Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Cedric van den Berg @vancedberg.bsky.social · 15d

😍 hardcore #colsci !

Will Allen @wlallen.bsky.social · 15d

📢🦋 Our paper ‘Global selection on insect antipredator coloration’ is out and featured on the cover of @science.org

We ran a huge experiment to find out how ecological context favours camouflage and warning colouration as antipredator strategies. 1/6

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A white-fronted bee-eater (Merops bullockoides) decides whether to consume a warningly colored white-barred acraea butterfly (Telchinia encedon). Photo (c) Mike Rowe

Reposted by Cedric van den Berg

Melanie Brien @melbrien.bsky.social · 17d

Funded PhD position available 🎉 Come and work with me in Helsinki to uncover the pathways producing colourful tiger moth wings. Lots of options for genomics, CRISPR, fieldwork, behaviour experiments… Email with questions! jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...

Wood tiger moth on leaf. Photo: Juhani Maamela.

3 45 65

Reposted by Cedric van den Berg

Laura Kelley @lauraakelley.bsky.social · Aug 26

Deadline for submitting an abstract to give a talk or poster is this Friday!

ASAB Winter 2025 @asab-meetings.bsky.social · Aug 5

ICYMI : #ASABWinter2025 will take place from December 15-16, once again in lovely Edinburgh!

Registration is now open 🎉 Abstract submission deadline for posters and talks is August 29 🏃‍♀️🏃🏃‍♂️

More information here: asabwinter.github.io/2025/

Winter ASAB 2025 December 15-16 Edinburgh How sensory information affects behaviour.

7 8

Reposted by Cedric van den Berg

Marshal Hedin @mhedin.bsky.social · Aug 23

new paper, led by Lin Yan from the Elias Lab at UCB

Latent preference for red ornamentation drives interspecific mating in nascent jumping spider species (Habronattus americanus group, F. Salticidae)
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

2 12 50

Reposted by Cedric van den Berg

SORTEE @sortee.bsky.social · Aug 20

Introducing "The SORTEE Guidelines for Data and Code Quality Control in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology"

The first standardised set of data editor guidelines. Led by SORTEE with input from numerous data editors across ecology and evolution.

🔗 doi.org/10.32942/X24...

The SORTEE Guidelines for Data and Code Quality Control in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 1 of this Preprint.

doi.org

28 41

Reposted by Cedric van den Berg

Christian Drerup @christiandrerup.com · Aug 15

🚨Our new paper is out NOW in @jexpbiol.bsky.social 👀 Here we show that cuttlefish use visual contrast cues to inform their 3D camouflage, but these contrast cues can derive from true background features as well as exposure to dynamic lighting patterns. 🦑🔆
🔗 doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

2 6 6

Cedric van den Berg @vancedberg.bsky.social · Aug 16

Very cool! Congrats, you're a machine Chris! =D

1

Reposted by Cedric van den Berg

Dr Christopher Taylor @mimicryin3d.bsky.social · Jul 2

Why do imperfect mimics (such as many hoverflies) exist? We created 3D printed replicas of flies, wasps and our own custom intermediates and then "asked" various predators what they thought of our 3D stimuli. Read all about it here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Mapping the adaptive landscape of Batesian mimicry using 3D-printed stimuli - Nature

Birds have an excellent ability to learn to discriminate harmless insects from those that they mimic on the basis of subtle differences in appearance.

www.nature.com

2 17 40

Cedric van den Berg @vancedberg.bsky.social · Jun 18

Very honoured to have our research highlighted by this very well-written article by Weller & Rabosky. Thank you! 10/10, can recommend if you want a thorough take on what our latest paper is about: besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #colsci

For sea slugs, bright colours may warn off predators—but only in the daytime

For sea slugs, bright colours may warn off predators—but only in the daytime.

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

3

Cedric van den Berg @vancedberg.bsky.social · Jun 4

Made the cover! doi.org/10.1111/1365...

4

Cedric van den Berg @vancedberg.bsky.social · May 19

Nice one, ChatGPT 😂

2

Reposted by Cedric van den Berg

micaToolbox @micatoolbox.bsky.social · May 19

www.empiricalimaging.com/2025/05/19/b... Bug fix: Memory overload due to failing to clean up after image processing.

Batch QCPA v1.3 – Empirical Imaging

www.empiricalimaging.com

1 1

Cedric van den Berg @vancedberg.bsky.social · Apr 23

#colsci

George Binns @amatageorgeii.bsky.social · Apr 23

New paper alert! 🎉
We found some interesting differences in defensive strategies in our cute little Amata wasp moths.
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
@hannahmrowland.bsky.social @liisahamalainen.bsky.social @mherberstein.bsky.social @kateumbers.bsky.social @gmramon.bsky.social #OzInverts

2

Cedric van den Berg @vancedberg.bsky.social · Apr 16

It's out! Read about how to combine advanced animal vision modelling and colour pattern analysis with comparative phylogenetic methods in arguably some of the most incredible critters in the ocean: doi.org/10.1111/1365....
Amazing work with amazing people! #colsci #micaToolbox #AnimalEcology

Diel activity correlates with colour pattern morphology of heterobranch sea slugs

