New🐟🧠 paper! To better understand what aspects of group-living are cognitively demanding, we tested whether individual recognition depends on relative brain size in guppies. Spoilers: guppies recognized and preferred familiar fish, regardless of brain size!
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

We have an open PhD student position in evolutionary ecology in our lab @creaf.cat in Barcelona! 🦎 🌳 🦆 🐍

Applications open until Nov. 10th, 2025. Please help us spread the word!

Link to position description and requirements:
creaf.factorialhr.com/job_posting/...

Lab website:
oriollapiedralab.com

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/...

📣 Honouring Frans de Waal’s spirit of curiosity & empathy 🧠🐒
The Frans de Waal PhD Dissertation Prize 2026 is now open for submissions. Celebrating #Primatology, #Ethology & the evolution of social behaviour.
🏆 Announced at #CBEN2026 (Leiden, Apr 14)
⏰ Apply by Jan 15, 2026!
@ehbea2026.bsky.social

📢 City lizards are more social !
Thrilled to share the first paper from my PhD, out now in #BiologyLetters @royalsocietypublishing.org !

We show that urban lizards are more social than their non-urban counterparts 🦎🏙️🌳🧪

doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...

@behavecobie.bsky.social

Interested in doing your PhD in Spain on 🧠 ? Contact me to discuss projects and apply for this position! www.icp.cat/index.php/en...

Also, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by JEB in their ECR Spotlight series, where I talk more about research, fish, biology, and the joy of designing animal cognition experiments. journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

First 🐟 paper published with @annikaboussard.bsky.social ! Guppies artificially selected for a larger telencephalon, relative the the rest of the brain, perform better in both an allo- and egocentric spatial learning task. doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

Urbanization enhances biodiversity loss. Yet sometimes cities may *paradoxically* shelter species threatened by other components of global change

We studied if urban areas are sheltering an endangered iconic lizard 🦎 from a rapidly spreading predator 🐍 in Ibiza👇

📸G. Casbas

doi.org/10.1016/j.ge...

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/...

First time catching lizards in 3 years. Still got it 😅

I confess, the Spanish blackout was caused by a bunch of field biologists trying to build some heating for lizards