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Reposted by Pranav Minasandra

Elham Nourani @enourani.bsky.social · 2d

🦅PhD position 🦅 in my new group at @fbm-unil.bsky.social in Switzerland, studying how the social and resource landscapes shape the learning process for soaring flight. Deadline: Oct 30. Pls repost! career5.successfactors.eu/career?caree...

Golden eagle on the nest in Finland (by O. Karlin)

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Maevatiana N. Ratsimbazafindranahaka @rmaevatiana.bsky.social · 5d

I’m sorry. My Bluesky profile is meant to be mostly about science. But I have to speak up: my country is not okay. We are being ignored, both internationally and by our own authorities. The violence is real, and the world must see this. #Madagascar #GenZ

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Ari Strandburg-Peshkin @arispeshkin.bsky.social · 5d

⭐PhD position available!⭐
Come join us @imprs-qbee.bsky.social to study communication and collective behavior in animal groups! We're looking for someone excited to use computational approaches to tackle biological questions, using our full-group tracking datasets
imprs-qbee.mpg.de/121465/analy...

Analysis of communication and collective behavior in animal groups

imprs-qbee.mpg.de

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Pranav Minasandra @pminasandra.bsky.social · Aug 19

🧠 What does collective movement look like in cognitively advanced animals?

I have a new pre-print out for a super short solo-author paper I just submitted! I explore how the ability to forecast others' behaviours affects your own decision-making. Check it out: doi.org/10.1101/2025.08.14.670290

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Pranav Minasandra @pminasandra.bsky.social · Aug 13

This article neatly summarises my Google Scholar fears. If there was a workable scientific-society-run or community-driven alternative, I would switch SO FAST

Hannah Shelley, MLIS (Metadata, Lattes & Impostor Syndrome) @hannahshelley.bsky.social · Aug 13

Since search is dead, how soon do you think Google Scholar is headed for the Google Graveyard? I'm betting it's soon, and academia is NOT prepared

Google Scholar Is Doomed

Academia built entire careers on a free Google service with zero guarantees. What could go wrong?

hannahshelley.neocities.org

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Pranav Minasandra @pminasandra.bsky.social · Jul 30

Unser Studie zu Verhaltenssequenzen wurde auf YT Channel MitWissen vorgestellt: youtu.be/5fT-lwwfmZE

MitWissen (auf Deutsch) wird von meiner Kollegin @cinig.bsky.social betrieben.
Schaut euch das Video an und abonniert gerne ihren Channel!

Welche Gemeinsamkeit haben Hyänen, Erdmännchen und Nasenbären?

YouTube video by MitWissen

youtu.be

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Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social · Jul 21

Another good reason to read this paper by @pminasandra.bsky.social👇

It just won the "Best Paper Award" from @uni-konstanz.de Bio Dept 👏 Congrats to Pranav + team @livingingroups.bsky.social @meg-crofoot.bsky.social @arispeshkin.bsky.social @animal-sounds.bsky.social

▶️ www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

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AKA NickleDave @nicholdav.bsky.social · Jul 18

Hey friends in bioacoustics & acoustic communication:
I am (finally) sharing this post on the new version of @vocalpy.bsky.social I released after teaching a bootcamp with @tessarhinehart.bsky.social at the @nmac2024.bsky.social last year

blog.vocalpy.org/posts/2025-0...

#prattle 💬
#bioacoustics

VocalPy 0.10.0 released! – VocalPy blog

What’s new in VocalPy version 0.10.0

blog.vocalpy.org

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Iris Bontekoe @irisdb.bsky.social · Jun 18

🚨 New paper alert! 🚨
Excited to share our new review in @royalsocietypublishing.org Proceedings B! 🎉

We synthesize research on social factors influencing animal migration and offer guidelines for future research. Check it out here: doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

#OpenAccess #Migration #MovementEcology

The study of social animal migrations: a synthesis of the past and guidelines for future research | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Seasonal migration is a common behaviour seen in many species worldwide. There is evidence that social factors influence various migration decisions, but compared to the well-studied field of social f...

doi.org

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Ecology of Animal Societies @livingingroups.bsky.social · May 19

Humans have many unusual traditions. But did you know animals’ strange behaviors can become culture too? Out now in Current Biology (doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...) we show the rise and spread of a surprising tradition: interspecies infant abduction. Interactive timeline (www.ab.mpg.de/671374) 🧵 (1/12)

An illustration of a white-faced capuchin monkey carrying a howler infant on their back while cracking nuts with a stone

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Zoë Goldsborough @zoegoldsborough.bsky.social · May 19

Hot off the press 📣: one of the most surprising and unsettling findings of my PhD. A novel social tradition emerged in the tool-using white-faced capuchins of Jicarón island… abducting and carrying the infants of another species. Thread with gifs, videos, and all the bizarre details 👇

