iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Sarah Finn @romanceofbooks.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Hand-colored engravings of insects from ‘Der monathlich-herausgegebenen Insecten-Belustigung’ by August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof. Published in Nuremberg, 1746-1761. University of Wisconsin-Madison Special Collections. #insectart #sciart

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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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Simon Evans @sevans.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Evolution and adaptation are frequently used interchangeably when describing trait change. Does it really matter? Our new paper in PLOS Biology shows that yes, it really does. journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... Buckle up, we're going for a ride...

journals.plos.org

Gene flow drives periods of both evolutionary stasis and change in a wild bird population

Why do we not see evolutionary change in heritable, fitness-related traits of free-living populations? This multi-decade study of the evolution of clutch size in populations of great tits before, duri...

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Pat Savage @patrickesavage.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

We have put in a bid to hold the next @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social conference in Auckland 🇳🇿 from Feb 17-19 2028! We could really use your input in this survey to help us plan for if/how this conference is held (particularly re: in-person vs online participation): us.list-manage.com/xEOnWEahXJf?...

CES 2026 Post-Conference Survey

Next 2028 CES Conference

Would you attend CES if we hold it in Auckland Feb 17-19 2028?

Yes (in person)

Yes (online)

No (In this case, please proceed to Question 41)

Maybe: dependent on my availabilities and funding.

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Çağrı Çevrim @cagricevrim.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Your favorite website for illustrations of almost all organisms is looking for donations to help cover its running costs! Please consider donating to help keep this open-source platform running: www.phylopic.org/images

phylopic.org

All Silhouette Images on PhyloPic

Browse all the free silhouette images in PhyloPic.

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Jolyon Troscianko @jtroscianko.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

🦋 Butterfly wing patterns create motion illusions that protect them from predators! Our new study (8 years in the making) is out in Nature today doi.org/10.1038/s415... @grahancock.bsky.social @esbriolat.bsky.social @scienceanna.bsky.social @lauraakelley.bsky.social @uniexecec.bsky.social

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Sheina Lew-Levy @sheinalew.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Hey fieldworkers! Do you need documentation (health & safety protocols, codes of conduct, feedback forms)? Do you have documentation that you think could help others do better fieldwork, but don’t know where to share it? We’ve got you covered in our new Fieldwork Repo! osf.io/4h7bu/overview

osf.io

OSF

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Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

9. Benefits and potential issues associated with efforts to mobilize data from multiple generations of researchers on hundreds of primate species, both in the wild and in captivity

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Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

6. The digitization process: development and testing of manual and/or automated protocols 7. Database creation, curation, standards, licensing, and accessibility 8. Handling uncertainty and validation in reconstructed historical data

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Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

3. Integrating historical datasets with modern technology (remote sensing, camera traps, biologging) 4. Tracking demographic and life-history changes from past to present 5. Descriptions of valuable, under-used paper datasets (even if not yet digitized)

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Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

1. New analyses with old data: using recently digitized historical datasets to address fundamental questions in primatology 2.Using the past to predict the future: evaluating primate responses to climate change & anthropogenic impacts over the past 50 years to inform future research & conservation

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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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Sheina Lew-Levy @sheinalew.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

🚨 Our new lab paper, led by @amandinevisine.bsky.social, examines exploration, group composition, and play activities among BaYaka children and teens living in a village context! Amandine is currently on fieldwork following up on this for her PhD 🎯 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.com

Congolese BaYaka children's learning and exploring in a village context

Childhood is a key period for acquiring and transmitting cultural knowledge and skill. Hunter-gatherer children, such as the Congolese BaYaka, learn a…

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T Revathe @revathe.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Very cool work, congratulations!

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scienceartnews.bsky.social @scienceartnews.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The findings of @revathe.bsky.social et al., who analyzed ~7,000 behavioral data points of wild orangutans over 8 years, contribute to the science of cultural evolution by demonstrating how multi-year social and individual learning collaborate to shape the broad ecological competence of great apes.

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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Sar Crespi @boron110.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Sumatran orangutans have a long, long childhood (8 yrs!) but there's a lot to learn. This week on the @science.org podcast, we hear about how social and individual learning interact to shape ecological competence in orangutans w/ Elah Feder & Revathe Thillaikumar www.science.org/content/podc...

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Max-Planck-Gesellschaft @maxplanck.de · 25/09/2026

Learning style predicts survival skills in young #orangutans: how much knowledge a wild orangutan acquires over its long development depends on its tendencies for #learning socially and individually www.mpg.de/26983581/lea...

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Max-Planck-Gesellschaft @maxplanck.de · 25/09/2026

Adult #orangutans feed on 250 distinct food items, which they choose from thousands of options in the wide maze of the rainforest. Infants must learn this complex curriculum before they reach independence at the age of eight. How do they do this? www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzFH... #animalbehavior

youtube.com

How orangutans learn skills to survive

YouTube video by Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 26/09/2026

Does my Speak-n-Spell feel pain when I type O-U-C-H? The jury is out. Philosophers and neuroscientists say that's fucking stupid, but I called a guy from the Center for Pretending that Household Electronics Are Sentient and he said there's no way to know for sure.

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T Revathe @revathe.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

For the German speakers, here is an interview where Caroline Schuppli, my postdoctoral supervisor and the senior author on the paper, discusses our recent work on orangutan competence development. www.swr.de/swrkultur/wi...

swr.de

Wie junge Orang-Utans lernen, wirkt sich auf ihr Überleben aus

Orang-Utans lernen unterschiedlich. Manche gucken mehr zu, andere probieren mehr aus. Wie sie konkret Fähigkeiten lernen hat Einfluss darauf, wie viel Futter sie finden – und damit auch, wie sicher ih...

