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Alizée Vernouillet @vernouilleta.bsky.social · 18d

Adorable 🤩

Reposted by Alizée Vernouillet

ISBE2026 @isbe2026.bsky.social · Aug 9

Visit our website and learn more about the @behavecol.bsky.social conference venue, host city and schedule!

www.isbe2026.com

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Reposted by Alizée Vernouillet

Josh Arbon @josharbon.bsky.social · Aug 20

New @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social paper out today in @royalsociety.org Biology Letters. We found adult jackdaws can learn to tolerate usually bullied or ignored juveniles when they provided information about a new foraging resource.

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Wild jackdaws learn to tolerate juveniles to exploit new foraging opportunities | Biology Letters

Social tolerance can enhance access to resources and is thought to be crucial in facilitating the evolution of cooperation, social cognition and culture, but it is unknown whether animals can optimize...

royalsocietypublishing.org

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Reposted by Alizée Vernouillet

Dieter Lukas @dieterlukas.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · Aug 6

„behavioral flexibility, while helpful in allowing birds to adapt to new environments, is not the primary facilitator for range expansion“

https://news.ucsb.edu/2025/021980/both-flexibility-and-persistence-make-some-birds-successful-human-made-environments

#thegrackleproject

A great tailed grackle, a black slender bird with a long tail, is eating fast food cheese sauce in a parking lot. Photo credit C. Logan

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Alizée Vernouillet @vernouilleta.bsky.social · Jul 23

Congratulations for your PhD ☺️🎉

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Alizée Vernouillet @vernouilleta.bsky.social · Jul 23

This study was a team effort so thank you to: @katywillcox.bsky.social Reinoud Allaert @anneleendewulf.bsky.social Wen Zhang @camilletroisi.bsky.social Sophia Knoch, An Martel, Luc Lens, @fredverb.bsky.social @ecobird.bsky.social

A young quail in front of a transparent barrier, looking towards a massive bowl of grains and mealworms

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Alizée Vernouillet @vernouilleta.bsky.social · Jul 23

1) Quails raised in small groups had worse inhibition, but no group difference in aggression. 2) Quails more aggressive towards unfamiliar individuals pecked more at the transparent cylinder. Aggression and inhibition are partly linked, but other factors mediate the influence of social group size.

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Alizée Vernouillet @vernouilleta.bsky.social · Jul 23

We raised 120 Japanese quails in small groups of 5 or large groups of 15 and evaluated 1) the effect of social group size on response inhibition (inhibitory control, RI) and aggression at a group-level, and 2) whether deficits in inhibition were linked to increased aggression at an individual-level.

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Alizée Vernouillet @vernouilleta.bsky.social · Jul 23

New paper out!
To Peck or Not To Peck: The influence of early-life social environment on response inhibition and impulsive aggression in Japanese quails royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

To peck or not to peck: the influence of early-life social environment on response inhibition and impulsive aggression in Japanese quails | Royal Society Open Science

Deficits in response inhibition (RI; i.e. the ability to suppress inappropriate responses) may contribute to increased impulsive aggression (IA; i.e. unplanned behaviours that harm others). Since earl...

royalsocietypublishing.org

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Alizée Vernouillet @vernouilleta.bsky.social · Jul 10

Big thank you to Nanxi Huang for her help with data collection, Abdelrahman Elzayadi for his help with video scoring, and to Debbie Kelly for her guidance and advice!

Picture by the Bandelier National Monument

#corvids #birdcognition #caching

A beautiful, slender, blue corvid picking up a pine cone to extract the seeds

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Alizée Vernouillet @vernouilleta.bsky.social · Jul 10

Both species used the trays differently: birds moved their stored seeds around more in the tray given to the thief once the observers were gone, but only when the observers were conspecifics. We then discussed the ability to discriminate between individuals when caching.

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Alizée Vernouillet @vernouilleta.bsky.social · Jul 10

We gave the choice to highly-social pinyon jays and non-social Clark’s nutcrackers to store food between two trays that either a thief or a non-thieving observer could have access to. Observers could either be conspecifics or heterospecifics, and their roles were consistent throughout the study.

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Alizée Vernouillet @vernouilleta.bsky.social · Jul 10

Late to the party but the last paper of my PhD was published earlier this year!
Pinyon jays (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus) and Clark’s nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) can discriminate between pilfering and non-pilfering conspecifics, but not between heterospecifics link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Pinyon Jays (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus) and Clark’s nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) can discriminate between pilfering and non-pilfering conspecifics, but not between heterospecifics - Animal Cogni...

When foraging, individuals often need to assess potential risk from competitors. Within many food-caching (food-storing) species, individuals can modify their caching behavior depending on whether oth...

link.springer.com

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Reposted by Alizée Vernouillet

Denis REALE 🇨🇦 @denisreale.bsky.social · Jul 5

Congratulations @meganjthompson.bsky.social
Another great paper!

Megan Thompson @meganjthompson.bsky.social · Jul 4

We have a new paper out on the genetic vs. environmental drivers of cognition along an urban gradient: doi.org/10.1007/s100...