Ecology of Animal Societies @livingingroups.bsky.social · May 19

Humans have many unusual traditions. But did you know animals’ strange behaviors can become culture too? Out now in Current Biology (doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...) we show the rise and spread of a surprising tradition: interspecies infant abduction. Interactive timeline (www.ab.mpg.de/671374) 🧵 (1/12)

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Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social · May 19

Cross-species teamwork from @livingingroups.bsky.social reveals unexpected similarities in three social mammals 🤔

By lead author @pminasandra.bsky.social with Emily Grout, Katrina Brock, Meg Crofoot, Vlad Demartsev, Amlan Nayak, Eli
Strauss, Ari Strandburg-Peshkin🧵1/2

www.ab.mpg.de/679000/news_...

Very different mammals follow the same rules of behavior

Research hints at an underlying architecture that orders the movements of animals

www.ab.mpg.de

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Pranav Minasandra @pminasandra.bsky.social · May 16

Pictures and videos belong to several authors of this paper, and have been used with their permission.

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Pranav Minasandra @pminasandra.bsky.social · May 16

Authors: Me, Emily Grout, Brock, @meg-crofoot.bsky.social, @animal-sounds.bsky.social, Andy Gersick, @coatiben.bsky.social, Kay Holekamp, @wildcognition.bsky.social ition.bsky.social, Amlan Nayak, Josué Ortega, Marie Roch, Eli Strauss, @arispeshkin.bsky.social

Ilustrations by Sai P Kumaran

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Pranav Minasandra @pminasandra.bsky.social · May 16

Linking the paper again: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Go check it out! Huge thanks to all the awesome collaborators who made this possible! (next post for credits) (10/10)

PNAS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

www.pnas.org

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Pranav Minasandra @pminasandra.bsky.social · May 16

Remarkably, predictivity decay was quantitatively similar across all studied species and individuals, hinting at *general principles* underlying animal behaviour. (9/10)

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Pranav Minasandra @pminasandra.bsky.social · May 16

We also explored how current behaviour predicts future behaviour at various timescales—something we call "predictivity decay."
Predictivity decay quantifies how quickly we lose predictive power when forecasting an animal's behaviour due to the accumulation of stochasticity. (8/10)

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Pranav Minasandra @pminasandra.bsky.social · May 16

Surprisingly, across states, individuals, and species, we found the same result: the longer an animal continues a behaviour, the **LESS** likely 📉 it becomes to switch away in the next instant. (7/10)

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Pranav Minasandra @pminasandra.bsky.social · May 16

Imagine a hyena that's been walking for 10 minutes. As it keeps walking, with time does the probability that it switches its behaviour increase or decrease? What about this probability in other behavioural states, do you think it goes up or down? (6/10)

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Pranav Minasandra @pminasandra.bsky.social · May 16

Our study animals live in different habitats & behave differently based on context and goals, so we didn't expect universal patterns in how they switch between behavioural states. However, we found them anyway! (5/10)

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Pranav Minasandra @pminasandra.bsky.social · May 16

Through extensive fieldwork, multi-sensor collars with accelerometers, and machine learning, we arrived at behavioural sequences of multiple animals from our three different species. The behavioural sequences were several days - several weeks long. (4/10)

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Pranav Minasandra @pminasandra.bsky.social · May 16

All animals behave. To quantify underlying rules of behaviour, we need behavioural sequence data. For simplicity, think of behaviour as sequences of states. E.g., a meerkat lies down (600s), stands up (20s), then moves searching for food (450s). (3/10)

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Pranav Minasandra @pminasandra.bsky.social · May 16

Prefer reading all posts at once, and with slightly more detail?

Here's a full essay summary: pminasandra.github.io/publications...

Now, onto the thread! (2/10)

Pranav Minasandra

pminasandra.github.io

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Pranav Minasandra @pminasandra.bsky.social · May 16

🚨 Out this week in @pnas.org 🚨
The flagship paper from my PhD @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social @livingingroups.bsky.social - We show surprising statistical similarities in animal behaviour across states, individuals, and even species.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
(🧵 1/10)

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Maevatiana N. Ratsimbazafindranahaka @rmaevatiana.bsky.social · Apr 25

🐋 Moms float different 🐋
In our new @jexpbiol.bsky.social paper, we explore buoyancy control in humpback whales. Mothers seem to actively manage it; calves don't.
#MarMam

journals.biologists.com/jeb/article-...

Behavioral data suggest adaptive buoyancy control during shallow dives in humpback whales

Highlighted Article: Behavioral data from multi-sensor tags on humpback whale mothers and calves suggest that adults actively adjust their buoyancy during shallow dives. One potential mechanism underl...

journals.biologists.com

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