water. We found that adult giraffes, especially females, were most likely to initiate group movements. Youn
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Max-Planck-Gesellschaft @maxplanck.de · 09/09/2026
We are hiring! Start at a #MaxPlanckInstitute with your own independent Max Planck Research Group. This position is equivalent to a W2 Professorship at a German university, or Associate Professor internationally. 🔗Apply until October 14th! www.mpg.de/career/max-p... #ScienceCareer #MPRG #TenureTrack
Call for independent Max Planck Research Groups
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Emily Grout @emilygrout.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Excited to share our new publication in Bioacoustics today, describing the vocal repertoire of white-nosed coatis! 🐾 We combined traditional acoustic analyses with an unsupervised approach to characterise the complexity and diversity of their vocal behaviour. doi.org/10.1080/0952...
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Hester Bronnvik @hbronnv.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Why live with your parents? Golden eagles 𝘤𝘢𝘯 be independent long before they actually 𝘢𝘳𝘦. We tracked juvenile eagle flight in high detail and found that skill didn’t predict when they left home. So what does? 🧵 📝 doi.org/10.1098/rsos.251574 @enourani.bsky.social @safilab.bsky.social
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
My research group will be moving to and growing at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in early 2027 with support from @carlzeissstiftung.bsky.social! Keep an eye out for upcoming graduate student and postdoc opportunities @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social @livingingroups.bsky.social
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Zoë Goldsborough @zoegoldsborough.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Imagine you are a white-faced capuchin monkey on Jicarón island learning how to use stone tools 🔨 Your mother does not use tools, so who do you turn to as a model? Our new manuscript answering this question is out now in Animal Behaviour @asab.org. doi.org/10.1016/j.an.... A 🧵 of our findings (1/10)
A juvenile white-faced capuchin monkey eating a coconut. Photo credits Christian Ziegler
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Marc Robinson-Rechavi @marcrr.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Open position of Associate Professor in Behavioral ecology and cultural evolution at the @dee-unil.bsky.social! You can toggle the ad to English on top right: wwwfbm.unil.ch/releve/appli...
wwwfbm.unil.ch
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Reena Debray @reenadebray.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Postdoc position coadvised by me, @jennytung.bsky.social, and Dr. Mercy Akinyi at the @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social to study microbiome transmission between humans, livestock, and wildlife in the Tana River Region of Kenya. More information and application link here: www.eva.mpg.de/career/posit...
eva.mpg.de
Positions available - Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
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Gustavo Alarcón-Nieto @galarconnieto.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Oilbird movement strategies and differences in flight effort. Happy to share the first publication on the oilbird project: link.springer.com/article/10.1... @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social @kamransafi.bsky.social @animaltracking.bsky.social
link.springer.com
Oilbirds performing non-seasonal intra-tropical migrations reduce flight effort compared to individuals that frequently return to the colony roost - Movement Ecology
Individual behavioural variation is a driver of population dynamics and key for the adaptation and persistence of species. In colonial species, individuals share the same ecological niche and aggregat...
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Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Our recent paper led by @oddjacobson.bsky.social recently covered by @mongabay.com
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ISBE2026 @isbe2026.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
Meet our Plenary Speaker Daniela Rößler Fueled by curiosity and a deep love of natural history Daniela discovered a REM-like sleep state in spiders and uses integrative field, lab and comparative approaches to investigate the function, ecology, and evolution of sleep across the spider tree of life.
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Animal-Environment Interactions Lab @safilab.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Removing outliers is one of the first things to do when analysing movement data. With porting the remaining move functions to move2 in move2utils package, I also wrote some functions to address the GPS outlier problem. The preprint is out and you can find it here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Self-thresholding hierarchical outlier-detection for animal movement tracks
1). Erroneous locations are ubiquitous in animal tracking data and prove notoriously difficult to remove, particularly so in an unsupervised manner. Whether caused by poor satellite geometry, atmosphe...
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Universität Konstanz @uni-konstanz.de · 08/07/2026
From where did ancient Egyptians get the baboons they kept as pets and worshipped as gods? To solve this puzzle using genetics, #UniKonstanz @zukunftskolleg.bsky.social ​​ @giselakopp.bsky.social ​ + international researchers joined forces and headed to Africa in search of clues: t1p.de/chvqb
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Michael Sieber @michaelsieber.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Have ideas for your own, independent research program in Theoretical Biology? Then come and join us as a Group Leader at the @mpi-evolbio.bsky.social in Plön, Germany!
mpg.de
Group Leader in Theoretical Biology (m/f/d)
Experience in Theoretical Biology, Applied Mathematics, Theoretical Physics
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Lauren Brent @ljnbrent.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
The University of Exeter is not in budget deficit. Yet are proposing to cut 150 academic jobs. This include my job. Please sign and share the petition, write our Vice Chancellor, to your MP, and get the word out about the act of self harm this university is about to commit. c.org/yKcx6Zr29H
c.org
This campaign needs you now
Stop Redundancies at the University of Exeter
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Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
excited about this one: using longitudinal movement data and dyadic models, we show that orangutan moms adjust their ranging patterns so their kids can play with age-mates independent of kinship, at personal costs. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Mothers with similarly aged offspring share more space, and their offspring play more.
