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Will Oestreich

@will-oestreich.bsky.social
596 followers 595 following 84 posts

Group Leader, University of Zurich (moving 2027 to the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior) Exploring behavioral ecology, collective behavior/sensing/intelligence, life in the ocean, culture, surf, & more Collective Ecology Group www.woestreich.com

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Reposted by Will Oestreich
Félicie Dhellemmes @felicie-dhellemmes.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Proud to present our latest work "Tracking human foragers and their prey reveals adaptive predator-prey dynamics", now hosted on BioRxiv! 🧵 doi.org/10.64898/202... @ralfkurvers.bsky.social @scioi.bsky.social @arc-mpib.bsky.social @alexschakowski.bsky.social @dominikdeffner.bsky.social
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Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
How do orangutans build their huge diet profiles before adulthood? @revathe.bsky.social and colleagues show, for the first time, how multiple forms of learning interact over many years to build broad, survival-relevant ecological skills in a wild great ape. Paper: doi.org/10.1126/scie...
Orangutans on the cover of Science
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Systems Ecology @systems-ecology.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
🌱 Systems Ecology is now live! A new independent, researcher-run, diamond OA journal for ecological research through systems science. Free to read. Free to publish. No APCs. We are now open for submissions: systems-ecology.org Please help spread the word!
systems-ecology.org
Systems Ecology
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Many Minds podcast @manymindspod.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Often an adolescent female chimpanzee will, one day, strike off from her home territory and try to join the neighbors. She may face rejection and violence and yet try to stay. Why? Just one of the topics discussed in our latest episode, w/ @rachnare.bsky.social! Listen: disi.org/coming-of-ag...
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Nature Portfolio @natureportfolio.nature.com · 17/09/2026
A study in Communications Biology shows that Antarctic krill ecology may be more closely connected to hydrothermal vents than previously recognized. go.nature.com/4gVMUBE 🌊🌎🧪
This is figure 2, which shows screenshots taken from ROV dives aboard RV Falkor (too).
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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Briefly popping my head back in to unveil the cover of my upcoming book, LIFE BEYOND MEASURE: Nature's Hidden Wonders at Every Scale. It’ll be out on April 6 in the U.S. and April 29 in the U.K. and you can pre-order it right now! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/757705... 1/
A book cover featuring a beautiful closely cropped portrait of an Anna's hummingbird. The cover says LIFE BEYOND MEASURE: Nature's Hidden Wonders at Every Scale, by Ed Yong. The image also says US: 4/06/27 and UK: 4/29/27
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Revised preprint: tinyurl.com/mr7km2pv We find a physical -> biological -> social cascade linking ocean physics (upwelling) to prey (krill) distribution & predator (blue whale) communication, providing insight into the biophysical drivers of social information use in Earth’s largest living space.
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MBARI @mbarinews.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Not your average worm 🔥⁠ ⁠ Gossamer worms call the expansive waters of the ocean’s twilight zone home. Living up in the water column, thousands of feet above the seafloor, has made Tomopteris effective swimmers. They swish their bodies side to side while rowing paddle-like parapodia.
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Revised preprint: tinyurl.com/mr7km2pv We find a physical -> biological -> social cascade linking ocean physics (upwelling) to prey (krill) distribution & predator (blue whale) communication, providing insight into the biophysical drivers of social information use in Earth’s largest living space.
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George Matsumoto @georgeimatsumoto.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
🧪📍🌊 🦑🍎 @mbarinews.bsky.social invites applications for in-person postdoctoral fellowships in the fields of biological, chemical, and physical oceanography, marine geology, and ocean engineering. Deadline to apply is 5pm PT on December 2, 2026. www.mbari.org/about/career...
mbari.org
Postdoc Fellowships • MBARI
Each year, MBARI invites applications for several in-person postdoctoral fellowships in the fields of biological, chemical, and physical oceanography, marine geology, and ocean engineering. MBARI also...
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Osa Magic
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Osa Magic
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
@currentbiology.bsky.social
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
How do blue whales search for and locate feeding opportunities in their vast, fluid 3D foraging habitat? Check out our new paper, led by John Ryan, which provides a high-resolution answer to this question using a remarkable confluence of bio-logging and oceanographic data tinyurl.com/wa4usbpp
tinyurl.com
High-precision localized feeding by blue whales
Ryan et al. use biologging and satellite remote sensing to show how blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) can precisely and persistently localize feeding within a favorable foraging habitat by sensing a...