@lauragervais.bsky.social @dhanyabharath.bsky.social @annecharmantier.bsky.social @denisreale.bsky.social

#inhibitorycontrol #greattits #animalcognition

Figure showing cognitive task administered to wild great tits in the field.

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Reposted by Alizée Vernouillet

Luca Hahn @lucahahn.bsky.social · Jun 27

In our new paper we discuss the coevolution of cognition and sociality (link: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...). It was a pleasure to work on this project with Andoni Sergiou, @josharbon.bsky.social, @inesfuertbauer.bsky.social, @shoalgroup.bsky.social, and @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social!

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Reposted by Alizée Vernouillet

Elli Leadbeater @ellileadbeater.bsky.social · Jun 26

Selection Shapes Diverse Animal Minds: our special issue of @royalsocietypublishing.org Phil Trans B on the diverse evolutionary processes underlying cognitive evolution is out today. Thanks to all our contributors! royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/202...

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences: Vol 380, No 1929

royalsocietypublishing.org

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Reposted by Alizée Vernouillet

Kiran Basava @incertaesedis.bsky.social · Jun 22

Happy to share our new paper introducing the Animal Culture Database in Scientific Data: We’re putting together a resource consolidating primary research on cultural behaviors in wild animal populations and how they’re affected by human activity (1/5) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Mapping nonhuman cultures with the Animal Culture Database - Scientific Data

Scientific Data - Mapping nonhuman cultures with the Animal Culture Database

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Alizée Vernouillet

Sofia Forss @sofiaforss.bsky.social · Jun 17

Working with @wildcognition.bsky.social on this paper was so much fun: drawing from our research with mammals (primates & hyenas) we discuss to what extent the urban niche poses novel cognitive challenges or whether they are exapted to exploit urban resources
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

How cognitively demanding is the urban niche? Reconsidering exaptation and habituation - Animal Cognition

Urbanization is hypothesized to create a myriad of cognitive challenges for animals because it creates novel environmental conditions in evolutionary terms. The consensus is that these novel urban cha...

link.springer.com

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Reposted by Alizée Vernouillet

Cornish Jackdaw Project @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social · May 12

Jackdaws' flexible behaviour helps them live alongside people, but sometimes they do some odd things! This guy decided a fork would make good nest material, but later changed his mind and chucked it out again. @uniexecec.bsky.social

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Reposted by Alizée Vernouillet

LaurenGuillette.bsky.social @laurenguillette.bsky.social · May 8

For these bats, eavesdropping is a valuable learnt skill www.nature.com/artic...

For these bats, eavesdropping is a valuable learnt skill

Nature - Over time, young fringe-lipped bats learn how to distinguish the calls of palatable frogs from those of toxic ones.

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Alizée Vernouillet

Dieter Lukas @dieterlukas.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · Apr 25

New from #thegrackleproject: "using multiple different methods for measuring boldness and exploration...our findings improve our understanding of the traits that are linked with flexibility in a highly adaptable species" […]

[Original post on fediscience.org]

Figure 1 from the linked scientific paper showing the 6 different behavioral experiments the grackles participated in. They first had to perform a color reversal learning task, before checking how much they explore a novel environment, how afraid they are of a purple halloween cat / a stuffed pigeon / a stuffed hawk, and how well they are able to access food in two puzzle boxes.

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Reposted by Alizée Vernouillet

Sofia Forss @sofiaforss.bsky.social · Apr 18

Surely you have heard of/ used novel object paradigms to assess animal personality? In this paper we validate exploration behavior through a battery of stimuli in both social and individual conditions and across a longer period of time.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Reposted by Alizée Vernouillet

CristinaTuni @cristinatuni.bsky.social · Apr 18

ISBE26-the 20th International Society for Behavioral Ecology Conference will take place in Turin, Italy, from 20-24th of July 2026. We invite you to join us to enjoy a 5-day meeting rich in top-notch science and ample networking opportunities, in our beautiful city. Website out soon!
#ISBE26

Torino the place To be - short 1'

YouTube video by Turismo Torino e Provincia

youtu.be

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Reposted by Alizée Vernouillet

Rachael Shaw @wild-minds.bsky.social · Mar 19

New toutouwai paper out today, led by Dr Tas Vámos! Individual toutouwai have specific preferences for where they cache prey - turns out birds that prefer spreading their caches widely also have more accurate spatial memory performance!
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Dr Tas Vámos sitting in the forest at Zealandia, holding a toutouwai chick ready for banding

A male toutouwai called Bruiser, holding a mealworm and staring at the camera

Some soldierfly larvae that a toutouwai has hidden inside a dried fern stem

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Reposted by Alizée Vernouillet

Ondrej Fiser @laniusondrej.bsky.social · Mar 7

🦅🧠 Bird Cognition 🧠🦅
Anyone who studies or is just fascinated by how birds perceive, learn, remember and solve problems 🐦

Let's all meet in this cool new #starterpack 🤩

Let me know if you want to join in too 🦜🦤🦉🦆🐣🪺🪶🧪

🔗 go.bsky.app/V2K7HQM

#Ornithology #Birds #AnimalBehaviour

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