Devi Satarkar

Devi Satarkar

@devisatarkar.bsky.social

DPhil (PhD) student at the University of Oxford | studying the impact of climatic instability on wild birds 🌱🪺🪶

177 followers91 following30 posts

Devi Satarkar reposted

David López-Idiáquez
@davididiaquez.bsky.social

I wrote a short piece for @animalecology.bsky.social in Focus about our recent paper on temporal trends in great tit body mass and early-life effects. You can find it here: animalecologyinfocus.com/2026/10/08/n...

animalecologyinfocus.comNot-so-great tit: early-life conditions are making Wytham’s great tits a bit less greatThis blog post is provided by David López-Idiáquez and tells the #StoryBehindThePaper for the article “Early-life environment drives long-term decrease in adult body mass in a wild bird popul…

Devi Satarkar reposted

Ben Sheldon
@sheldonbirds.bsky.social

Latest work from @devisatarkar.bsky.social DPhil thesis exploring the ecological effects that modulate the link between offspring and adult body mass in great tits. The correlation is really quite plastic! Fun collaboration with @lbliard.bsky.social @iremsepil.bsky.social @davididiaquez.bsky.social

Devi Satarkar@devisatarkar.bsky.social

Heavier great tit nestlings 🐥 usually end up as heavier adults 🐦. Is this always a strong correlation? Our new preprint shows that the strength of this 'silver-spoon' association shifts continuously with environmental context, and is stronger in harsh conditions! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Devi Satarkar reposted

Dan Baldassarre
@evornithology.bsky.social

jeez this is nice work on the foundational concept P = G + E

Devi Satarkar@devisatarkar.bsky.social

Heavier great tit nestlings 🐥 usually end up as heavier adults 🐦. Is this always a strong correlation? Our new preprint shows that the strength of this 'silver-spoon' association shifts continuously with environmental context, and is stronger in harsh conditions! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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Devi Satarkar
@devisatarkar.bsky.social

Temperature and rainfall effects may be compensatory: In favourable (warm, dry) conditions, birds that started poorly may catch up with those that had a good start, weakening the early-to-adult link. When resources are scarce (cold, wet conditions), lighter birds can't compensate – link stays strong

Devi Satarkar
@devisatarkar.bsky.social

Decomposing these patterns into genetic and non-genetic components showed that they are largely driven by non-genetic individual differences! The genetic correlation between natal and adult body mass appears stable across the three environmental gradients – we didn't detect any GxE interactions 🧬 🌳

Devi Satarkar
@devisatarkar.bsky.social

We use the covariance reaction norm method (by @jsmartin.bsky.social) on 40 years of great tit data from Wytham Woods. The natal-to-adult body mass correlation in this population is high on average (r ≈ 0.7) but appears to vary with temperature, rainfall, and density, particularly during breeding.

Devi Satarkar
@devisatarkar.bsky.social

Why would higher breeding density weaken the correlation?🤔 Perhaps resources are constrained for everyone when density is high, so even nestlings who started out heavier can't translate that advantage into higher adult mass. At low density, heavier fledglings can capitalise on abundant resources.

Devi Satarkar reposted

David López-Idiáquez
@davididiaquez.bsky.social

Our pre-print analysing the 1 std decline in mass in Wytham great tits has just been published in @animalecology.bsky.social check it out: besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @biology.ox.ac.uk

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.comEarly‐life environment drives long‐term decrease in adult body mass in a wild bird populationUsing more than 90,000 body mass measures of adult and nestling great tits Parus major, we show that the 1 SD decline in adult mass between 1978 and 2024 is a consequence of changes in the environmen....
David López-Idiáquez@davididiaquez.bsky.social

We have published a new pre-print showing a decline in great tit adult and nestling mass of around 1 gram in 47 y. [rate of approx. -0.040 Hadanes] With @ellafcole.bsky.social, @devisatarkar.bsky.social, Sam. Crofts, @mcmahok.bsky.social & @sheldonbirds.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Devi Satarkar reposted

Patrick Lewin
@plewin.bsky.social

Excited to share my second published PhD chapter out now in Current Biology! @cellpress.bsky.social 🧵 below but tldr: birds are known to use the magnetic field to navigate. But is magnetism the whole story? We find that an amazing avian navigator doesn’t seem to rely on magnetic cues at all.

Oxford Biology@biology.ox.ac.uk

Long-distance navigation is no easy feat, but for some seabirds it can involve traversing hundreds of kilometres of open ocean New research led by @plewin.bsky.social shows that even if Manx shearwaters can sense the earth’s magnetism, they don't rely on it to get home 👇

bit.lyHoming shearwaters don’t need magnetic sense to navigate

Devi Satarkar reposted

Edward Grey Institute
@egioxford.bsky.social

Remember the summer heatwaves in the UK in 2026? The late May heatwave was exceptional: an event +4.3 sd above mean - likely to occur only once every few decades under normal conditions. It was also unusual in being early and coinciding with tit breeding season. What consequences did it have? 🧵1/n

Devi Satarkar reposted

Ben Sheldon
@sheldonbirds.bsky.social

Happy 100th Birthday Sir David! Short clip from a film with Sir David Attenborough featuring @ellafcole.bsky.social explaining research in @wythamwoods.bsky.social into how Great Tits adjust behaviour during incubation to fine-tune hatching date: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGjL...

youtube.comHow Do Birds Incubate Their Eggs? | Attenborough's Wonder of Eggs | BBC EarthYouTube video by BBC Earth
Edward Grey Institute@egioxford.bsky.social

On the occasion of his 100th Birthday - many happy returns Sir David! - we remember fondly the time Sir David Attenborough came to do some filming of Great Tits in Wytham Woods (and with clip of the resultant film here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGjL...) wythamtits.com/the-day-sir-...