The authors show that daytime activity fundamentally shapes the appearance of prey animals to potential predators and that colour pattern phenotypes likely associated with visual signalling are predo....

doi.org

1 4 15

Reposted by Cedric van den Berg

PLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · Mar 12

Bright colors observed across the animal world are often used during mate choice. @dickmerrill.bsky.social explores a @plosbiology.org study of genetic & neural mechanisms contributing to evolution of visual mating decisions in Heliconius butterflies 🧪 Paper: plos.io/4iHQDRd Primer: plos.io/4ipW7QS

Left: Using genome-wide association analyses, VanKuren and colleagues show that separate loci within the K locus control a white-yellow color switch and contribute to variation in male preference, respectively, in a polymorphic population of Heliconius cydno in Ecuador. The full geographical range of H. cydno is shown on the map in light blue. The approximate location of the color pattern gene Aristaless-1 is shown for reference; other genes (not shown) are also present in the K locus, including some that are differentially expressed during the development of visual processing regions of the insect brain. In this and other H. cydno populations, white-yellow wing coloration correlates with the proportion of inhibited UV-photoreceptors, suggesting a compelling mechanism for the evolution of visual preference. Right: Individual ommatidia in the butterfly eye are composed of multiple photoreceptors. Inter-photoreceptor synaptic connections are known to exist within the lamina, the upper layer of the optic lobe, itself the region of the insect brain responsible for initial visual processing.

18 39

Cedric van den Berg @vancedberg.bsky.social · Feb 19

#colsci

Matteo Santon @matteosanton.bsky.social · Feb 19

First paper out on this incredible study system! We describe the remarkably different hunting displays used by the broadclub cuttlefish in the wild.

Paper: dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecy....

Stay tuned for more!!

@drmartinjhow.bsky.social @vancedberg.bsky.social @ecologyofvision.bsky.social

1

Cedric van den Berg @vancedberg.bsky.social · Feb 13

'A Standardized Nomenclature for the
Rods and Cones of the Vertebrate
Retina' #colsci

www.preprints.org/manuscript/2...

1

Reposted by Cedric van den Berg

micaToolbox @micatoolbox.bsky.social · Feb 5

BUG ALERT: Naive Bayes clustering in QCPA

When using Naive Bayes clustering in www.empiricalimaging.com/2025/02/05/b... #colsci

BUG ALERT: Naive Bayes clustering in QCPA – Empirical Imaging

www.empiricalimaging.com

1 2

Reposted by Cedric van den Berg

Laura Kelley @lauraakelley.bsky.social · Jan 29

Black margins are important for size discrimination - female green swordtails prefer larger males but preference is lost when black margins on tail are absent. Seems they can't judge which male is bigger without black margin! shorturl.at/6GKA2
@uniexecec.bsky.social @royalsocietypublishing.org

10 45

Cedric van den Berg @vancedberg.bsky.social · Jan 8

#colsci

Julien Renoult @julien-renoult.bsky.social · Dec 16

Kudos to Sam Hulse for his latest paper in showing how to harness AI to study the design component of animal communication signal. #visualecology #AI

2

Reposted by Cedric van den Berg

Loïc A. Royer 💻🔬🧪 @loicaroyer.bsky.social · Dec 11

The birth of fruit fly's central nervous system imaged with multicolor #adaptive #lightsheet microscopy. The microscope self-aligns to a signal that appears during imaging.

www.nature.com/articles/nbt...

10 140 470

Reposted by Cedric van den Berg

Laura Kelley @lauraakelley.bsky.social · Dec 5

Some great PhD opportunities for 2025 in our fab department @uniexecec.bsky.social in beautiful Cornwall:

1) How does pollution impact behavioural evolution? Project with @ali--wilson.bsky.social spans behaviour, genetics and ecotox, working with cherry shrimp. More info: tinyurl.com/yvthn7xn

1 20 25

Reposted by Cedric van den Berg

Flo Débarre @flodebarre.bsky.social · Dec 4

Ecology-Evolution scientific societies on Bluesky:

ESEB: @eseb.bsky.social
SSE: @sse-evolution.bsky.social
ASN: @asn-amnat.bsky.social
SMBE: @official-smbe.bsky.social
BES: @britishecolsoc.bsky.social
CSEE-SCEE: @csee-scee.bsky.social
and joining us today, welcome!:
SFE2: @sfecologie.bsky.social

12 72 130

Reposted by Cedric van den Berg

Altmetric @altmetric.com · Dec 3

BLUESKY MEGA-THREAD

Altmetric is thrilled and also LITERALLY RELIEVED to officially announce:

We are now tracking research attention as it happens on Bluesky!

We have been picking up posts on the site since late Oct.

Our team is on Bluesky all day answering questions.

Let's get into it!

Blueksy Mentions are now in Altmetric.

It's been 84 years meme

#AcademicSky #HigherEd #MedSky #HMSky #Altmetrics #Medlibs #Metascience

38 670 2.3K

Reposted by Cedric van den Berg

Mariella Herberstein (she/her) 🌈 @mherberstein.bsky.social · Nov 28

Help us understand how conspicuous butterflies are by playing this game!

mferickson.github.io/findbutterfly/

Find The Butterfly

mferickson.github.io

3 22 27