Posterior effect sizes from social relations models (SRMs) of (a, b) infant-infant play scans (n = 996
infant-dyad-years across 79 mother dyads) and (c) mother-mother home-range overlap (Bhattacharyya coefficient; n
= 282 mother-dyad years across 71 mother dyads). Panel (a) shows the hurdle component (probability of play
occurrence), sign-flipped so positive values indicate higher probability of play occurrence; panel (b) shows the count
component (play frequency). Points and thick and thin lines show posterior medians with 66% and 89% credible
intervals, respectively. (d) Counterfactual home-range overlap for each dyad when offspring are the same age versus
6 years apart. Points show posterior medians across all mother-mother dyads (one horizontal bar per dyad);
background densities show population-level predictions. (e) Offspring age-difference effect on home-range overlap
versus intersection area. (f) Posterior difference between the two effects (BC overlap minus intersection area).
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Max-Planck-Gesellschaft @maxplanck.de · 29/05/2026
An internal compass: #pigeons use magnetically responsive immune cells in their livers to sense Earth’s magnetic field, helping them navigate without visual cues like the sun. www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s8i... @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social @science.org
youtube.com
Pigeons navigate using magnetic sensors in their livers
YouTube video by Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
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Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
New mechanism for magnetic sensing in pigeons 🧭 Homing pigeons use magnetically responsive immune cells in their livers to sense Earth’s magnetic field, helping them navigate without visual cues like the sun. Published in Science: doi.org/10.1126/scie... @unibonn.bsky.social @unidue.bsky.social
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Julia Penndorf @julia-penndorf.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
🎉New paper alert 🥳 Does proximity of breeding hollows influence foraging associations in wild cockatoos? doi.org/10.1098/rsbl... (🧵—1/2) With @lucymaplin.bsky.social , A. Csak
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Dieter Lukas @dieterlukas.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 23/05/2026
"where are wild animals living and dying?" BBC report on the ICARUS project tracking animals from space www.bbc.com/future/article/20260521…
bbc.com
We can now track animal panic from space. Here's why it matters
The new Icarus satellite is tracking signals hidden in animal behaviour – which could save the lives of cheetahs, rhinos and elephants.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
It's taken a while, but I have finally discovered the secrets of academic success. Find a great postdoc and ask your friends to share their data. And voila, new insights about social structure in papionin primates. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
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Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Post Peer-review pub out from my former PhD student @oddjacobson.bsky.social dissertation. Im proud of their integration of longitudinal demographic, behavioral, historical, remote sensing, climate & movement data under a causal inference framework using hierarchical social relations models & CTMM
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Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
It takes decades to see how climatic cycles interact with the social dynamics of animal societies. Now a 33-year dataset of 12 capuchin groups + satellite environmental data has an answer. @livingingroups.bsky.social @oddjacobson.bsky.social @bjjbarrett.bsky.social www.ab.mpg.de/857503/news_...
ab.mpg.de
How do climate extremes alter animal societies?
As climate change intensifies, scientists are becoming increasingly concerned about how animals will cope with a more unpredictable world. One way to gain insight is by studying how animals have alrea...
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Sarah Primate @langurlover.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Sigh. #Primates
phys.org
When strength in numbers stops working: Climate extremes rewrite monkey society in Costa Rica
As climate change intensifies, scientists are becoming increasingly concerned about how animals will cope with a more unpredictable world. One way to gain insight is by studying how animals have alrea...
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Ecology of Animal Societies @livingingroups.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
With co-authors @meg-crofoot.bsky.social, @ggfinerty.bsky.social , Susan Perry & @bjjbarrett.bsky.social, at @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social @uni-konstanz.de, and UCLA.
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Ecology of Animal Societies @livingingroups.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
None of this would have been possible without the Lomas Barbudal Monkey Project, founded by Susan Perry in 1990 — one of the longest-running primate field studies in the world. 🌳🐒 The power of long-term data.
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Ecology of Animal Societies @livingingroups.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Group sizes vary widely in nature. Our results suggest a reason why: group size is not a fixed advantage or disadvantage. It can impose costs within groups, yet become an asset between groups, with the balance shifting across environmental contexts.
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Ecology of Animal Societies @livingingroups.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Interannual climate variability changed the trade-off too. Across El Niño and La Niña cycles, ENSO reshaped the costs and benefits of group size, with extreme conditions amplifying the costs of living in a large group.
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Ecology of Animal Societies @livingingroups.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
In Costa Rica’s tropical dry forest, the dry season concentrates resources along riverine habitat. During this period, home ranges overlapped less, but inter-group encounters spiked, with larger groups occupying the best-quality patches.
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Ecology of Animal Societies @livingingroups.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Group size matters. Relative group size matters more. Under typical conditions, larger groups paid a clear cost: individuals foraged less efficiently. But they compensated by expanding their ranges, and did so disproportionately toward smaller neighbors.
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Ecology of Animal Societies @livingingroups.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Is bigger always better? For social animals, group size is a dilemma: big groups face more internal competition, yet hold an edge over smaller neighbors. 33 years of data on 12 wild capuchin groups reveals how these forces shape behavior. Out today in *Nat Eco & Evo*: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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