Reposted by Catherine SheardKatie Mack @astrokatie.com · 10hOne of the most harrowing things about academia, when you're a grad student, is how vulnerable you are to how you're perceived by more senior researchers. Your career advancement depends on confidential letters of reference & private discussions amongst faculty. You have no information or control. 9764124
Reposted by Catherine SheardJolyon Troscianko @jtroscianko.bsky.social · 14h🦋 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 1016382
Reposted by Catherine SheardSteve Brusatte @stevebrusatte.bsky.social · 17h🚨Postdoc job alert: Come work with my paleontology & evolution group in Edinburgh! Researcher in Cognitive Evolution Over Deep Time. You'll study how brains & neurons have evolved over time, and predict neuron count in extinct species! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DTC355/p...jobs.ac.ukPostdoctoral Research Associate in Cognitive Evolution over Deep Time at The University of EdinburghApply for the Postdoctoral Research Associate in Cognitive Evolution over Deep Time role on jobs.ac.uk, the top job board for academic positions in higher education. View details and apply now. 25468
Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 18hThe Magnus Archives skepticism about macroecology (episode 121, for the curious) is such a jump-scare my god 😂😂😂 110
Reposted by Catherine SheardDepartment of Biology, Lund University @biologylu.bsky.social · 23hClimate change is reshaping butterfly ranges worldwide. A global study found that 80% of 1,758 species in its dataset had expanded their ranges. @larspett.bsky.social and colleagues combined 6,182 reports from 105 countries. doi.org/10.1038/s415... #Biodiversity #ClimateChange #Ecology 045
Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 29/09/2026I've been hopping in and out of the Zoom version of today's BOU conference, and the talk this afternoon about this project was excellent. Across 25 years, population change in the birds of North Carolina can be predicted by their traits & environmental niches. ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...ecoevorxiv.orgSpecies Traits Predict Local Population Change Above and Beyond Regional Trend 100
Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 29/09/2026I absolutely love this paper -- Menezes & Podos in Evolution demonstrate that loudness is linked to body size and gap width, but apparently not to habitat or mating system, across 123 Brazilian & US species. academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...academic.oup.comEvolutionary drivers of vocal amplitude in birdsBirds can surpass all other terrestrial vertebrates in vocal amplitude, yet why some birds sing louder than others remains unclear. Using calibrated field 1217
Reposted by Catherine SheardLevayer Lab @levayerr.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Here it is...by delegating decision to non transparent AI models we generate an incentive for grant applicants to use AI writing to tweak system and the vicious/absurd feedback loop is set (which all started by an overload of grant application driven by AI writing). www.science.org/content/arti...science.orgU.K. funder uses ‘AI triage’ to reject grant proposals—leaving researchers dismayedThe AI-based assessment, which wasn’t explicitly described in the funding call, has raised privacy and fairness concerns 13216
Reposted by Catherine Sheardnick @unionnick.bsky.social · 27/09/2026On the *same day* the Cornell Seven drugged and raped Jane Doe, Cornell banned four students (including the President of Cornell JVP) from campus for three years for nonviolent, pro-Palestine protests. The same Cornell officials let the rapists off with apology essays. 4149771964
Reposted by Catherine SheardProfessor John R. Hutchinson @johnrhutchinson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026New paper! Brandon Kilbourne conducted a huge data collection effort for the limb muscle architecture (masses, fascicle lengths, pennation angles; thereby PCSAs) of mustelid mammals. We found conspicuous relationships with morphology and locomotor mode. link.springer.com/article/10.1...link.springer.comMuscle architecture in mustelid mammals: anatomical proxies for muscle function and their relation to locomotor habit - BMC Ecology and EvolutionBackground Though skeletal adaptations for locomotion in mammals are well documented, possible limb adaptations in terms of muscle architecture have received far less study. Examining mustelid mammals... 32919
Reposted by Catherine SheardBrian J. Enquist @bjenquist.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Please pass along: I’m recruiting PhD students to join our Macroecology Lab. We study physical ecology, macroecology, and biodiversity — spanning scaling, trait-based ecology, theory, comparative biology & ecoinformatics. Several avenues for funding. Please reach out if interested 🧪🌐🌾 291126