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Royal Society Publishing @royalsocietypublishing.org · 23/08/2026
Female sperm whales form large groups which usually contain between ten and one hundred members. New research in #BiologyLetters studies the costs and benefits of group size for sperm whales of the open ocean: doi.org/10.1098/rsbl... #ecology
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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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Erik Nordman @eriknordman.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
🎂Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom was born on this day in 1933! Ostrom was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics for her research on "collaborative governance, especially the commons." She showed how communities of users could work together to sustain their shared resources. 1/9
Elinor Ostrom receiving the Nobel Prize in Economics. She is a older white woman with gray hair and glasses, wearing a long batik dyed dress, and holding the certificate and medal (in a box).
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
squirrel monkey (Saimiri oerstedii) sighting!
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
jungle bat, Panama
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Grateful to get to know a few bats (and a woolly opossum) in Panama
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
jungle bat, Panama
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Grateful to get to know a few bats (and a woolly opossum) in Panama
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Miguel Clavero @chikichanka.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Natural history on canvas: Brueghel knew about bird-eating noctule bats Just published in @pnas.org, OA for all eyes Led by the one-and-only @romero-vidal.bsky.social, with the amazing @elena-tena.bsky.social and Sonia Sánchez-Navarro @ebdonana.bsky.social LINK: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Lots of sperm whale action on the MBARI hydrophone in recent days. Check out the live audio stream here: www.mbari.org/project/soun... @mbarinews.bsky.social
mbari.org
Soundscape Listening Room • MBARI
Access a live stream and a library of sounds recorded using a hydrophone (underwater microphone) off the Central California coast.
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Dr Angel Borja @drangelborja.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Rocks falling from melting icebergs host deep-sea oases of biodiversity A ripple effect of climate change is providing habitat for corals, sponges and other Arctic animals. #marineecology www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Rocks falling from melting icebergs host deep-sea oases of biodiversity
A ripple effect of climate change is providing habitat for corals, sponges and other Arctic animals.
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
To see how important US science is, consider measurements of changes in ocean heat content. US data are ~53% of the total. Over half! But removing the US data is worse than randomly removing 80% of the total data, because unlike other countries, the US makes measurements everywhere. 🧪🌊
nature.com
Critical dependence of global ocean heat monitoring on the ocean observing system - Nature Climate Change
International collaboration has facilitated a global ocean observing system, providing data to measure ocean heat content at a resolution that enables the tracking of climate change. This study looks ...
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
As an ocean scientist, I'm frankly amazed at the attention the dismantlement of OOI has gotten, while the removal of the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer (our only Antarctic icebreaker) and the failure to replace the JOIDES Resolution (our only scientific drilling ship) were met with near silence. 🌊
nytimes.com
Trump Administration to Dismantle Ocean Monitoring System
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
The concluding paragraphs of this essay by Ted Chiang are particularly thoughtful.
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Still early in the process of working through this collection on "World models in natural and artificial intelligence", but so far, finding these pieces very thought provoking: royalsocietypublishing.org/rsta/issue/3...
royalsocietypublishing.org
Volume 384 Issue 2320 | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A | The Royal Society
Influential themed journal issues across the physical mathematical and engineering sciences.
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Reposted by Will Oestreich
Stephanie L King @stephanielking.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
New paper in @pnas.org - using playback experiments we provide further evidence that bottlenose dolphins can use individual identity signals + social memory to guide decision-making. Female dolphins use individual vocal labels to track coercive males | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
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Science Magazine @science.org · 28/05/2026
Researchers have identified superparamagnetic macrophages in the livers of rock pigeons to be crucial for magnetic sensing. The finding uncovers an unexpected role for immune cells in sensory perception and may fundamentally change our understanding of animal navigation. scim.ag/4nTQ3nq
How animals sense Earth’s magnetic field is one of biology’s enduring mysteries. Researchers have now identified superparamagnetic macrophages in the livers of rock pigeons (Columba livia) to be crucial for magnetic sensing. The finding uncovers an unexpected role for immune cells in sensory perception and may fundamentally change our understanding of animal navigation.

Photo: Andreas Teichmann/laif/Redux
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
When the North Atlantic ocean meets Ireland...
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
Our paper about how resource variability shapes the ecology of social information is out in this issue of TREE! This eco-evolutionary lens helps explain why collective sensing has evolved across such a wide range of lifeforms, from microbes to blue whales. www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
Our paper about how resource variability shapes the ecology of social information is out in this issue of TREE! This eco-evolutionary lens helps explain why collective sensing has evolved across such a wide range of lifeforms, from microbes to blue whales. www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...