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T Revathe @revathe.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Because peering triggers exploration events, we considered only the explorations that were individually initiated to quantify individual learning propensities. In doing so, we most likely underestimate the influence of social learning.

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T Revathe @revathe.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Infants follow up most peering events with exploration behavior. And, in general, the rate of exploration is much high after than before peering (Schuppli et al. 2016). Infants also show targeted exploration after peering. Peering is thus treated as an indicator of OSL (papers above).

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T Revathe @revathe.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Perhaps another clarification I would add is that peering and exploration are validated behavioral indicators of social and individual learning and that not all peering/exploration events may result in learning, which we clarify in the SI.

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T Revathe @revathe.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Sorry, it should be Slania et al. 2026

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T Revathe @revathe.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I wouldn't really call what we quantify as learning strategies. I would say that it is best thought of as naturally occurring variation in individual propensities to engage in learning - we did not test whether infants had different learning strategies.

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T Revathe @revathe.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Indeed, we do not assume that all learning after peering is socially driven. We test whether individual propensities to engage in peering and exploration behaviour during development predict the breadth of the diet profile acquired at independence.

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T Revathe @revathe.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Thank you for tagging me. Schuppli et al. 2016 validate peering as an indicator of observational social learning (OSL) in orangutans. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... There are studies on other primates on peering as an indicator of OSL (Perry et al. 2006, Permana et al. 2025, Nora et al. 2026)

sciencedirect.com

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T Revathe @revathe.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

TL; DR Here is a summary of the different forms of learning involved in the development of ecological competence in one of the closest living relatives of humans, making it clear that the cultural complexities seen in humans were built upon substantial evolutionary foundations.

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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

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T Revathe @revathe.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I am immensely thankful for the MSCA postdoctoral fellowship by @ec.europa.eu, without which I couldn’t have dreamt of working on this project. 10/11

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T Revathe @revathe.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Thanks to all the Indonesian institutions for their support for the SUAQ Project. Thanks to UNAS for the fantastic long-term collaboration and joint work on the project! 9/11

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T Revathe @revathe.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

This work would not have been possible without the long-term data, tirelessly and meticulously collected by numerous Indonesian and foreign researchers and research assistants. Huge thanks to all the co-authors (on bluesky @irazik.bsky.social @paulbuerkner.com) – this was truly a dream team! 8/11

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T Revathe @revathe.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Diet profile is a crucial and broad survival skill, encompassing know-what, know-how, know-when, and know-where knowledge types. Our results therefore bear significance not just for orangutans, but also for other species with similar knowledge requirements. 7/11

The circular dendrogram shows all the recorded unique food items eaten by a sample of 3 focal immatures. Each vertex (grey line) indicates a food item. Each node (colored circle) represents a food species. Node size represents the recorded number of times each food item was consumed by these immatures during the study period. Below the circular dendrogram, each infant's social and individual learning propensities along with the respective population average propensities are shown. The images of the immatures are shown in the middle of the dendrogram.

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T Revathe @revathe.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Social and individual learning worked in tandem in diet profile development. However, when some infants had low individual learning propensities, the associated reduction in diet profile breadth was partially offset by their heightened social learning propensities. 6/11

Predicted effects of social and individual learning propensities on the development of a broad ecological competence are shown. The graph has two panels: (A) Estimated development of the breadths of the diet profiles of immatures between birth and the onset of independence and (B) Estimated breadths of the diet profiles at independence, as a function of immatures’ estimated average social and individually initiated learning propensities. Low, Average, High refer to mean-1SD, mean, and mean+1SD. Each circle represents a posterior prediction. The yellow circle represents the posterior mean, and the vertical lines represent 95% CI.

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T Revathe @revathe.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

We therefore considered only independently initiated explorations when quantifying individual learning. Infants differed from one another in their social/individual learning propensities (accounting for confounds), but social learning was 5-6 times more frequent than individual learning. 5/11

Individual variation in learning propensities and within-individual relationships between propensities of different forms of learning are shown. Graphs on the first row show posterior distributions of the estimated average (A) social, (B) socially initiated and (C) individually initiated learning propensities for 21 immatures over their 8.5-year developmental period. The dashed black vertical line represents the population average, and the yellow diamond represents the posterior mean of the estimate for each immature. Values to the left of the dashed line represent lower, and those to the right higher, than population average propensities. The bottom row shows the scatterplots of individuals’ posterior mean for (D) social and individually initiated, (E) social and socially initiated, and (F) socially and individually initiated learning propensities for the 21 immatures. Circle size represents the total observation duration for each immature between birth and 8.5 years of age (N = 2-360 hours). Correlation r and posterior probabilities for the hypothesis ‘r > 0’ are shown.

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T Revathe @revathe.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

After peering, infants engaged in exploration behavior. Peering triggered subsequent explorations for 2.5 hours! The key takeaway here is that engaging in social learning has a knock-on effect; not all exploration events are truly indicative of individual learning. 4/11

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T Revathe @revathe.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Using the data collected over 20 years on 21 infants between birth & independence, we find that social learning does the heavy lifting in diet profile development. How, you ask? 3/11

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T Revathe @revathe.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Using ~7000 records of behavioral indicators of social (peering) & individual (exploration) learning, we find that heightened social & individual learning propensities led to the development of the broadest diet profile at independence. But which is more important: social/individual learning? 2/11

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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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Behaviour 2027 @behaviour2027.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Spread the word! Behaviour 2027 will be taking place in Vienna, Austria, from August 23-27.

Galapagos short-eared owl with text "Who is excited about behaviour 2027? Join us in Vienna August 23-27"

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Camille Troisi @camilletroisi.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Super mega stocked to share this ⭐new review ⭐ on the impact of urbanisation on social learning. tinyurl.com/2pt6s6zs

tinyurl.com

Client Challenge

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