iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Simon Evans

BES Evolutionary Ecology Group @bes-evolecol.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

We have a mailing list, so do subscribe if you want to be aware of upcoming webinars, annual conference announcements, etc: eepurl.com/jz7cAs

eepurl.com

British Ecological Society

British Ecological Society Email Forms

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Reposted by Simon Evans

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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Ran Ari-Gur @ran-arigur.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

This is one of those neat insights that's so obvious once it's pointed out: selection pressure will have less effect on a non-isolated population (because genes will keep flowing in from outside), and experiments on wild populations have to take that into account.

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

I was pleased to have bought the watch with a discount. And then I had to buy a smartphone. Although, actually, it is nice not having to go and make a cup of tea to kill time while I wait for a webpage to load.

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

As with choosing binoculars, mobility is my primary concern. And phones are still swelling ever larger. How do I fit something the size of an iPad into the back pocket of my running shorts?

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

I was at an X Prize event yesterday to brainstorm competition ideas and someone suggested a reward for developing technology to harvest the rare elements from phones.

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

It means that I bought a new phone in 2016. I bought myself a sports watch for Xmas and it couldn’t link to that phone. I literally couldn’t get the watch working. So I had to upgrade my phone. It’s only four years old.

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

As I was paying with my phone, the person at the till said “oh wow, I haven’t seen one of those phones for such a long time.” It’s the newest phone I’ve owned for seven years.

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David Berger @dbergerbiol.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

PhD-position ALERT! Interested in the genomics of local adaptation and the evolution of niche breadth? 🪲🧬🪲🧬🪲🧬🪲🧬🪲🧬 Come join me and @gmkov.bsky.social at @animecol-uu.bsky.social, Uppsala University, by applying here: uu.varbi.com/en/what:job/... Deadline 1st of November!

uu.varbi.com

PhD-student in Evolutionary and Ecological Genetics

Do you want to conduct frontier research in an outstanding environment within evolutionary biology at Sweden’s largest faculty of science and technology? The Department of Ecology and Genetics at Up

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

Instead, I had to develop a way quantitatively demonstrate that trait evolution was equally driven—and sometimes halted—by gene flow. Far from being a constant influence, it was highly dynamic…just as we already think of natural selection.

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

This study was conceived by @erikpostma.bsky.social, who secured funding for a 4 year postdoc. It took me most of that period to unpick what was supposed to be a confirmatory account of adaptive trait evolution in response to selection.

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

Not ‘built’, that was clumsy. And not weighting all possibilities, that’s also silly. But where the outcome (the decision) is pre-determined by the structure of the neurones and their connections. We do know that decisions are made before we’re consciously aware of them.

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

A brief but important addendum: the paradox of stasis is generally invoked a posteriori. Which may seem unimportant. Yet it is a route to observation selection bias, which gives a skewed perspective of the truth (the same process is why formal meta-analyses assess the distribution of effect sizes).

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

The full, article is now published in PLOS Biology: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

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

We argue that this study demonstrates why immigration matters: if we don't account for it, we're answering the wrong question. If we do, contemporary trait evolution becomes explicable (including a *lack* of trait evolution).

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

Just as fascinates us about natural selection, the evolutionary impact of immigration is dynamic, ebbing and flowing over time. Sometimes it balances out local adaptation, leading to evolutionary stasis, at other times it alone is driving trait evolution.

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

We can visualise the impact of immigration on trait evolution by quantifying the contributions to trait evolution overall of (a) in situ genetic change versus (b) gene flow. We did this for four period within our multi-decadal study period, revealing the evolutionary impact of immigration.

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

When we corrected for immigration in our study of clutch size—a trait with obvious links to fitness—by excluding new immigrants from the post-selection population, the apparent evolutionary under-reaction of clutch size was greatly reduced: from a shortfall of 69% to 26%. But we can do more...

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

The exceptions are where experimenters applied artificial selection to free-living animal populations. We found three such studies (all on birds: two on clutch size, one on tarsus), and the authors took care to compare the parental generation with their offspring.

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

Here, where we assess the discrepancy between predicted and observed trait change, the distinction between evolution and adaptation starts to matter (and 'starts' is doing some very heavy lifting). Because almost all empirical comparisons to date have quantified trait *evolution*. The exceptions?

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

If you're an evolutionary ecologist then you know the 'paradox of stasis'. This is the idea that wild animal populations do not respond to selection as we expect. In fact, as the name suggests, traits do not seem to respond to selection *at all*, despite heritable variation. So was Darwin wrong?

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

journals.plos.org

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

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

Although at some point is the brain built in a similar way? (I don’t know enough about neurology and philosophy to have an informed answer but I am confident this is a question that we’ve wrestled with, in the past if not now.

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

I generally find the bickering off-putting rather than convincing, but phrased like this—the output of an LLM is a prediction from an unimaginably hypervariate model—seems to greatly simplify things.

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tomjwebb @tomjwebb.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The annual dilemma of how comprehensively to update my coral bleaching lecture. As usual my thought process is, 'Might just let *this year's* catastrophe play out and do a more thorough job *next* year…'

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Simon Evans @sevans.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

So why didn’t Hugging Face have a tick box asking if you’re human?

