Behavioural ecologist studying #Earwigs #Behavior #evolution #Insects #FamilyLife #SocialLife #SocialImmunity #GutMicrobiota #Pesticides #OpenScience. Also interested in #ants and many other cool animals.
New paper out in the journal The Science of Nature: "Alternative reproductive strategies in two cryptic species of the European earwig complex"
We show that Forficula dentata favours investment before egg-laying, whereas Forficula auricularia does so after. Although both produce the same number of eggs and descendants (under standard conditions), they follow distinct paths to reproductive success.
An interesting read, nicely illustrating how our community is split on the question of AI use to write or review papers.
It was a real pleasure to talk about our recent data on the earwig microbiota at the REID meeting in Lyon, France.🐛🐜🐞🦠🔬🧪
Lots of interesting talks, many old friends, and a fantastic opportunity to meet a very promising generation of new scientists!
Want a copy of 'The Scientist's Guide to Writing', at half price? (Publisher sale with a code, should be there in the link.) Want six copies so you can give one to each of your grad students? I guarantee it's worth $14 - that's like a sandwich and a coffee (or maybe just the sandwich)
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691219189/the-scientists-guide-to-writing-2nd-edition
🚨 Save the date! 🚨
Symposium on "INSECT PARENTAL CARE" at the next European Congress of Entomology #ECE2026 (29 June–2 July, Tours 🇫🇷) 🐞🪲🪰
Our goal? To lay the foundation for a recurring, broad, and independent meeting on this fascinating topic.
Interested? Feel free to reach out—and stay tuned for more! 👀
Dreaming of a postdoc adventure with earwigs?
✨ Dive with me into insect behavior, parental care, social immunity, population genomics, microbiota, ecotoxicology, and many other exciting topics!
If you already got a crazy idea, or just a vague idea for a postdoc project: Let's chat and make it happen via the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowship ! 🌟
Call is open and will close by 10 September → europa.eu/!fBTMgF
Open PhD position at the university of Bayreuth: "Parental Care and Microbial Control in Burying Beetles" with the fantastic Jos Kramer !
Amazing PhD opportunity alert! Join a top-notch lab with an incredible supervisor and work on a fascinating biological model. Don't miss out—apply now! 🚀🧬
More information 👉 https://www.dzg-ev.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/PhD_EvolutionaryEcology_Bayreuth2025.pdf
📚✨ Curieux·se de découvrir ce que c'est de faire une thèse sur les perce-oreilles ? Plongez dans cette BD illustrée par Pellichi, qui met en lumière le travail de thèse de Laura Pasquier dans mon équipe. Une superbe façon de rendre la science accessible !
#Communiqué 🗞️ Le CNRS exprime sa solidarité avec les scientifiques exerçant aux États-Unis, où la liberté académique est aujourd'hui mise à l’épreuve. #standupforscience2025
👉 https://www.cnrs.fr/fr/presse/le-cnrs-soutient-le-mouvement-stand-science
The surge in scientific journals charging APCs is alarming! In ecology and evolution, my APC-free submission options are now extremely limited. It's even worse in fields like ecotoxicology and microbiology. Where is this trend heading? #OpenScience #NoAPCs 🤔
🇫🇷🌳🐛 Offre de thèse : Venez étudiez l'écologie et le comportement du forficule européen dans les vergers ! 🍑🍏
Financement CIFRE - Collaboration entre l'IRBI (CNRS / Université de Tours) et l'AOP Pêches et Abricots de France.
Date limite : 14 avril 2025
The amorous adventures of earwigs
Elaborate courtship, devoted parenthood, gregarious nature (and occasional cannibalism)—earwigs have a lot going for them.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/11/the-amorous-adventures-of-earwigs/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social
Imagine if all those funds had gone to our university libraries instead, in diamond open access models. Not only universities would have saved many times that sum from not needing any subscription to publishers, but also, the general public would be able to access all papers without any paywalls.
New preprint is out! We combine our recent open dataset of #APC prices with the publication counts per journal-year from @OpenAlex to estimate how much the academic community has paid in APCs over the last five years.
A: $8.349 billion ($8.968 billion in 2023 US dollars) spent on APCs.
$2.5B in 2023 alone.
We also find that median APCs *paid* are higher than median *listed* fees for both gold (paid: $2,450 vs listed: $2,000) and hybrid ($3,600 vs $3,230).
😎 I am delighted to see our research on earwigs featured in the Knowable magazine. There's a nice overview of the fascinating biology of this insect, our recent results, and behind-the-scenes stories from me and colleagues.
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/living-world/2024/social-life-of-earwigs
📢 We have just published a new study and I am particularly excited about the results of this one.
🤩 We show that adult offspring reared by earwig mothers who were immune-challenged after oviposition had improved survival following re-infection with bacteria. More susprisingly, it was the wounding of the mothers, rather than their previous exposure to dead bacteria, that triggered this improved survival in their offspring!
📢 New paper out: "Heat waves during egg development alter maternal care and offspring quality in the European earwig" in Journal of Thermal Biology
👉 We showed that heat waves reduced maternal care and hatching success, accelerated egg development and lowered the upper thermal limit for juveniles. Overall, this means that maternal care is not sufficient to compensate for the costs of heatwaves in earwigs and raises questions about their adaptation to climate change.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306456524002249
Thanks Clarivate. Making it even easier for people to choose to support @OpenAlex now 😉
If Clarivate de-indexes eLife (where the scientific community _rightly_ chooses to publish great research), Clarivate will propel itself toward becoming the next Encyclopaedia Britannica. Keep digging Clarivate, the grave is nearly deep enough now!
This was one of the worst recent stories about falsified data in behavioral ecology. If you don't know this or want a summary, this is a great article:
https://thewalrus.ca/a-rock-star-researcher-spun-a-web-of-lies-and-nearly-got-away-with-it/
