Josh Arbon

Josh Arbon

@josharbon.bsky.social

Animal behaviour, social and cognitive evolution. Jackdaws, mongooses, now wagtails. Herchel Smith Research Fellow, University of Cambridge.

316 followers300 following41 posts

Josh Arbon reposted

Daisy Cooper
@daisy-cooper.bsky.social

My first paper is out now! Prey form groups to protect themselves from predation, but how have their predators responded? We review the strategies predators use to successfully attack grouping prey. royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article...

royalsocietypublishing.orgCoevolutionary attack and avoidance strategies in predators and grouping preyAbstract. The formation of groups by prey is one of the most widespread evolutionary responses to predation. However, while the anti-predation benefits pro

Josh Arbon reposted

ASAB
@asab.org

In 2021 @andyradford.bsky.social became the ASAB executive editor of the #AnimalBehaviourJournal, a joint venture with our sister society @animbehsociety.bsky.social With their exec editor & a great support team, Andy has worked hard to bring out an issue every month - a real undertaking! #MeetASAB

Josh Arbon
@josharbon.bsky.social

More excellent work on the intricate social lives of jackdaws - pair bonds are valuable in accessing resources with partners forgoing their own direct benefits to provide social support. Congrats @lucahahn.bsky.social @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social!!

Cornish Jackdaw Project@cornishjackdaws.bsky.social

New paper led by @lucahahn.bsky.social! Jackdaw partners coordinate & accept short-term costs to stay together. Relationships promote access to food & info. @uniexecec.bsky.social @shoalgroup.bsky.social @guillmcivor.bsky.social @royalsocietypublishing.org @swbiodtp.bsky.social tinyurl.com/rrv483hb

Josh Arbon reposted

Brendan Barrett
@bjjbarrett.bsky.social

Our paper on how orangutan mothers plan and alter their space use at personal costs so their offspring may play with similarly aged offspring (independent of kinship and fruit productivity) has transitioned from preprint to peer reviewed publication doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

doi.orgMaternal ranging strategies facilitate offspring social play at energetic cost in the most solitary ape | PNASIn most vertebrates, social play among peers is considered essential for behavioral development. Yet in solitary species bearing single offspring, ...

Josh Arbon reposted

Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour (CRAB)
@crab-exeter.bsky.social

Thank you to everyone who signed our open letter, who sent individual letters, and supported us in many other ways. We feel incredibly privileged to be part of such an active and strong scientific community and we've written you a letter to express our thanks and to give an update on the outcome 🧡🦀

Josh Arbon
@josharbon.bsky.social

Great use of the tens of thousands of dwarf mongoose body mass measurements collected over the years. Animals vary substantially in mass across days and seasons - when determining if a tag is too heavy we need to think about how light an animal might become, not just its mass right now.

Andy Radford@andyradford.bsky.social

📢NEW paper out today in @royalsocietypublishing.org #RSOS. 📖Practical implications of temporal body mass variation for biologging and comparative studies. 🌟Showcasing the value of #long-term studies - 1000s of body-mass measures analysed. 👥Led by @benmocha.bsky.social doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

Josh Arbon
@josharbon.bsky.social

Anyone who has worked with me has had to put up with many exasperated rants about why excel sucks*, and now they pull this shit *it’s not *always* terrible - don’t @ me

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛@rmcelreath.bsky.social

Thoughts and prayers for research data managers everywhere. You are not alone. We will get through this together techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/excelbl...

techcommunity.microsoft.comExcel now supports multiple values in a single cell | Microsoft Community HubLists, arrays in cells, and nested arrays introduce new ways to store and organize related information, helping you keep data together without sacrificing...
Josh Arbon
@josharbon.bsky.social

Fabulous to see @lolavk.bsky.social's first Masters paper out today in @asab.org. Great to work with such brilliant folks (and add to my list of species where we've used cheese to find out something interesting!). Congrats Lola!

Andy Radford@andyradford.bsky.social

🌟Congratulations to @lolavk.bsky.social on her 1st #Masters paper. 📢Out today in @asab #AnimalBehaviour: Cooperatively breeding white-winged choughs use recruitment calls selectively in food-associated contexts. @josharbon.bsky.social & I are #ProudSupervisors #birds doi.org/10.1016/j.an...

Josh Arbon reposted

Catherine Sheard
@sheardcat.bsky.social

I cannot even begin to stress how important mentors have been for my career thus far, especially informal and/or peer mentorship. Sometimes mentoring is from your supervisor, or a formal programme, but more often it's a diffuse network of people in your corner. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

nature.comSuccessful early-career scientists rely on network of mentorsLarge networks are particularly beneficial to researchers in under-represented groups.

