Happy to announce that @martinbulla.bsky.social is visiting us in Coimbra next week! Martin will give a talk on 'Global patterns and evolution of avian song complexity', streamed online at: ucmeetings.uc.pt/live/seminar... You're all welcome to join! #ornithology

😮 Finding 3 (surprising!): We found no overall evidence that green nest material lowers parasites or pathogens in the nest, challenging the assumption that it’s because of the "volatiles" assumption. 🔗 doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

✅ Finding 2: Effects were strongest for commonly measured offspring traits like nestling mass and tarsus length. Adding green material continuously throughout the nesting phase led to larger effects. 🔗 doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

✅ Finding 1: Adding green nest material has an overall positive effect on bird fitness. Moderate heterogeneity suggests some context-dependency, but most variability is within- rather than among-study. 🔗 doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

In this pre-registered meta-analysis, we synthesised 28 experimental studies and 274 effect sizes to finally provide a quantitative answer. 🔗 doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

🐦 Thrilled to share our latest research, a milestone: the first first-author paper from @shreyadimri.bsky.social, published in @royalsocietypublishing.org Why do birds add fresh green nest material to their nests? 🧵 🔗 doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

In other disciplines such as medicine, RoB assessment is the standard norm & is extensively used, highlighting a significant gap in ecology & evolution #synthesis To bridge this, we provide a clear roadmap to make RoB Known, Easy, and Possible for the entire community 🏗️ 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/2041...

RoB refers to the presence of biases within each primary study (i.e. internal validity) included in the #EvidenceSynthesis Our surveys reveal that most journals accepting reviews do not mention RoB assessments & that many researchers still confuse it with #PublicationBias 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/2041...

Are our ecological conclusions built on shaky foundations? Our latest paper in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social highlights that Risk of Bias (RoB) assessment, crucial for ensuring the internal validity of research, is almost never used in #systematicreviews in eco & evo 📉 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/2041...

In many fields, pilot studies are critical for methods & tool development & refinement, yet are often overlooked & rarely reported Any ecologists & evolutionary biologists with a special interest and experience in piloting in ecology & evolution: suggested reading, previous research, etc...?

Tired of "methods sections" lacking detail? Check out our new preprint: "Ten simple rules for writing a reusable step-by-step protocol" 📢 This is not only for lab work. Detailed protocols are essential for reproducibility across ALL research fields 🔗 osf.io/preprints/me...

Had a fantastic time last week in Trondheim at the @eshackathon.bsky.social 🇳🇴 A full week discussing evidence synthesis & how to improve it with a brilliant and knowledgeable interdisciplinary team. Highly energising! 🙌 Thank you to @drmattg.bsky.social for hosting us & taking such good care of us

🚨 Perhaps the most alarming finding: effect size estimates varied dramatically depending on where they came from. Estimates from correlations & mean comparisons told a very different story to those derived from inferential statistics (t, F, χ²), raising serious concerns. 🔗 doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

Once effect sizes and analyses are corrected & heterogeneity properly accounted for, conclusions change substantially. The badge of status hypothesis is much less supported than claimed, but we still don't know because the literature coverage remains largely incomplete 📚 🔗 doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

🚨 Fifty years of research on "badges of status" in animals, and we still don't know if the hypothesis holds. In our new reply, we argue that the evidence is shakier than recently claimed. A thread 🧵📄 (w/ @ornitho-pie.bsky.social) 🔗 doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

We hope future researchers embrace meta-analytic approaches to study trait canalisation across species, making use of the large datasets now available for birds and other species. 📄 Paper: doi.org/10.1093/evol... 💾 Data & Code: github.com/ASanchez-Toj...

Though not all pairwise comparisons were statistically clear, analyses at both species and population levels consistently showed higher canalisation (~5–10% lower CV) in: ⏺️ Aerial vs. non-aerial feeders ⏺️ Migratory vs. non-migratory species 📄 doi.org/10.1093/evol...

The overall CV for wing length was just 2.6%. Substantial heterogeneity was linked to phylogenetic relationships (23%) & differences among species (8%). This is a key precondition for testing species-specific drivers of variation. 📄 doi.org/10.1093/evol... 💾 Data & Code: github.com/ASanchez-Toj...

Our new paper in @journal-evo.bsky.social is out! 🎉 We showcase how to use phylogenetic meta-analysis of variance to test evolutionary hypotheses across species, applied here to test patterns of stabilising selection and canalisation for wing length in 172 birds 📄 doi.org/10.1093/evol...

So what now? Journals should institutionalise dedicated data editors: pivotal for quality control. Researchers & journals: check out the @sortee.bsky.social guidelines for data & code quality control 👉 doi.org/10.24072/pcj...

My new piece "Reproducibility: how to strengthen a weak foundation" is out today @nature.com! 🎉 How reproducible is research in the social & behavioural sciences? A new study by Miske et al. assessed 600 papers across 62 journals: the results are sobering. 📄 doi.org/10.1038/d415... 📄 rdcu.be/fbcq5

@lajeunesselab.bsky.social has written the paper that meta-analysts were waiting for, and I can't recommend it more: Converting and Constructing Effect Sizes With the Response Ratio doi.org/10.1111/ele.... Go check it out (and use it!)

We hope these guidelines help more journals implement data & code editorial workflows, improving transparency and reuse in ecology & evolution. If you're an editor, reviewer, or researcher working on reproducibility, we’d love to hear your thoughts! 📄 doi.org/10.24072/pcj...

The SORTEE guidelines aim to address this gap. They focus on a key but often overlooked role in publishing: 💻 Data & Code Editors 📄 doi.org/10.24072/pcj... Specialists who can check that shared research outputs are shared, understandable, reusable, and reproducible

Importantly, ecology & evolution already have excellent guidelines for writing better code and sharing high-quality data, such as: 📄 bes-guide.github.io/reproducible... 📄 doi.org/10.1111/jeb.... 📄 doi.org/10.32942/X2D... But guidelines alone are not enough; we need a process that ensures sharing.

Why are these guidelines needed? Evidence shows that data & code sharing policies increase sharing compared to journals without such policies. But code is still rarely shared and data little reusable, despite policies 📄 doi.org/10.24072/pcj... 📄 doi.org/10.1371/jour... 📄 doi.org/10.32942/X26...

Many journals require data and code sharing. Yet code is still rarely shared and datasets are often hard to reuse. Our new paper introduces the @sortee.bsky.social guidelines for data & code quality control in ecology & evolution, developed by 26 experienced data editors. 📄 doi.org/10.24072/pcj...

Loved giving a workshop yesterday on transparency, reproducibility, and publication bias in meta-analyses 📊 Part of a brilliant event by the Science: To Be Determined team (@idiv-research.bsky.social). Thank you so much for the invitation! 🔗 conference.idiv.de/event/4/over...

Never too late! From a hot summer in 2009 spent in the lab molecularly sexing pied flycatchers to a 2026 paper 🐦 Using 2,759 sexed nestlings (1997–2018) tracked through 2023, we show male attractiveness & annual rearing conditions increase the proportion of sons in broods 🔗 doi.org/10.1016/j.an...

Interested in the TADA! guidelines for improving analytical code sharing & reproducibility? (doi.org/10.32942/X2D...) Register for @joelpick.bsky.social & @eivimeycook.bsky.social at: libcal.essex.ac.uk/event/4465297 #OpenScience #Reproducibility #OpenResearch P.S. Give that doggy 👇 a treat!