Ayush Parag
aparag49.bsky.social
Ayush Parag
@aparag49.bsky.social
Int. MSc. 2024 @NISER| PhD student @UniMelb Interested in all sorts of creepy-crawlies| studying shiny spiders at the moment 🕷️🌟✨✨
Hello everyone!

One of my colleagues and probably one of the best supervisors I've met, Dr. Iliana Medina, is advertising a PhD position involving lots of bugs and many different colours! More info in the image below, do share this widely!!
November 20, 2025 at 12:31 AM
Reposted by Ayush Parag
A meta-analysis of 102 studies finds that climate change is reducing the diversity of bacteria and fungi in soil by an average of 16.0% and 19.7%, respectively, which will reduce the ability of soil to store carbon—which could accelerate warming. In PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
September 15, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Reposted by Ayush Parag
🚨 PhD position in behavioural evolution 🚨

Come do your PhD with me in Linköping, Sweden, using the domestic dog (and some wolves) to answer fun questions on how complex behaviours develop and evolve.

Application deadline September 24 2025 🧪 🌍 🦊 #AcademicSky #ScienceJobs

liu.se/en/work-at-l...
September 3, 2025 at 11:09 AM
Reposted by Ayush Parag
Bees in VR! The kind of science we love to see 😍🐝
August 12, 2025 at 11:19 AM
Reposted by Ayush Parag
“Octopuses can be fooled into thinking a fake arm is actually their own.
When scientists in Japan pinched an artificial appendage during experiments, octopuses recoiled in defense – swimming away, suddenly changing their color, or retracting their arms”

www.sciencealert.com/octopuses-fa...
🧪 🐙 🦑
Octopuses Fall For The Classic Fake Arm Trick – Just Like We Do
Octopuses can be fooled into thinking a fake arm is actually their own.
www.sciencealert.com
July 28, 2025 at 4:38 AM
Reposted by Ayush Parag
New spider research out in Behavioral Ecology: we show that limited resources can reverse how individuals respond to the presence of competitors and reduce individual differences in competitive phenotypes.

🕷️🕸️📝

academic.oup.com/beheco/advan...
Prey or protection? Access to food alters individual responses to competition in black widow spiders
Abstract. Animals influence the phenotype and reproductive success of their conspecifics through competitive interactions. Such effects of competition can
academic.oup.com
February 7, 2025 at 8:55 AM
Reposted by Ayush Parag
When you’re willing to move slowly through the world, you’ll find amazing things. I call this Birth of an Assassin. #bugsky
January 31, 2025 at 3:03 AM
Reposted by Ayush Parag
📰Published📰 Understanding the importance of surprise in antipredator defence

https://buff.ly/3EnXbpb

🧪🌍
Understanding the importance of surprise in antipredator defence
Olivier Penacchio, Liisa Hämäläinen, Bibiana Rojas, Kyle Summers, Justin Yeager, Thomas N. Sherratt, Alice Exnerova This is a plain language summary of a Functional Ecology review article which can…
buff.ly
January 29, 2025 at 9:00 AM
Reposted by Ayush Parag
Black margins are important for size discrimination - female green swordtails prefer larger males but preference is lost when black margins on tail are absent. Seems they can't judge which male is bigger without black margin! shorturl.at/6GKA2
@uniexecec.bsky.social @royalsocietypublishing.org
January 29, 2025 at 9:54 AM