Reposted by Catherine Sheardc0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 27/09/2026The obvious conclusion (to me): if you have proprietary research & you upload it into the Plagiarism Nexus, it's not YOUR proprietary research anymore. Behave accordingly. 726589
Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Hey. Hey, UKRI. HEY UKRI. When some of us are Big Mad that you use genAI to review our grants? This is why. 021
Reposted by Catherine SheardMichael Lobel @mlobelart.bsky.social · 27/09/2026I've talked to a few journal editors who are concerned about similar problems re: anonymous reviewers. If a peer reviewer wants a little help & feeds your unpublished submission into an AI system, they've just shared your proprietary work & broken confidentiality. A nightmare to think about 6239133
Reposted by Catherine SheardRobin Hayward 🌳 🏳️⚧️ @canopyrobin.com · 25/09/2026We're publishing new guidance to support trans people who do fieldwork (any work outside the office)! Now we need your help to get them seen so please share! inclusivefieldwork.leeds.ac.uk/trans/ 15597444
Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 25/09/2026I am *begging* those who analyse UKHE survey results to learn some basic stats. "X group is happier than Y group!" Mate, X group has an 88% satisfaction rate and Y group has an 87% satisfaction rate, across relatively small sample sizes. Yo. 151
Reposted by Catherine SheardJohn Stott @jpsastro.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Had a UKRI funded grant proposal rejected at the "AI triage stage". "This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review." 🧪 #academicsky 40421224
Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 24/09/2026I cannot even begin to stress how important mentors have been for my career thus far, especially informal and/or peer mentorship. Sometimes mentoring is from your supervisor, or a formal programme, but more often it's a diffuse network of people in your corner. www.nature.com/articles/d41...nature.comSuccessful early-career scientists rely on network of mentorsLarge networks are particularly beneficial to researchers in under-represented groups. 1127
Reposted by Catherine SheardColin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026What's behind this tidal wave of epidemics? In the largest study ever conducted on emerging infectious diseases, we show that the popular explanation - "our relationship with nature is out of balance" - doesn't hold up. Out now in Nature, after half a decade of work: www.nature.com/articles/s41...nature.comThe anthropogenic fingerprint on emerging infectious diseases - NatureEmerging infectious disease outbreak risks are ubiquitous worldwide, and highest in landscapes where people, livestock and fragmented natural ecosystems coexist, but detection and data ... 8553276
Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Gotta love a (genuine) email from my employer than begins "Hello, Sheard" 🫠 020
Reposted by Catherine SheardClaudia Wascher @wascherclaudia.bsky.social · 23/09/2026The scientific impact of gender in behaviour, ecology and evolution: authorship and citation performance @marinapapa.bsky.social & Afruni: 20 years on, male-dominated author teams still prevail and solo female authorship remains rare www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...sciencedirect.comThe scientific impact of gender in behaviour, ecology and evolution: authorship and citation performanceOver the last few decades, gender bias across scientific disciplines has been revealed in the form of skewed gender ratios among invited speakers in c… 11210
Reposted by Catherine SheardNatalie Cooper @nhcooper123.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Our update to the BES Data Management Guide is now live! assets.britishecologicalsociety.org/2026/09/2110... Huge thanks to the incredibly talented ECRs who contributed sections. It's an excellent resource that I've already used with my PhD students. ❤️ 03825
Reposted by Catherine SheardDr. Emma E. Bird @dremmabird.bsky.social · 22/09/2026A number of 🚨Science & Museum Jobs🚨 available at different levels right now for the Distributed System of Scientific Collections UK programme 🪩 #DiSSCo 🪩 fab if you're into 🌳science digitisation🌳 #ScienceJobs #MuseumJobs jobs.nhm.ac.uk/internal/Job...jobs.nhm.ac.ukDiSSCo UK Digitiser:South Kensington 01014