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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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Robert Finger @robertfinger.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Excellent inaugural lecture by Millie Chapman today at ETH Zürich on ‘Biosphere governance in the age of algorithms’. 🥳 Well done and big congratulations 👏 epl.ethz.ch @milliechapman.bsky.social @usyseth.bsky.social
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Eamonn Wooster @predator-smarts.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Our recent paper on human-induced trait shifts and predator–prey interactions is on the cover of the May issue of Trends in Ecology & Evolution 😭😵‍💫 The paper is available open access here -> www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Finished the latest in @aptshadow.bsky.social 's "Children of..." series over the weekend. Spectacular exploration of interdependence in ecology, "bottom-up" and "top-down" intelligent design, cultural evolution, and the complex inner life of a stomatopod. Give it a read!
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C. Brandon Ogbunu @cbo.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
New for @undark.org: "What I Learned from Teaching Darwin" "For Darwin at least, science was a conversation between humans and nature, more than it was an industry. I wish that were true today, for all of us." undark.org/2026/04/23/o...
undark.org
What I Learned from Teaching Darwin
Opinion | Charles Darwin’s books offer lessons for how to grapple with the current state of science and its complicated future.
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Dr. Kakani Katija @kakanikatija.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
Midwater worms >> terrestrial worms. 😍 #tomopteris 🦑🧪🌊 #DesigningtheFuture3 @mbarinews.bsky.social @schmidtocean.bsky.social
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Dr. Kakani Katija @kakanikatija.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
This perspective of a galaxy siphonophore is incredible!!! Look at the spiral!! 🤩 🦑 @schmidtocean.bsky.social @mbarinews.bsky.social #Designingthefuture3
Galaxy siphonophore (side view) on the ROV feed bin the SuBastian control room. Galaxy siphonophore from an oblique view (partially above) in the pilot sit camera feed. The ROV pilots’ view of multiple feeds, including the galaxy siphonophore.
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Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
PLS RT📣 Two Postdoc jobs at #mpaib with Serena Ding on collective behavior of worms (Never seen a "wormuration"? That's them in green) 🪱 social dynamics of collective dispersal: bewerbermanagement.net/jobposting/2... 🪱 sensory ecology of worm towers: bewerbermanagement.net/jobposting/7...
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BehavEcolPapers @behavecolpapers.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
Electric stealth through bidirectional signal suppression in electric eels and their knifefish prey CurrentBiology
dlvr.it
Electric stealth through bidirectional signal suppression in electric eels and their knifefish prey
Poon and Crampton report bidirectional suppression of electrolocation during encounters between wild electric eels and their weakly electric knifefish prey. Predator and prey alternate between signal emission and silence to balance active sensing with concealment. This electric stealth dynamic parallels acoustic stealth in killer whales and their echolocating toothed-whale prey.
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
Some favorites from Ray Troll's gorgeous "blue seas, green seas" California Current murals on the old NOAA building at Point Pinos in Pacific Grove, California
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
Evolution is amazing both for creating this spider and iNaturalist (which helped humans understand how remarkable this spider is)
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Trevor A. Branch @trevorabranch.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
Extraordinary footage of a sperm whale birth shows coordinated help from family and non-family members for hours after birth, social behavior usually associated with primates www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....
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Eamonn Wooster @predator-smarts.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
For millions of years the traits of predators and prey have dictated their interactions. In the Anthropocene, humans are altering these traits. In @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social, we explore how human-induced traits shifts reshape predator-prey interactions. tinyurl.com/TREEshifts
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
New paper in TREE co-led w @jennakohles.bsky.social: We explore how resource variability shapes the value of social information for maximizing resource gain & minimizing variance. This eco-evolutionary lens helps us explain why collective sensing emerges in dynamic ecosystems! 🧪 tinyurl.com/2rurcry7
tinyurl.com
Resource variability shapes the ecology of social information and collective sensing
Social information expands individual sensing of resources in dynamic ecosystems, yet why social strategies evolve in resource pursuit remains unsettled. We posit that resource variability along three...
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
This rocks
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Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
New paper in TREE co-led w @jennakohles.bsky.social: We explore how resource variability shapes the value of social information for maximizing resource gain & minimizing variance. This eco-evolutionary lens helps us explain why collective sensing emerges in dynamic ecosystems! 🧪 tinyurl.com/2rurcry7
tinyurl.com
Resource variability shapes the ecology of social information and collective sensing
Social information expands individual sensing of resources in dynamic ecosystems, yet why social strategies evolve in resource pursuit remains unsettled. We posit that resource variability along three...
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