Does phenotypic plasticity promote (Baldwin effect) or hinder (Mayr) genetic adaptation? Lambert et al. mathematically showed that when adaptive plasticity increases, the Baldwin effect increases, peaks then decreases as plasticity begins to mask selection.
Read now ahead of print!
#plasticity
3 posts3 participants0 posts today
New study by Lempel et al. (2025): Visual experience after eye opening aligns #feedforward inputs (L4) and #RecurrentNetworks (L2/3) in mouse #VisualCortex. This improved alignment, together with enhanced orientation discrimination, creates coherent, reliable sensory codes, revealing how experience shapes stable #cortical representations:
Original Article: Urbanisation homogenises the functional trait space and reduces body size of an arboreal ant species (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)
Ferrari, A., López-Collar, D., Gil-Tapetado, D., Nalini, E. & Polidori, C.
https://myrmecologicalnews.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=1658&Itemid=444
"we develop a computational model for structural plasticity in the olfactory bulb and show that it is the maturation process of adult-born neurons that enables the bulb to learn quickly and forget slowly. Particularly important are the transient enhancement of the plasticity, excitability, and susceptibility to apoptosis that characterizes young neurons."
"Adult Neurogenesis Reconciles Flexibility and Stability of Olfactory Perceptual Memory", Sakelaris and Riecke, 2025
https://elifesciences.org/reviewed-preprints/104443
elifesciences.orgAdult Neurogenesis Reconciles Flexibility and Stability of Olfactory Perceptual Memory
« Adult human cortex does not reorganize after amputation » (and certainly also for other species). So, do not trust textbooks (or LLMs that statistically parameterize those). #brain #plasticity #neuroscience #science
https://www.thetransmitter.org/plasticity/adult-human-cortex-does-not-reorganize-after-amputation/
The Transmitter: Neuroscience News and Perspectives · Adult human cortex does not reorganize after amputation
Using long-term data from individually marked songbirds, Vatka et al. discovered that breeding time trends are not attributed to an evolutionary change but phenotypic plasticity.
Read now!
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/737024
A new @idealab publication came out today in Behavioral Ecology! Using the freshwater gastropod Physella acuta as a model system, we conducted a split-clutch experimental design that also controls for confounding aspects relating to risk allocation. We found that high background risk induces lower responsivity to both low-risk and high-risk chemical stimuli. This may be because cue addition also provided tactile cues that could be considered risky by high background risk snails. Taken together, these results provide partial evidence for risk allocation in the freshwater gastropod Physella acuta. If you're curious, here is the full Open Access paper: https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/araf078
#riskallocation #ecology #evolution #plasticity #AcademicMastodon @academicchatter
Continued thread
Where would The vOICe be if I had been handed that € 4 million? https://www.artificialvision.com/neuralink.htm At the very least I could have co-funded some meaningful and future-proof PhD projects and harvested facts on daily-living benefits https://www.artificialvision.com/literature.htm #brain #plasticity #neuroscience
www.artificialvision.comThink different: The vOICe or Neuralink BlindsightWhy The vOICe vision BCI for the blind can likely defeat Neuralink Blindsight (and other brain implants for restoring vision)
Continued thread
I finally finished the main characters in my kid's "The First Cat in Space" books! She's been bugging me to make the First Cat, and it was by far the most difficult. My attempt at printing transparent PETG totally failed, so I ended up using the top of a hand soap bottle with a lot of cutting and a mess of super glue... But it's done!
My apartment in Spain has no door locks. This seems common?? I got tired of the kids interrupting so whipped up this lock:
Deconninck et al. provides a refreshed view of how plasticity in temperature preference can inform us about the thermoregulatory strategies of ectotherms. An all-new framework that they apply to Drosophila melanogaster.
Read now ahead of print!
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/736575
#DH2025: With their research question, @axelpichler &
@janispagel hit the nail on the head 
:
Can #LLMs apply redefined literary concepts in the prompt-and-predict paradigm (Liu et al. 2023)?
#CLS #concepts #plasticity
Yet another 
paper from the @idealab was published today in Animal Behaviour! In this preregistered ( https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/RS9F4 ) study ( https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2025.123252 ) , we show that previously frozen gastropod alarm cues (a standard but often untested practice in alarm cue research) induce comparable behavioral and morphological antipredator responses in a freshwater gastropod. Hence, continuing this convenient practice that also reduces donor animal use does not seem to have unintended consequences.
Find out more at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347225001794
#ecology #evolution #plasticity #AcademicMastodon @academicchatter
doi.orgOSF
Newpaper from the @idealab - We tested the effects of environmentally relevant levels of citalopram - which is an antidepressant ubiquitous in natural water bodies - on snail behavior and morphological antipredator plasticity. We consistently found evidence for fitness-reducing effects that may have far-reaching ecological consequences.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014765132500898X https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoenv.2025.118553 #ecology #evolution #plasticity #AcademicMastodon @academicchatter
Bertinetti & Torres-Dowdall investigate the rate of phenotypic plasticity in visual sensitivity across Nicaraguan cichlid populations, finding that plasticity rates vary by lineage, age, and environmental conditions.
doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf144
New #preprint! Confavreux et al. use meta-learning to uncover thousands of diverse, local #plasticity rule quadruplets that stabilize #RecurrentSpikingNetworks — and incidentally support #memory functions like novelty detection, replay, & contextual prediction. A striking case of function emerging from stability.
Talks by 3 of our students
Kenedy Williams: patterns of feeding element specialization
Guðbjörg Jónsdóttir: plasticity in the wild - tale of two lakes
Andreas Guðmundsson: ants in geothermal areas
#plasticity #ecology #biodiversity #vistis25 #evolution #iceland #ants #geothermal #bestoflakes #worstoflakes
Got a backup power solution for my wifi router next time the power goes out!
Since few USB-C power supplies support 12v output and USB-A can't really do 36 watts... I got a cable that requests 20v then stepped it down to 12v with an MP1584. Then threw together a 3D printed enclose.
Cool results from our bachelor student
Nina Gudrun
She analyzed tooth length variation by morphs in three icelandic lakes.
Allometric relationship - size effect on tooth lengths - varied by morphs
Her BS paper will get integrated with data on bone shape to explore plasticity and divergence in functional traits
Doctoral Defense - Alessandra Schnider
9 May 2025
10:00 to 13:00
Phenotypic plasticity in Mývatn threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus): response to temperature and diet within and across generations
The aim of this thesis was to study how environmental drivers shape the phenotype of threespine stickleback, within and across generations, in the spatio-temporally varying system, Lake Mývatn, Iceland
#plasticity #ecology #evolution #ecoevodevo #Iceland
https://english.hi.is/doctoral-defense-biology-alessandra-schnider