🦎 Funded 4-year PhD position on Lizard Evolutionary Ecology in our lab at UCLouvain (Belgium)! Apply before 9 March! jobs.uclouvain.be/Personnelsci...

Congratulations! 🎊

"Science has achieved some wonderful things of course, but I'd far rather be happy than right any day." "And are you?" "No. That's where it all falls down of course." "Pity," said Arthur with sympathy. "It sounded like quite a good lifestyle otherwise."

A scenic image of rocky shoreline of Lake Malawi, near Cape Maclear

A deep water Lake Malawi cichlid fish - Lethrinops 'gossei white bar' from Nkhata Bay

New research in Molecular Ecology shining light on the riverine ancestors of the Lake Malawi cichlid fish adaptive radiation, led by Sophie Gresham and Hannes Svardal doi.org/10.1111/mec....

Never apologise for the sass, we want more sass!

We can (and should) do better by incorporating biological knowledge about species invasions and recent advances in population genetics in our models. If you want to see the poster (or try it out), contact me and check it out! (2/2)

currocam.github.io/eseb_barcelo...

If you like adaptive radiation and the effect of gene-flow on diversification, come have a look at my poster 03.340 at #eseb2025

Excited to advertise a shared PhD position at KU Leuven (Belgium) and Mondsee (Austria) with @markusmoest.bsky.social on the genetic basis, plasticity and evolution of melanization in Daphnia from alpine lakes. Apply here: www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo...

On the flick of the tongue: male island and mainland lizards' responses to self and conspecific chemical stimuli We compared the chemosensory recognition abilities of mainland and island Italian wall lizards (Podarcis siculus). Both populations discriminated between self and conspecific scents, but island lizar...

Another PhD chapter published for Ioanna Gavriilidi @uafunmorph.bsky.social, now in @jzoology.bsky.social! She finds that island-dwelling lizards tend to rely less on chemosensory cues compared to their mainland counterparts. zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Improving Whole Biodiversity Monitoring and Discovery With Environmental DNA Metagenomics Environmental DNA (eDNA) metagenomics sequences all DNA molecules present in environmental samples and has the potential of identifying virtually any organism from which they are derived. However, du...

And before the day ends, perhaps my most anticipated paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

#eDNA #metagenomics applied to *all* organisms, including (and especially) macroorganisms/eukaryotes

See how to and shoot me an email if you want to know more.
- species IDs
- eDNA decay

We officially kicked-off eDNA-OPTIMA. In this project, we deploy samplers on a USV, improve detection of benthic invertebrates, aim to understand how eDNA is transported by ocean currents, etc.
@vliznews.bsky.social
@kuleuvenuniversity.bsky.social
@naturalsciences-be.bsky.social
@vlaio.bsky.social

🚨 New paper alert!

Environmental DNA metabarcoding is being used to monitor animal communities, due to it being non-invasive and cost-effective. But is it comparable to traditional sampling methods?

We decided to look into this.
Check our preprint!
/1

Freshwater fish community assessment using eDNA metabarcoding vs. capture-based methods: differences in efficiency and resolution coupled to habitat and ecology www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01....