Are you early in your research career in ecology and evolution, and interested in applying for an independent fellowship? The Ecology & Evolution and Ecophysiology Research Clusters at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen is offering travel bursaries to come spend time with us to develop your application.

See here for more details: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sbs/blog/early-career-recruitment-bursary-ecology-evolution-and-ecophysiology/

Please share widely with anyone that might be interested!

Exposing cockroaches to light can make them pessimistic, while the scent of conspecifics probably makes them optimistic: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.01.691180v1

In this pre-print Adam Guilfoyle and I showed that cockroaches likely possess affective states, demonstrating cognitive complexity not previously expected and further expanding the case for considering the welfare of invertebrates

Really enjoyed giving a talk to the Insect Welfare Research Society this week, and the chance to talk about our work on whether cockroaches feel pain, have positive or negative mental states, and if tagging them influences their behaviour.

And luckily you can watch it back if are looking to while away your Friday: https://youtu.be/wiG4RsEyraQ?si=38TVsx8c9GZLn0FR

Really enjoyed the opportunity to give a talk for the Frontiers in Social Evolution seminar series. My talk, "How and When Social Interactions Alter Evolution", was recorded and is available to watch back here: https://lnkd.in/eKCM5-xh

I talk about past work on North American red squirrels, New Zealand giraffe weevils, cockroaches, and dolphins! 🤓