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Devi Satarkar
@devisatarkar.bsky.social

We hope our paper is useful as a practical guide for anyone planning a nestbox temperature experiment. It brings together what’s been done before, highlights the details that can really shape results, and offers a reporting framework to make future studies easier to design, compare, and interpret.

Devi Satarkar
@devisatarkar.bsky.social

One thing the review makes clear is just how much methods vary across studies: heating/cooling devices, box setups, temperature measurements, and reporting practices all differ, making comparisons difficult and leaving researchers with a confusing range of options when designing experiments 🤷‍♀️

Devi Satarkar
@devisatarkar.bsky.social

Our pilot experiment also showed how hard it can be to achieve the intended temperature manipulation in the field. Even a small detail like thermologger placement within the nestbox can change the apparent treatment effect dramatically, making both implementation and interpretation tricky.

Devi Satarkar
@devisatarkar.bsky.social

My second DPhil paper is out! A nice example of how continuous long-term monitoring of natural populations can be so valuable for understanding impacts of climate change on wild animals 🪶 📍Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire 🌳🪺

Edward Grey Institute@egioxford.bsky.social

New paper out! Great tits face distinct challenges from extreme weather during development, based on 60 years data from >83k nestlings in Wytham Woods 🐣 Cold snaps & heavy rain can stunt growth, but earlier breeding may help buffer this! By @devisatarkar.bsky.social et al. doi.org/10.1111/gcb.70794

doi.orgDevelopmental Stage‐Specific Responses to Extreme Climatic Events and Environmental Variability in Great Tit NestlingsExtreme climatic events (ECEs) impact great tit nestlings in a developmental stage-specific and context-dependent manner. Using 60 years of data on 83,000+ great tit nestlings from Wytham Woods, UK, ...

Devi Satarkar reposted

Rona Learmonth
@rona-learmonth.bsky.social

New preprint! 🌳🐛 We combined experimental and genomic methods to study local adaptation of winter moths to variation in oak budburst timing in Wytham Woods, UK. With @andreaestandia.bsky.social, Lea Beaupere, Ella Cole, and @sheldonbirds.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

biorxiv.orgIntegrative analysis of fine-scale local adaptation of winter moths to variable oak phenologyFor herbivorous insects whose fitness depends on tight phenological synchrony with host plants, spatial variation in plant phenology can impose strong selective pressures and promote local adaptation ...
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Devi Satarkar
@devisatarkar.bsky.social

Combined effects can worsen outcomes! When chicks face extreme heat + heavy rain, their mass at fledging can reduce dramatically (up to 27% 🔥). Timing is also important. Late broods within a season are predicted to suffer the most, fledging up to 35% lighter under extreme heat and rain ⛈️

Devi Satarkar
@devisatarkar.bsky.social

Our study offers crucial insights into how wild populations may fare amid ongoing climate change, revealing how life history trajectories are shaped by interacting climate stressors and prevailing environmental conditions. Highly relevant as extreme events increase in frequency and intensity! ⛈️ ❄️ 🔥

Devi Satarkar
@devisatarkar.bsky.social

We show that cold snaps hit young hatchlings hardest, while older nestlings are more affected by extreme rain and heat — likely because these conditions indirectly influence the abundance and activity of caterpillars, the great tit’s main food source 🐛

Devi Satarkar reposted

Ben Sheldon
@sheldonbirds.bsky.social

Lovely to see Devi Satarkar’s first DPhil paper out in print

Journal of Animal Ecology@animalecology.bsky.social

Using a dataset of 800,000+ observations and decades of breeding records, Dr Satarkar and team employ multi-matrix quantitative genetic ‘animal models’ to show that genes play a minimal role in shaping individual social phenotypes in an avian system 🪽 🧪 🌏

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Devi Satarkar
@devisatarkar.bsky.social

Had such a wonderful time at #ECBB2024 where I had the privilege of presenting my PhD work at an international conference for the first time ever! Beautiful city & campus and absolutely brilliant people & research 🤩 Thanks to everyone for being so encouraging about my work 🐣

Devi Satarkar
@devisatarkar.bsky.social

Presented my first ever poster at the @royalsociety conference on age and sociality this week and immensely enjoyed 2 days of really cool research and chatting with even cooler people 🤩 Massive thanks to the organisers for such an enlightening meeting ✨

Devi Satarkar
@devisatarkar.bsky.social

Excited to share my 1st ever paper that got published last week! It's a #review on the role of CXCR3 (a chemokine receptor) in neuronal 🧠 and cardiovascular 🫀 diseases. Beyond grateful for @drchinmoypatra's encouragement and guidance as I wrote...

Devi Satarkar
@devisatarkar.bsky.social

The review also has comprehensive descriptions of the structure and function of the receptor. Along with how it was discovered and how it came to be ✨ There's more about wound healing 🩹 in there too, with a special focus on zebrafish 🐟 research! @FrontCellDevBio

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