The end of July saw my first big in-person conference since Covid-19 arrived with a trip to ISBE in Stockholm. It was wonderful to catch up with so many friends from far afield and to spend a week discussing new research ideas with people. My first trip to Sweden as well, so had a fun exploring Stockholm in the time off.

I gave a talk on my new social networks R package which you can read more about here and here.

Part of now my now well-established ISBE tradition was to take part in the conference football tournament which was a lot of fun! Was great to form a team where (almost) everyone had a connection to the University of Exeter in Cornwall where I spent a lot of time as  a PhD student and postdoc.

The special issue that Sarah Crowley and I organised for People and Nature has now been published!
NATURE ON SCREEN: THE IMPLICATIONS OF VISUAL MEDIA FOR HUMAN–NATURE RELATIONSHIPS
The special issue contains a fantastic selection of papers covering a wide range of topics and using some really diverse methodologies.
Our editorial provides an overview of many of the subjects covered and introduces the papers included in the issue.

Very pleased to have three paper's in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology's topical collection Sociality and Disease edited by Rebeca Rosengaus, James Traniello and Theo Bakker.

The first paper is a collaboration with Nina Fefferman and examines combinations of social and demographic processes that can foster endemic disease in hosts. We synthesise theoretical and empirical work to demonstrate the importance of both social structure and social dynamics in maintaining endemic disease in animal societies. You can read the paper here.

The second paper follows up on a review that Julian Evans, Neeltje Boogert and Dave Hodgson published in Oikos in 2020. We use simulation models of theoretical network structures to demonstrate that modular networks can promote the spread of information relative to the spread of infection, but only when the network is fragmented and group sizes are small. You can find more here.

The final paper is another modelling study, this contributing to work led by Natalie Lemanski and Oyita Udiani to test look at the role of territoriality in influencing pathogen transmission among social insect colonies. Check out the paper here.

If you are interested in the topical collection, you can find the full list of papers here.

Just published in Biological Reviews! Or you can read joint first author Liz's great Twitter thread here. Ireally enjoyed being part of this wonderful cross-disciplinary team formed at a NIMBioS working group in late-2019,

Together with Sarah Crowley and others I am organising a special feature in the BES journal People and Nature called Nature on Screen. We are inviting submissions involving novel research and perspectives addressing the implications of visual media for human–nature relationships. The deadline for submissions is January 31st 2021. More information can be found here.

Last week I travelled to Turku in Finland to speak at a symposium on social transmission at ESEB organised by Rose Thorogood and Neeltje Boogert. It featured some great talks and you can watch the whole symposium on YouTube