Reposted by Catherine SheardLizzy Steell @lizzysteell.bsky.social · 21/09/2026🚨 New bird paper! 🚨 Take a look at our review paper that Juan Benito and I put together about avian systematics and the bird fossil record along with what we think are important future directions in the field 🐦 🦴 🦜🦅🦤 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....tandfonline.comA bird’s eye view of the fossil record: perspectives on avian systematicsRecent decades have witnessed an unprecedented rise in avian fossil discoveries that directly inform our understanding of bird origins and evolution, the stepwise assemblage of the avian body plan,... 15825
Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Current layer of hell: they oversold my flight and bumped me to a flight nine hours later. They now won't let me check in for that flight because I don't have an ETA. *I am travelling on a British passport* But apparently they can't do a document check until two hours before my new flight??? 🫠 240
Reposted by Catherine SheardCarl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 19/09/2026When we talk about the costs that LLMs impose on society we should not forget the fact that nothing works anymore because everyone is so scared of getting their shit scraped. I can't even use google scholar from my university or starlink because they send too much traffic. 984456965
Reposted by Catherine SheardProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences @pnas.org · 18/09/2026How local is local adaptation? Researchers transplanted more than 700 lab-raised stickleback fish among lake and stream environments, finding that adaptation to specific sites can outweigh adaptation to broader habitat differences. In PNAS: ow.ly/yTOk50ZP97o 15822
Reposted by Catherine SheardRobert Mahon @bedform.org · 19/09/2026there is no ethical use of LLMs/genAI. 26418
Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 18/09/2026Additional salient detail: most of these were solo-authored. If, like, a middle author former student can only describe their own contribution and not the overall picture, so be it. But that ain't what's happening here. 1156
Reposted by Catherine SheardAlexander Lees @alexanderlees.bsky.social · 18/09/2026Our new paper led by @ollie333.bsky.social highlights poor performance of global bird classifier models (Perch and Birdnet) for Amazonian species identification, but shows they can be used as data-derived acoustic indices capturing species richness #Ornithology 🌎🧪🪶📊 doi.org/10.1016/j.ec... 12810
Reposted by Catherine SheardDmitri Petrov @petrovadmitri.bsky.social · 17/09/2026We are searching for an Assistant Professor in Evolutionary Biology! Looking for colleagues asking fundamental questions relating to evolutionary processes and drivers of evolutionary patterns. If you think it is you, please do apply! And please repost. facultypositions.stanford.edu/jobs/assista...facultypositions.stanford.eduAssistant Professor in Evolutionary Biology - Stanford University, California, United StatesThe Department of Biology at Stanford University seeks applicants for a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Evolutionary Biology. A successful candidate will conduct research that asks fundamental que... 5151189
Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 15/09/2026I'm currently doing my uni's annual fire safety training (snore), and one particular gem is the claim that "windows won't be open anyway due to widespread air conditioning". 1) What aircon. 2) It's *northeast Scotland*. What even need is there for aircon??? 160
Reposted by Catherine SheardColin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 15/09/2026www.nature.com/articles/d41...nature.comThe pet trade puts reptiles and amphibians at risk: close legal gaps nowPatchy legislation means that animals are routinely taken from their natural habitats and sold in other countries. Fresh national and international measures could help to stop this exploitation. 063
Reposted by Catherine SheardiDiv Biodiversity Research @idiv-research.bsky.social · 15/09/2026🌍 iDiv and the @uni-jena.de are hiring a Postdoctoral Researcher (f/m/d) in Macroevolution & Macroecology. 🕒 Full-time (40h/week) or part-time (minimum 75%) 📅 Start: 1 Dec 2026 💼 Fixed-term: 3 years 💶 Salary: up to E13 (TV‑L) ⏳ Deadline: 30 Sept 2026 www.idiv.de/career/job-o...idiv.deJob OpeningsExplore exciting career opportunities at iDiv. Join a modern, international, and innovative research centre in the heart of Germany. 11622
Reposted by Catherine SheardCultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 14/09/2026ACE Research Grant Alert 🚨! CES will give out two awards of up to $3000 each to support early career research projects in cultural evolution. The award is open to applicants worldwide, with an application deadline of October 9th 2026, 9:00 AM AoE. Applications: forms.gle/dsLdKQuNBH4W...forms.gleACE Early Career Research GrantsCES will give out two awards of up to $3000 each to support research projects in cultural evolution. To learn more about the Advancing Cultural Evolution (ACE) initiative, see here. Deadline: Appli... 02935
