Why do reef fishes congregate in mixed species groups? These groups have anti-predator benefits, but Bharat Ahuja shows there is also major foraging benefits. Mixed species groups raid damselfish farms for the tasty algae!

What generates social instability? @annemariemarel.bsky.social shows that larger groups with more females are typically more stable, but groups tend to become more unstable at higher temps. I get grumpy and anti-social during heatwaves too tbf.

Does fear last forever?? Amazon Warrior Siobhan Calhoun shows that risk cues appear to additives accumulate and atenuate in clonal fish. Getting scared 5 times appears to be 5 times as scary as getting scared once!

Male baboons need to climb the social ladder to achieve their top ranks. Susan Alberts shows that males slowly achieve rank over lower ranked females but can take years to out-rank the top ranked female, especially if it's their mother (who wants to fight their mom!)

Social interactions matter for fitness. Taylor Bastian shows that when marmots deviate from their average sociability, it increases fitness - regardless of they become more *or* less social! Evidence of behavioral plasticity improving fitness?

Not all social interactions are dyadic. Noa Pinter-Wollman shows that one ant can feed many ants at once. Colonies do this when they're hungrier showing efficient dissemination of resources. Get your sisters fed!

Mantis shrimps fight for burrows. Intruders fight harder to gain access to a single burrow but the residents can beat up an even bigger intruder. @jon-aguinaga.bsky.social shows how much shrimp want to keep their burrows!

Sparrows swap between producing and scrounging behavior and Corne de Groot shows that a single latent variables underlies thsse behaviors. Individuals can plasticity adjust their behavior to help minimize reductions in fitness

Saw flies do collective defense but males are more likely to be free-loaders and benefit from their hard working sisters. @caritalindstedt.bsky.social shows that females contribute more to collective defense and these groups often end up being female biased. Long live the patriarchy, I say!

In cooperatively breeders, non-breeders get benefits from sticking around but why exactly do the breeders tolerate this individuals? Pete Buston builds a model to show that the non-breeders reduce variance in the time taken to restart breeding if their partner dies. Good life insurance policy!

Fair-weather friends? Amazon Warrior @ksheehy.bsky.social shows that top ranked individuals actually prefer unfamiliar groups of predator cues are around - suggesting that top ranked fish know that they should avoid the fish they've been harassing if they want a cohesive shoal

How do animals decide where to go? It's not just food - Felipe Bufalo shows that tamarins also prioritize the ability to phone a friend! Groups choose trees that enable better between-group communication especially in the rainy season when it's hard to see each other and they want to avoid fights

Fish traffic jam! Adding more exits to a tank does not increase a school's speed to leave the tank. Palestina Guevara Fiore shows that similar to what is seen in human highway traffic, fish schools get clogged up.

Baboons have lots of variety in social systems. Using a model, Brian Lerch shows that when social ties decrease mortality, groups evolve more male-male tolerance and stronger female-male bonds with knock-on effects for larger groups and lower infanticide

All parts of the wing matter! Benito Wainwright shows that clipping even non-sound producing parts of male katydid wings will alter their song and females are not so keen on the result either. Keep your wings intact, boys!

Tadpole backpacks? Not onlu this season's *hottest* fashion accessory, but Eva Ringler shows this is also a great system for studying the behavioral decisions involved in parental care! Day 2 of ISBE begins!

Do frogs bond more strongly if they have more babies together? Izzy Kier uses frog speed dating to build frog pairs and then takes some pairs' eggs away. While affliation between pairs didn't appear to shift, the frogs did get really good at hiding their eggs! Sneaky frogs!

While more highly ranked individuals in many species show lower inhibitory control, this is not the case in cockatoos. Shefali Dorepali shows that aggression more important predictor of rank

Select guppies for brain size and you get changes in overall cognitive styles. Marion Dellinger shows that large-brain selected guppies are decisive, efficient learners and are quick to form useful habits. They know what they want and they go out and get it!

What can behavioral ecology offer to cognition research? Redouan Bshary emphasizes how we can offer insight into ecological relevance. Don't just ask can a fish do a task, but ask why it would need to in the first place

There are Drosophila with crazy forelegs they use for fighting. Using genetically identical lines, @tomratz.bsky.social finds studied what factors contribute to aggression. Opponent behavior matters but focal individuals are still show individuality. Variation is the rule, not the exception!

Anyone who's grown up in a big family know there's a lot of social interactions thay happen among siblings. Bruno Camargo dos Santos shows cichlids with more siblings show higher social competence later in life. Your siblings can actually be useful for you apparently :)

Using the cutest voles you've ever seen, @mdammhahn.bsky.social shows that risk-taking behavior differs between summer and autumn animals - autumn animals follow asset protection but summer animals seem to follow state-dependent safety

Nicolas Mouret shows that in warmer climates, more active lizards are selected against. Suggests this might then have knock-on effects for ecological interactions if the most active individuals get removed from the population

Does fear generalize? Richard Szeligowski shows that snail responses to crayfish and pesticides correlates, but only responses to each predicts fitness - stronger response to crayfish means longer survival & stronger pesticide avoidance means higher fecundity!

Maybe she's born with it? @jay-gallagher.bsky.social shows that clonal fish show similar levels of individuality compared to sexual fish - suggesting that other non-genetic factors, like developmental stochasticity, might play major role in generating individual variation

Xinrui Wang shows that aspects of canopy cover is associated with exploratory behavior in great tits in sex-specific ways

Using a genuinely insane amount of data on great tits and a powerful modeling framework, Alex Cones still can't find evidence for increasing competition driving fitness trade-offs. What's the deal with Pace-of-life????

Paige Becker shows that Clownfish switch from males to females. While theyre one sex, they typically maintain their level of parental effort but parental effort changes quite a bit when the animal switches sexes. High effort males do not necessarily become high effort females!

Adopt don't shop! @lenagrinsted.bsky.social shows that colonial spiders are willing to adopt and care for offspring of other mothers if that mom goes missing. Group living gives 'life insurance' policy for your babies if parents die!