Josh Arbon reposted

Andy Radford
@andyradford.bsky.social

I’ve come to the end of my 5-year term as a Trustee of @asab.org & Executive Editor of its journal, #AnimalBehaviour. It's been a real privilege to hold these roles & I’m grateful to all those who have made it such a productive & enjoyable experience. 🙏 Please support Society journals.

Josh Arbon reposted

BTO | British Trust for Ornithology
@btobirds.bsky.social

Less than a week to apply to join BTO as a Senior Research Ecologist. ➡️ www.bto.org/jobs #Ornithology #Bioacoustics

BTO | British Trust for Ornithology@btobirds.bsky.social

We're seeking a Research Ecologist to develop & apply methods for analysing large-scale passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) datasets & to lead work on the collection/analysis of restoration & rewilding data. Apply via www.bto.org/jobs Closing date: 22 September. #Ornithology #bioacoustics

Josh Arbon reposted

Andrew King
@shoalgroup.bsky.social

New opinion paper in Trends in Ecology & Evolution on “Evolutionary spandrels in collective animal behaviour”: authors.elsevier.com/a/1nffxcZ3X7...

authors.elsevier.comPlease wait whilst we redirect youAll content on this site: Copyright © 2026 Elsevier B.V., its licensors, and contributors. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies. For all open access content, the relevant licensing terms apply.

Josh Arbon reposted

Cornish Jackdaw Project
@cornishjackdaws.bsky.social

The special issue is out, including our contribution: "Social information about affective states in a human-altered world." Led by @lucahahn.bsky.social, @jackdawjordan.bsky.social & @margauxvanhussel.bsky.social. tinyurl.com/hyhfvmjn. @wildanimals.bsky.social @uniexecec.bsky.social.

tinyurl.comSocial information about others' affective states in a human‐altered worldFaced with anthropogenic change, animals now encounter challenges different from their evolutionary past. To cope with such challenges, animals may use social information about others' affective stat...
Journal of Animal Ecology@animalecology.bsky.social

🚨 new Special Feature! 📝 the collection, edited by David Fisher and Natalie Pilakouta, aimed to explore how organisms plasticly alter their social behaviour in response to environmental variation. 🐒 read the full collection here: buff.ly/iWJVFw5 🎙️ and listen to the podcast here: buff.ly/qGycB98

Josh Arbon reposted

Colin Carlson
@colincarlson.bsky.social

I wrote about a reason not to use generative AI in your writing that I haven't seen anyone talking about. Once I realized this, banning GenAI in our lab's writing became a no-brainer. Feel free to share, I think this is probably useful especially for trainees: www.carlsonlab.bio/thoughts/the...

carlsonlab.bioThe only reason you’ll ever need not to write with AI — The Carlson LabOver the last year, our lab has been developing a policy on AI use. To do this, we did three main things: We read a lot of academic publications and tech news. We set up an #ai channel on our la...

Josh Arbon reposted

Emily Gilford
@emilygilford.bsky.social

How exciting! Check out our paper, published earlier this month, in #AnimalBehaviourJournal 🦗

ASAB@asab.org

🦗Crickets! 🔊Vibrational stimuli! 🚧Sensitization! 👥 Individual variation! Our #EditorsChoice for the #AnimalBehaviourJournal: “Trait-specific responses to repeated stressor exposure reveal context-dependent learning in wild crickets” Read here: doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2026.123607

Josh Arbon reposted

Andy Radford
@andyradford.bsky.social

Great write-up of our new @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social paper on how many animals exhibit pre-emptive behaviour in a landscape of intergroup conflict. Thanks #JordanJoseph at @earthdotcom.bsky.social #OpenAccess paper here: doi.org/10.1016/j.tr... @josharbon.bsky.social @bristolbiosci.bsky.social

doi.orgRedirecting
Earth.com@earthdotcom.bsky.social

Chimpanzees and other animals prepare for conflict long before they fight #EarthDotCom #EarthSnap #Earth

earth.comChimpanzees and other animals prepare for conflict long before they fightChimpanzees, ants, and mongooses prepare for conflict before battles begin, offering new clues about animal societies and human warfare.