Reposted by Catherine SheardSal Keith (she/her) @salkeith.bsky.social · 14/09/2026ONE WEEK LEFT to join our team! Senior Research Associate in AI-Enabled Behavioural Ecology for Conservation UKRI-funded; coral reefs/UK waters; 2yrs9mth No prior knowledge of AI required, willingness to learn essential! sallykeith.weebly.com/team.html @lec-reefs.bsky.social 025
Reposted by Catherine SheardBTO | British Trust for Ornithology @btobirds.bsky.social · 11/09/2026We're looking for our next Editor of BTO News! Find out more about the role and apply here➡️ www.bto.org/jobs 😀 📅 Full time, Permanent. 📝 £38,710.00 per annum. 📍 Thetford, Norfolk (Hybrid). Deadline for applications: 30 September 2026. #Ornithology 13439
Reposted by Catherine SheardBen-Gurion University of the Negev @bengurionuniv.bsky.social · 24/07/2026How can understanding people help us better protect nature? Prof. Uri Roll (@uriroll.bsky.social) of BGU’s Conservation Biology and Biodiversity Lab combines traditional ecological research with data fromjpost.comSearching for hope in an age of extinction | The Jerusalem PostConservation scientists understand that very rarely extinction is not always the final chapter 112
Reposted by Catherine SheardSal Keith (she/her) @salkeith.bsky.social · 11/09/2026Excited to share our new paper on Fundamental and Realised Behaviours - a new way to think about assemblage-level behavioural variation through space (+time) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Out today in @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.socialsciencedirect.comFundamental and realised behaviours structure geographic variation in ecological assemblagesAnimal behaviours shape ecological dynamics, from species distributions to ecosystem function. These dynamics emerge from the behaviours of multiple i… 1169
Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 11/09/2026I've managed to have my first nightmare about organising BES Macro 2027. Hoo boy. (For some context, I have nightmares just about every night, including about very mundane things. But still.) 121
Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 10/09/2026Susanne Fritz, who is great, is advertising a macroevolution/macroecology/biogeography postdoc at iDiv in Leipzig: jobs.uni-jena.de/jobposting/c...jobs.uni-jena.dePostdoctoral Researcher in Macroevolution and Macroecology 02227
Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 10/09/2026Something about the hike that I did this past week has wrecked the outer coating of my glasses -- yes, the extremely goofy ones, which have been LIFE-CHANGING for my photophobia. I'm so upset. 110
Reposted by Catherine SheardRoland Pierik @roleo.eurosky.social · 08/09/2026The number of cases of cervical cancer reported in Scotland among women given the HPV vaccine at 12-13 years of age is now zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. www.bbc.com/news/article...bbc.comNo cervical cancer cases in fully HPV-vaccinated women in ScotlandA study published by Public Health Scotland finds that the HPV vaccine is "highly effective". 6360692261
Reposted by Catherine SheardEos @eos.org · 09/09/202680% of survey participants reported experiencing at least one harmful fieldwork interaction, such as aggression, harassment, stereotyping, and privacy violations. 🧪 New research in @aguadvances.bsky.social eos.org/research-spo...eos.orgFour in Five Researchers Report Harmful Interactions During Geoscience Fieldwork. A New Survey Suggests a Path Forward. - EosA new survey documents the prevalence of harmful interactions that occur during fieldwork. Many instances go officially unreported. 14432
Reposted by Catherine SheardNico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 08/09/2026The PROGressive PHYLOgenetics LAB is now officially open and I'm looking to hire at all levels!! If you are interested in phylogenetics and macroevolution, and enjoy any/all of the following: fossils, morphology, genomics, simulations, or method development, please reach out to me :) 33328
Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 05/09/2026So I'm currently on a hiking holiday, specifically a very popular trail, and omfg what is it that makes men think they are entitled to make comments about my body (and/or act all weird about the fact that I'm a woman hiking alone). Just leave me the fuck alone. 2110
Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 05/09/2026This entire thread of fun facts is excellent. 041
Reposted by Catherine SheardDaniel Moser @dmoser.bsky.social · 03/09/2026Pollution levels in London after 10 years of advancing sustainable transport. 164115653179