Social dinner: where science meets fish and chips at Cambridge 🐟🍟🍻😀 Our stay ended- but the real takeaway? Two weeks of #HiC #genomic mapping, now safely packed into our brains 🧬 🧠☺️ … and already in use at home👩🏼💻🧑🏻💻☺️ @10klepgenomes.bsky.social
We are thrilled to announce the next ECR (and apparently butterfly)-themed session of the Integration of Speciation seminar, featuring @charlottewright.bsky.social and @thymelicus.bsky.social + careers Q&A with Dr Sally Potter. Find the link on the Ios website & mailing list.
Chromosomes are often classified as either monocentric (single centromere per chr) or holocentric (centromeric activity spread across each chr).
In reality, there is a continuum in centromere organisation - and cyperids are a fascinating system to explore this in as James shows in this preprint! 🌱
seminar announcement with photos of speakers and talk titles
The integration of speciation seminar series is restarting, with the first session coming up on *Tuesday March 3rd @ 5pm CET*, featuring two talks by @naturalselection.bsky.social and @andreaestandia.bsky.social + career Q&A with @markravinet.bsky.social as part of the ECR in Speciation theme.
New pre-print with some updates on ivory:miR193 in a highly polymorphic moth.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
We mapped ivory (again!?) this time controlling aspects of camouflage in Anticarsia gemmatalis. Mapping, SVs, Expression and Function.
Comments/suggestions welcome!
This wide-ranging review was a true team effort that synthesises so many areas because of the diverse expertise of @vmshirey.bsky.social, @lepphylo.bsky.social, @janehillyork.bsky.social & Fabien Condamine, Naomi Pierce & Akito Kawahara (8/8)
Together, we highlight the remarkable progress made in understanding the ecology & evolution of Lepidoptera but also emphasise how much still needs to be done! With advances including in genomics, we predict that progress will rapidly be made towards tackling many longstanding questions! (7/8)
Finally, we review ongoing efforts to conserve Lepidoptera and discuss key aspects that should be prioritised in conservation efforts. We also highlight new technologies that are enhancing our ability to monitor populations including automated monitoring devices (6/8).
World maps that capture the geographic distribution of genera-level richness for Lepidoptera.
Third, we bring together previous work and publicly available occurrence data to examine patterns in geographic diversity of Lepidoptera and identify biodiversity hotspots. We also evaluate biases in how well diversity is captured globally and discuss concerning declines (5/8).
Barchart that shows rapid growth in genomic resources for Lepidoptera and a count of chromosome-level genomes per superfamily.
Second, we chart the rapid rise in lepidopteran genomics. Genomes are driving progress in evolutionary genetics, pest management & conservation efforts. We also discuss challenges including taxonomic biases (spoiler: butterflies are v popular) and underrepresented geographic regions (4/8)
Phylogenies and diversification dynamics of six diverse butterfly families.
..we also explore the timing & drivers of lep diversification, including their relationships with plants. By comparing diversification patterns from five butterfly families, we show a general trend of increasing diversification rates towards the present - a pattern not seen in many other taxa! (3/8)
A time-calibrated phylogeny of lepidopteran superfamilies.
First, we discuss progress made in unravelling how different groups of Lepidoptera are related to each other and highlight where uncertainty remains. We also survey the estimates of when Lepidoptera originated and the challenges of using fossils to date Lepidoptera (2/8)
Now online! In this review, we cover four major topics on butterflies and moths: their evolutionary history and diversification dynamics, genomics, global diversity patterns, and conservation 🦋🌏 (1/8) @natrevbiodiv.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Participants of the workshop during Charlotte's presentation. Many screens show Hi-C maps being curated in real time.
(1/3) The 2nd Genome Curation Workshop continues!
