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Simon Baeckens

@simonbaeckens.bsky.social
364 followers 378 following 17 posts

Asst. Prof. at UCLouvain 🇧🇪 // Head of the Animal Evolutionary Ecology lab // macro- to micro-evolution and lizard adaptations🦎

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Simon Baeckens @simonbaeckens.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
Excited to welcome Alice Funk as the first full-time PhD student in the Animal Evolutionary Ecology Lab at UCLouvain! Alice will study how common wall lizards 🦎 respond and adapt to heavy metal pollution in contaminated post-industrial sites in southern Belgium. Welcome Alice!
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Simon Baeckens @simonbaeckens.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
I’ll be joining the editorial board of FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY as an Associate Editor, my number one ecology journal! Looking forward to contributing to such a HQ society journal that has published some of my most favorite organismal ecology studies. Thanks for the opportunity @funecology.bsky.social!
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Simon Baeckens @simonbaeckens.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
After years chasing lizards in pristine places abroad, now turning to our own backyard—seeing (whether and) how native herps cope with polluted, post-industrial sites 🇧🇪🦎 (Together with wonderful ULiège collaborators!)
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Simon Baeckens @simonbaeckens.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
Deadline for applying is 9 march. Don't miss out!
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Simon Baeckens @simonbaeckens.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
Three field seasons 219 lizards 🦎 >1,000 hours of behavioural video scoring Proud of Ioanna Gavriilidi for getting this major chapter of her PhD on insularity and lizard behaviur published. Serious dedication!
sciencedirect.com
Creatures of habit: similar but more repeatable behaviours in insular compared with mainland lizards
Island habitats often differ markedly from those on the mainland in many biotic and abiotic factors. Typically, they harbour fewer predator, competito…
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Simon Baeckens @simonbaeckens.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
🦎 Funded 4-year PhD position on Lizard Evolutionary Ecology in our lab at UCLouvain (Belgium)! Apply before 9 March! jobs.uclouvain.be/Personnelsci...
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Simon Baeckens @simonbaeckens.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Humans are transforming the natural world at an unprecedented scale and rate. We, at #UCLouvain 🇧🇪, are organizing a symposium on how organisms, populations, and communities respond to these human-induced environmental changes. April 29–30, 2026! Join us: www.uclouvain.be/en/research-...
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Simon Baeckens @simonbaeckens.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Crossed the 100-paper mark as an editor for #BiologyLetters (@royalsocietypublishing.org). Still impressed by the quality and range of science the journal publishes. 🦎
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Simon Baeckens @simonbaeckens.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
First PhD paper out for Eleesha Annear—and what a start! Her work uncovers surprising variation in osteoderm size and shape across populations, sexes, and body regions in a cordylid lizard 🦎 academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a...
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Simon Baeckens @simonbaeckens.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
We studied lizards from 12 Croatian islands and found substantial variation in their chemical signal profiles. Ecological factors didn’t explain it. Instead, divergence was best explained by non-adaptive processes 🦎🏝️ @oikosjournal.bsky.social nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
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Oca sapiens @ocasapiens.bsky.social · 14/09/2025
#AGW #ecosystems #biodiversity More frequent and intense, extreme events threaten the survival of animals and plants. But when stress thresholds aren't exceeded, they seem to accelerate #adaptation and short-term #evolution. And long-term? Under which conditions?. OA review & research program:
cell.com
Evolutionary consequences of extreme climate events
Simon Baeckens and Colin Donihue review case studies of rapid evolutionary change in response to extreme climate events and sketch a framework for future studies in the rapidly changing climate of the...
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Reposted by Simon Baeckens
Current Biology @currentbiology.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
Under #climate change, extreme weather events are liable to become more frequent and intense. @simonbaeckens.bsky.social & Colin Donihue review the evidence for impacts on #evolution such events can have and how we can study them in the future. www.cell.com/current-biol...
cell.com
Evolutionary consequences of extreme climate events
Simon Baeckens and Colin Donihue review case studies of rapid evolutionary change in response to extreme climate events and sketch a framework for future studies in the rapidly changing climate of the...
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Simon Baeckens @simonbaeckens.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
Extreme climate events can catalyze rapid evolutionary change! in our new Current Biology (@currentbiology.bsky.social) piece, Colin and I argue it’s time to study their evolutionary consequences systematically — beyond opportunistic observations. www.cell.com/current-biol...
cell.com
Evolutionary consequences of extreme climate events
Simon Baeckens and Colin Donihue review case studies of rapid evolutionary change in response to extreme climate events and sketch a framework for future studies in the rapidly changing climate of the...
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Simon Baeckens @simonbaeckens.bsky.social · 01/09/2025
Day one at UCLouvain, day one of the Animal Evolutionary Ecology Lab! Eager to get started!
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Priscila Rothier @priscilarothier.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Thrilled to share our new paper out in BMC, part of my postdoc at @cornellvet.bsky.social! 🐘🐀 We found that larger mammals evolve more diverse morphologies, while smaller ones can explore many locomotor strategies without much change to their forelimbs. bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com
Body mass evolution as a driver of morphological and ecological diversity in terrestrial mammals - BMC Ecology and Evolution
Body mass plays a fundamental role in the macroevolutionary dynamics of morphological, ecological, and phylogenetic diversification. Given biomechanical principles, large body masses in terrestrial ve...
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Simon Baeckens @simonbaeckens.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
The talented Jindong Zhang analyzed 74,000+ papers, revealing how #biomimetic research relies on a narrow slice of biodiversity—missing out on nature’s untapped genius. In our paper, we call for broader, species-level, and comparative approaches! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Reposted by Simon Baeckens
UAntwerp FunMorph @uafunmorph.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
A lizard in sight whets the appetite? 🦎 Read how conspecifics influence island and mainland lizards’ foraging decisions in @UAFunMorph's new paper by Ioanna Gavriilidi! Link to the full article: authors.elsevier.com/a/1lPDn1LenM...
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Simon Baeckens @simonbaeckens.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
Another PhD chapter published for Ioanna Gavriilidi @uafunmorph.bsky.social, now in @jzoology.bsky.social! She finds that island-dwelling lizards tend to rely less on chemosensory cues compared to their mainland counterparts. zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
On the flick of the tongue: male island and mainland lizards' responses to self and conspecific chemical stimuli
We compared the chemosensory recognition abilities of mainland and island Italian wall lizards (Podarcis siculus). Both populations discriminated between self and conspecific scents, but island lizar...
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Simon Baeckens @simonbaeckens.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
Excited to announce that I’ll be joining the Earth & Life Institute at UCLouvain (🇧🇪) as an Assistant Professor of Animal Evolutionary Ecology this September. Watch this space for upcoming opportunities for PhDs and postdocs!
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Simon Baeckens @simonbaeckens.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
Thinking about Elisabeth Vrba on this International Day of Women in Science. Sad to lose another one of the 'Three Musketeers' of evolutionary biology.
cambridge.org
Exaptation—a Missing Term in the Science of Form | Paleobiology | Cambridge Core
Exaptation—a Missing Term in the Science of Form - Volume 8 Issue 1
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