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Simon Evans @sevans.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

British and American English have many confusing noun variants. Autumn/fall, lift/elevator. And the trousers/pants thing is clearly childishness on their part. But with birds the options can be wonderfully wholesome wherever you are. - Titmice versus chickadees - Goldcrests versus kinglets

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Simon Evans @sevans.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Interesting idea. the-one-percent.qedscience.com "QED Score evaluates any life science manuscript on two dimensions: originality, (how far the finding advances the field ) and validity (how well the evidence supports the conclusions ). Before scoring begins, every manuscript is fully anonymized."

the-one-percent.qedscience.com

QED — The most compelling preprints of 2025

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Emily Gorcenski @emily.gorcen.ski · 28/09/2026

Here’s the most incredible story you’ll read today. A small plane with four people aboard crashes in a field. Another pilot witnesses it. That pilot happens to be flying a bunch of skydivers. They offer to jump to assist, are given permission. The skydivers happen to be EMTs. Everyone survives.

wisn.com

Skydivers alert emergency crews, assist after plane crashes near East Troy airport

Four people were aboard the single-engine plane when it went down in a cornfield near Carvers School Road in East Troy at about 1:30 p.m.

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Antigoni Samourdani @antisamourdani.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

An inspiring feminist talk! The science is great but what resonated with me most was taking the space to talk about all the societal obstacles she faced, the motivation from seeing other women suceed in what seemed impossible & the importance of trying and trying again.

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Simon Evans @sevans.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The state of science today: study of tumour evolution within patients is open access; the accompanying overview is paywalled. You are a mess, Nature. Albeit a highly profitable one. www.nature.com/articles/d41... nature.com/articles/d41...

nature.com

Evolution of drug-resistant ovarian-cancer clones tracked in patients

Therapy-resistant clones are typically present at diagnosis but are rare and have distinctive genomic features.

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Reposted by Simon Evans

Susie Dent @susiedentwords.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Etymology of the day: the expression ‘you have another thing coming’ was originally ‘you have another think coming’: today’s version appeared within a year of the original, back in the 1800s. A short piece on the joyful messiness of linguistic evolution. susiedent.substack.com/p/another-th...

susiedent.substack.com

Another think coming

How linguistic evolution is as messy as it is joyful

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Simon Evans @sevans.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Perhaps the most underappreciated negative impact of chatbots on science is that publishers reinforced paywalls just as we seemed on the brink of a revolution in access.

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Simon Evans @sevans.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

He sounds like a dream dinner party guest.

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Simon Evans @sevans.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

If I could invite any one person to give a seminar —and I mean absolutely anyone—it would be David Lack. How about you? Who would you invite?

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Simon Evans @sevans.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Rosemary Grant telling us in her @bes-evolecol.bsky.social webinar that even after finishing school, as a woman she was not allowed to open a bank account without a man accompanying her. Ghastly experience, but wonderful to hear of the early steps on her path to such enormous scientific impact.

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Sandy Horne @sandyhorne.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Happy Wrensday Wednesday! A male white-winged fairywren at the Australian Arid Lands Botanic Garden. #wrensday

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Simon Evans @sevans.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

One hour away! And you’re already halfway through the week! So reward yourself with some of the very best of evolutionary ecology, starting in just under one hour: www.britishecologicalsociety.org/content/evol...

britishecologicalsociety.org

Evolutionary Ecology Webinar: Darwin's Finches | BES 2026

Join the BES Evolutionary Ecology SIG webinar with Rosemary Grant on Darwin's finches, natural selection, genetics, behaviour and rapid evolution.

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Alberta Claw @albertonykus.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

New review of what we know and don't know about the evolutionary history of birds and their close fossil relatives! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... 🪶🧪 (📷Benito & @lizzysteell.bsky.social)

Diagram showing the evolutionary relationships and geologic ages of birds and closely related bird-like dinosaurs.

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Simon Evans @sevans.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Hospitals have back-up generators. Surely a contractor would have suggested it would be a sensible precaution on a remote equatorial island, even if electric fences were not your sole means of containing a nine ton carnivore?

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Jeremy Yoder says no war @jbyoder.org · 20/09/2026

ALMOST EVERY PEER REVIEWED PAPER HAS A SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS RIGHT BELOW ITS TITLE

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Simon Evans @sevans.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Building a tool to forewarn us of approaching (or surpassed) tipping points in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre. Innovative, exciting, impactful.

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Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) @aria-research.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

From new techniques to protect trees and amphibians from disease, to governance approaches for novel ecological interventions, meet the teams who are exploring how we can expand our conservation toolkit as part of our Accelerated Adaptation programme: link.aria.org.uk/AA-Creators

link.aria.org.uk

Funded projects | Accelerated Adaptation

Explore the project we're funding in the Accelerated Adaptation programme.

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Charles West @pseudo-isidore.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

21,627 applications for the Marie Curie early career fellowships.

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Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

This animated map shows every river in mainland Spain and Portugal, animated using only its own water flow. The Iberian Peninsula practically breathes: river discharge swings from just 890 m³/s at the summer low to 33,600 m³/s at the February 2026 peak. A 38-fold difference. HT @AaronJBecker

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Simon Evans @sevans.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

This is potentially a very important result: reciprocal transplants show that most adaptation is so localised that we overlook it.

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Simon Evans @sevans.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

“Speech is not violence” quotes @virginiaheffernan.bsky.social of Steven Pinker. Which is just as well for him, for this would otherwise be a hospitalising beating. A pen swung like a sword.

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Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

I haven't found the science that people are writing up with AI much more or less interesting than things previously. Neither are interesting compared to when my friends would tell me what they really thought, drunk or high or jacked up on coffee, in secret

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Elias Greig @eliasgreig.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

I keep seeing articles about men worrying they won't pass on their genes, and I don't understand why the media won't tell the plain truth: as a man hoping to sire children, the most important thing to do is artfully assemble a bower and surround it with a collection of startlingly blue objects.

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Simon Evans @sevans.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Next week! Rosemary Grant (yes, THE Rosemary Grant) is giving a free online seminar! Wednesday at 3pm, UK time. You need to register beforehand to join.

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