Today, participants explored Merian elements and chromosome evolution in #Lepidoptera in a fantastic talk by @charlottewright.bsky.social
More info below 👇🦋
Time-calibrated phylogeny of the family Drosophilidae showing major species groups, surrounded by representative adult flies that highlight the remarkable morphological diversity of this model insect group. The composite image was created using Microsoft PowerPoint. Fly photographs were taken by Darren J. Obbard and are published under the Creative Commons Attribution License with permission.
The #fly community aims to achieve a comprehensive genomic study of the Drosophilidae family. @pankajd.bsky.social @bernardkim.bsky.social @petrovadmitri.bsky.social @darrenobbard.bsky.social present a comparative gene annotation for 301 #Drosophilidae species @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4c3pyrI
It was great to start the week off by welcoming the second cohort of budding curators to the Project Psyche Genome Curation Workshop! Over the next two weeks they will become experts in piecing together genomes and will use these skills to curate some Project Psyche genomes! 🔎🧬
🐌Justin Gerlach's blog post traces the remarkable journey of Partula conservation from the near‑total collapse of wild populations in the 1970s, following the introduction of the predatory rosy wolf snail, to successful reintroduction efforts.
Moths move significantly less when exposed to artificial nighttime light, new research from the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter, Cornwall shows.
Read More: news.exeter.ac.uk/faculty-of-e...
@uniexecec.bsky.social #ExeterEcology
Yet another reason why butterflies and moths are so interesting! Unlike other studied organisms that organise their DNA into two forms of chromatin, silkworms have a mysterious third form of chromatin folding..
📣 The 2nd #STSM call of #10kLepGenomes is complete!
Eight researchers have been awarded funding for short scientific missions to boost collaboration, training, and knowledge exchange across the network.
Congrats to the selected candidates and thanks to everyone who applied! 🦋
www.10klepgenomes.eu
🦋🧬 A milestone for biodiversity genomics.
Project Psyche is building chromosome-level genomes for ~11,000 European butterflies & moths — 1,000 sequenced, 3,000+ collected, across 34 countries.
🔗 Read the publication: bit.ly/ProjectPsyche
@projectpsyche.bsky.social
#BiodiversityGenomics 🧬🌍
Always inspiring to start the year at @popgroup2026.bsky.social !
If you were there and want to learn more about pangenomes, there’s still time to register for our meeting in Edinburgh in June, co-organised with @charlottewright.bsky.social & @joanameier.bsky.social royalsociety.org/science-even...
Join us at #SMBE2026 in Copenhagen this summer!
🔵 With @ergabiodiv.bsky.social & @official-smbe.bsky.social
🟣 Symposium 21 | From genomic graphs to evolutionary insights: standardising #pangenomes for population inference
🟢 smbe2026.org/programme/
#biodiversity #genomics
Genutis et al. used data from an hybrid Drosophila cell line to show that pairing among trans homologous chromosomes was affected by the presence of nearby TEs. Mouse data show a similar pattern, suggesting a highly conserved TE-pairing association.
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf222
#genome #evolution
How does population size shape the dynamics of structural variants across the genome?
Check out our new paper in @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Are you excited about pangenomics? If so, join us in Edinburgh on 8-9th June to discuss the latest methods & insights from using these approaches across biodiversity! More details here:
royalsociety.org/science-even...
Organised together with @henrylnorth.bsky.social & @joanameier.bsky.social!
Our paper on ancestral conditions of caddisflies (described in the quoted post) is now out!
doi.org/10.3897/zook...
Two evergreen bagworms feeding
One abbot's bagworm hanging out
Pre-print and weird repro thread time!
I've posted here about scale insects a lot, but ~half of my research is on Lepidoptera. My lab is developing bagworm moths (Psychidae) as models for comparative genomics.
You probably know them like you see in the pics below: caterpillars that make cases.
How many types of butterfly can you recognise?
1000 species of butterfly and moth have been genetically sequenced, as part of a project to map the genome of all 11,665 species in Europe, co-led by Darwin Research Fellow Dr Charlotte Wright.
www.darwin.cam.ac.uk/news/sequenc...