Josh Arbon reposted

Brendan Barrett
@bjjbarrett.bsky.social

Our recent paper led by @oddjacobson.bsky.social recently covered by @mongabay.com

Mongabay@mongabay.com

A 33-year study on Costa Rica’s white-faced capuchin monkeys reveals that extreme climate events force the primates to abandon their social norms. Severe droughts cause food scarcity, driving intense competition, territorial sensitivity and shifting group dynamics. Adam Litchkofski reports.

mongabay.ccHow Costa Rica’s extreme climate changes the social behaviors of white-faced capuchinCOSTA RICA: Dawn is yet to break when primatologist Susan Perry and her field research team move through Costa Rica’s tropical dry forest for a day in the field studying Central American white-faced…
Josh Arbon
@josharbon.bsky.social

I’m not presenting but do come find me to chat about pre-emptive behaviour (or any behaviour really)!

Andy Radford@andyradford.bsky.social

👏Congratulations @josharbon.bsky.social on a fantastic new #TREE review from #NERC funded postdoc. doi.org/10.1016/j.tr... #OpenAccess; please share. 💬If you're at #ISBE2026 & interested in #pre-emptive behaviour and/or intergroup #conflict, seek Josh out for a chat. @isbe2026.bsky.social

Josh Arbon reposted

Trends in Ecology & Evolution
@cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social

Online now: Pre-emptive behaviour in a landscape of intergroup conflict

dlvr.itPre-emptive behaviour in a landscape of intergroup conflictIntergroup conflict is a powerful selective force throughout the animal kingdom. While research has traditionally focused on actions during and after contests, animals also exhibit behavioural flexibility in anticipation of potential intergroup encounters. Synthesising findings from diverse taxa, we describe how social species adjust pre-emptive information gathering, resource use, cohesion, synchrony, and intragroup interactions across a heterogeneous ‘landscape of intergroup conflict’. We show how variation in threat level, driven by spatial context, rival characteristics, and individual motivation, affects these behaviours, and how balancing sensed information and memories of past interactions underlies associated decision-making. Testing the consequences of intergroup pre-emptive behaviour using experimental, technological, and analytical advances will develop understanding of its role in socio-cognitive evolution, population dynamics, and community structure.
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Josh Arbon
@josharbon.bsky.social

Many of these ideas were developed in parallel with the analysis for the empirical paper on pre-emptive behaviour relative to rival group size in dwarf mongooses published last month: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.comDwarf mongooses pre-emptively alter their behaviour relative to the threat posed by different rival groups - Nature Ecology & EvolutionUsing 10 years of GPS data and behavioural observations, the authors show that wild dwarf mongooses pre-emptively alter their behaviours, including space use and sentinel calling, in relation to the l...
Josh Arbon
@josharbon.bsky.social

We review the literature and find widespread evidence that animals pre-emptively change their behaviour to the threat of intergroup conflict. Here we are not interested in contests themselves, but what happens when contests are more likely to occur in the future.

Josh Arbon
@josharbon.bsky.social

Whilst many species engage in conflict with rival groups, these interactions can be rare events, whereas the preparation for potential conflict, much like the threat of predation, has the potential to be a pervasive aspect of animals lives.

Josh Arbon reposted

PEC Exeter
@pec-exeter.bsky.social

So much support from the animal behaviour research community, and many others, who have signed this letter. Thank you. Your care, concern and kind words at this time provides such encouragement.

Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour (CRAB)@crab-exeter.bsky.social

Thanks to our colleagues from around the world who signed the Open Letter against redundancies in CRAB. The letter surpassed 700 signatures in just over 1 wk. We hope execs will now see the harm they are doing to the University of Exeter's global reputation. sites.google.com/view/save-cr...

sites.google.comHomeAs of 2026-07-14, this open letter has been signed by 754 people Signatories include 198 Professors and members of 11 National Academies, including 12 Fellows of the Royal Society (FRS) Signatories a...

Josh Arbon reposted

Darren Croft
@darrencroft.bsky.social

The proposed job cuts at the University of Exeter threaten our amazing Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour (CRAB). The support from the community over the last few weeks has been overwhelming. I really can't express how much it means to all of us. Thank you, everyone, for standing with us.

Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour (CRAB)@crab-exeter.bsky.social

Thanks to our colleagues from around the world who signed the Open Letter against redundancies in CRAB. The letter surpassed 700 signatures in just over 1 wk. We hope execs will now see the harm they are doing to the University of Exeter's global reputation. sites.google.com/view/save-cr...

sites.google.comHomeAs of 2026-07-14, this open letter has been signed by 754 people Signatories include 198 Professors and members of 11 National Academies, including 12 Fellows of the Royal Society (FRS) Signatories a...