Highlights! A quick summary of our two papers out this week on associative learning by hihi, and the coevolutionary consequences of social transmission among predators.
Unravelling the mystery of Shining (bronze) cuckoos' dark green eggs
Informed birds visiting Antzz in Helsinki
Although our work focusses mainly on birds, and the consequences of their information use for others, some of the best examples of how social behaviour evolves are to be found in invertebrates. From August, I'll be a long-term visitor to the ANTZZ team at the University of Helsinki, led by Prof. Liselotte Sundström. Lotta is one of the directors of the Centre of Excellence for Biological Interactions (our collaborator Prof Johanna Mappes, in Jyväskylä, is another), and being here offers a really exciting opportunity to learn more about social evolution from the view point of Formica ants. Vix and Liisa will be visiting regularly from Cambridge, and I'll be visiting them often too.
See here for more about Team ANTZZ
Science Cafe kicks off 2016 Cambridge Science Festival
Kirsty and Rose are running the Science Cafe event again as part of this year's Science Festival. Despite pretty awful weather conditions on Saturday March 5th (gales, rain, and hail!) we reached over 70 people during the 3-hr event in the Cambridge Market Square. Our goal is to communicate how exciting science is to an audience who perhaps wouldn't normally come to the Science Festival - fingers crossed for better weather next weekend!