📢CALL FOR COLLABORATION📢

My PhD student Warre is looking for flies infected with #Laboulbeniales fungi. Especially Musca domestica!

If you have any, store in 96% ethanol or in the freezer, record on @inaturalist.bsky.social, and/or contact Warre.

#TeamLaboul #LFEE #LuminaQuaeruntur

Convergent extreme reductive evolution in ancient planthopper symbioses - Nature Communications Symbiotic bacteria can have exceedingly small genomes. This study finds that ancient bacterial symbionts of planthoppers have repeatedly evolved the smallest known genomes, losing most biosynthetic fu...

Our paper is now out in its final form in @natcomms.nature.com ! We show that ancient insect symbionts can undergo extreme, convergent genome reduction to as little as ~50 kb - driven by ecological shifts and symbiont replacement.

🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

More below 👇
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Evolution of host–microbe symbioses: linking horizontal gene transfer to ecological function at Queen Mary University of London on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Evolution of host–microbe symbioses: linking horizontal gene transfer to ecological function at Queen Mary University of London, listed on FindAPhD.com

🚨 PhD opportunity in evolutionary microbiology!

Join our lab to study how horizontal gene transfer drives host–microbe symbioses and ecological function

Plus: a PDRA position in comparative genomics is available

✉️ l.henry@qmul.qc.uk

Apply below

#PhD #Postdoc #Microbiology #Evolution #Genomics

So you are using IQ-TREE to estimate a tree for "deep time" phylogenetics using amino acid alignments. There is a lot of confusion about how to test model fit. Here are some suggestions.

#biodiversity #bioinformatics Summer School .. 21-26 June in Siegen, Germany co-organised by @sib.swiss & @denbi.bsky.social
www.sib.swiss/training/cou...
🟢 eDNA & ecosystems
🟣 pangenome diversity
🔵 population genetics
🟡 comparative genomics
Register to apply, selections will start from March 16th

Are you a researcher studying Hymenoptera, and based in a country not in the top 30 human development index (HDI)? Here is your chance to join the @hymenopterists.bsky.social society for free! The application closes on March 31! Please share widely 🧪

www.hymenopterists.org/apply-for-sp...

‪
🌳 Do you want to contribute to research on how humans perceive forests? Take this quick, anonymous 10-min survey 🌲

👉 www.biodiful.org#/forest

This will help us explore how people experience forest biodiversity!

Please share on 🦋 & tag @biodiful.bsky.social to reach more participants 🙏💚

🌐🌍🦤🦑🪴🍁🧪

WEES March Seminar & Master Class: "Molecular evolution in a defensive symbiosis", Dr. Aileen Berasategui

📍 Master Class Time: 12 March, 14:00 Contact: b.taboada@nioo.knaw.nl (for details)

📍 Seminar Time: 12 March, 16:00 Location: Orion C1040, WUR

Prediction of eukaryotic cellular complexity in Asgard archaea using structural modelling - Nature Microbiology A structural catalogue of the Asgard archaeal pangenome reveals hundreds of eukaryotic-like proteins that suggest a higher degree of cellular complexity in the archaeal ancestor of eukaryotes.

🧵 1/10 New paper out in @natmicrobiol.nature.com from my postdoc at @mib-wur.bsky.social! 🎉

How eukaryote-like was the archaeal ancestor of eukaryotes? Sequence searches alone can't tell us — so we used protein structure prediction to look deeper. 🧬
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I like the beetles clever little white line. "Nothing to see here... I totally have an ant waist"

Davis Summer Population Genomics Program Want to learn population genetics? Please fill out this form to indicate your potential interest in a 2-week intensive online summer population genetics course taught by Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra and Graham...

Fun news! @gcbias.bsky.social and I are teaching a 2-week online population genetics workshop this summer to raise money for the Center for Population Biology at UC Davis. We're trying to gauge interest -- please fill this out if you might be interested! And please share broadly!

Eusociality has independently evolved in multiple arthropod lineages

Eusociality has independently evolved in multiple arthropod lineages

Comparative analysis across 5,678 insect species shows that, when you control for phylogenetic bias, eusociality has not evolved at a faster rate in haplodiploid species. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Please share!

PhD position at the University of Copenhagen. Start date: 1st of June!
 
The project integrates field work, RNAseq, MALDI-MSI & FISH to explore composition, regulation, and resilience of termite host-gut symbiont metabolism.
 
👉 employment.ku.dk/phd?show=156...
 
⏳ Deadline 23/2/26

Bee-hunting beetles are the first animals known to fake the smell of flowers Study of parasitic blister beetles reveals a new form of chemical deception

Exclusive: These bee-hunting beetles are the first animals known to fake the smell of flowers, according to a new study. https://scim.ag/49Bf8ho

Pangenomes: new tools for ecological and evolutionary genomics Genomic structural variation is an important component of genetic variation in natural populations. By assembling and analyzing multiple high-quality genomes within a species or clade, pangenomes capt...

www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

New paper in Science Advances!

Ants traded strength for numbers, and it worked 🐜

Our study comparing 500+ ant species shows how the evolution of cheaper workers fueled bigger colonies and faster diversification, shaping ants’ rise across the planet.

🔗To read here: doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adx8068

Nutrient availability affects optimal growth strategy in predatory DPANN | mSystems The bacterial and archaeal domains each possess a major clade that appears to be predominantly host-associated (1–3). These two lineages, Patescibacteriota and DPANN archaea (named for the Diapherotri...

Ever since publishing our observations of the predatory behaviour of Ca. Nha. antarcticus people have asked me why it would want to kill its host. My perspective discussing the ecological factors that I believe led to this behaviour is out now in mSystems:
doi.org/10.1128/msystems.01475-25

A single-nucleus transcriptomic atlas of the adult Aedes aegypti mosquito A comprehensive single-nucleus RNA-seq atlas of >367,000 nuclei from male and female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes reveals sexual dimorphism in sensory systems and brain cell types and widespread co-expres...

🦟 We've just published the world's first head-to-toe single-cell atlas of the Aedes aegypti mosquito in @cp-cell.bsky.social!
The #MosquitoCellAtlas maps 69 cell types across 19 tissues, revealing surprising biology. Read it here:
shorturl.at/dJWT3

Serial innovations by Asgard archaea shaped the DNA replication machinery of the early eukaryotic ancestor - Nature Ecology & Evolution Phylogenetic and biochemical analyses show a diversity of components of the DNA replication machinery in different Asgard archaea that contributed to the eukaryotic DNA replication machinery.

Glad to share our paper out today @NatureEcoEvo: “Serial innovations by Asgard archaea shaped the DNA replication machinery of the early eukaryotic ancestor”. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #microsky #archaeasky

Now writing up a genus with about 70ish wasps ever caught. That's the total for planet Earth during 200 years of collecting. Every single one of them a female.

I guess the males likely exist? Somewhere?

Close-up view of a yellow and orange wasp's face, showing detailed compound eyes, antennae, and mouthparts, against a bright red background. The wasp is perched on a piece of wood.

Arthropod Photo of the Week: October 8, 2025
Social paper wasp
Agelaia pallipes
Hymenoptera: Vespidae
By Alexandre Andes Gascon, Florida, USA
#arthropodPOTW

Last Wednesday, my first Ph.D. Student, Junchen Deng, defended his thesis! So proud!
Check some of the underlying papers - on planthopper phylogenomics doi.org/10.1111/syen..., origins of Auchenorrhynchan symbionts doi.org/10.1093/gbe/..., and planthopper symbiont evolution doi.org/10.1101/2025... !

A new paper by our team @ioes-ju.bsky.social just published in J Invert Pathol @jinvertpathol.bsky.social!

In Diptera-#Entomophthora system, we show how simultaneously #sequencing #insect, #fungal #pathogen, and bacterial marker genes can aid biodiversity and biological interaction discovery.

Electroreception in treehoppers: How extreme morphologies can increase electrical sensitivity | PNAS The link between form and function of an organism’s morphology is usually apparent or intuitive. However, some clades of organisms show remarkable ...

Why do treehoppers look so weird?! Our latest paper, out this week in @pnas.org, suggests a perhaps unexpected reason - static electricity ⚡ We show that treehoppers can detect the electrostatic cues of predators and that their crazy shapes may boost their electrosensitivity! doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Motion cameras were set up in the jungles of Guatemala — and they captured something incredible These (literal) thirst traps are helping wild animals beat the heat.

Literal thirst traps.
As climate changes and droughts in the rainforest become more common, reserves in Guatamala put out pools of drinking water for animals desperately looking for a cool

share.google/YfXzhKdeqpGP...

Will there be any phylogenomics workshop in 2026? 🙏