🦈🧠2 JOB OFFERS in the brand-new Neuroshark group starting at the Institute of Neuroscience Paris-Saclay (NeuroPSI)?
Lab manager:
www.linkedin.com/posts/idoia-...
Bioinformatician:
www.linkedin.com/posts/idoia-...
Curious about the lab but not your profile? Feel free to contact me
Spine-tingling findings from @bertaverd.bsky.social et al. 🤩 🧪 #cichild
Perhaps this has happened in other cases too. Could phenotypic variability emerge via changes to the initial or even boundary conditions of development, instead of having to necessarily always evolve the complex underlying developmental process, particularly over short evolutionary timescales?
All this leads us to conclude that Lake Malawi cichlids have evolved divergent somite counts by evolving the initial conditions of somitogenesis, without evolving the process of somitogenesis itself.
We did a lot more work to characterize the process of somitogenesis in both species to show that it really does only differ at onset. For example, key genes controlling PSM morphogenesis show the same spatial patterns and dynamics between species.
R. chilingali start with more cells and an increased tissue volume, allowing them to undergo somitogenesis for longer, generating more somites without changing the actual process of somitogenesis.
The delayed onset of somitogenesis in R. chilingali suggests changes occur even before the process begins. Comparing embryonic morphology across somitogenesis, the only notable difference appears at its onset: the presomitic mesoderm—the tissue that forms somites—is about 60% larger in R. chilingali
It’s surprising that the rate of segmentation is conserved, as it’s been seen to play a role in the evolution of increased vertebral counts in snakes, playing and important role in vertebral count evolvability in vertebrates. Exciting that Lake Malawi cichlids seem to buck this trend!
We showed that the rate of somitogenesis doesn’t differ between species. Instead, the total duration of this process is increased by eight hours in R. chilingali, and they start segmentation later.
We focused on somite number evolution, as a proxy for vertebral count evolution, and focused on two species: the generalist and putative common ancestor of the radiation A. calliptera and R. chilingali, which form 30 and 38 somites respectively.
To address this, we study Lake Malawi cichlids—an exceptional system where hundreds of species have evolved in under 1 million years despite low genetic diversity, making them ideal for examining phenotypic evolution over short timescales.
Uncovering the developmental differences behind phenotypic evolution is often complicated by the large evolutionary distance between model species, making it hard to determine whether observed changes actually cause a specific phenotype or simply reflect broader life-history differences.
We are interested in the developmental drivers of phenotypic diversity and how development changes to evolve phenotypic diversity.
New Pre-Print Alert!
Evolving initial conditions: an alternative developmental route to morphological diversity
with Shannon Taylor and @jamesehammond.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
As part of this grant I will be looking soon for a Post-doc in Oxford to model nano-morphogenesis. Please RT and contact me directly if it is a good match for you.
Promotional image for a scientific meeting organised by the Royal Society. The meeting is titled 'Love, actually and in theory', 5-6 March 2026. On the right of the image is a photograph of two older people dancing happily together.
Register for our upcoming scientific meeting in Edinburgh on 5-6 May as psychologists, neuroscientists, anthropologists, sociologists, and zoologists meet to discuss the evolution of love in human relationships: royalsociety.org/science-events-and-lectu...
Wow, James! Huge Congratulations! Very well-deserved!
May 5th: if you are around London, please join the London #EvoDevo symposium at QMUL / Charterhouse campus, as usual we will have selected talks and post-event 🍻. A warm up for #EED2026 in Glasgow. Registration £0, more info here: londonevodevo.co.uk
Three people smiling and talking outside a modern building. Text reads: Oxford Biology Mentorship Programme. To support strong senior independent research fellowship applications. Apply by 25 March.
⏰ Closing soon! A final reminder about our Fellowship Mentorship Programme for early career researchers, application for this year closes in just one week on 25 March ⬇️
https://bit.ly/BioIRF
Lovely work. Congrats to all the authors!
This is really beautiful work by PhD student Alexandre Porcher Fernandes (@alefern.bsky.social) on the evolution of reproductive strategies. I'm really keen to see where we can take this framework next!
Description of the type specimen of Cheirodopsis geikiei, a Carboniferous ray-finned fish, calling it "Imperfect fish, wanting paired and caudal fins"
Calling myself an imperfect fish from now on....
Happy to share this work from Carlos Camacho de la Maccora that reveals how rates of posterior progenitor addition and anterior vacuolation are balanced across the notochord. With Alberto Ceccarelli and @osvaldo-chara.bsky.social we present a model of long-range communication to provide robustness.
You lot are the best!!! ❤️
Three people, two women and a man, smile and converse outside a modern building. Text reads: Oxford Biology Mentorship Programme. To support strong senior independent research fellowship applications. Apply by 25 March.
Applications for our Fellowship Mentorship Programme are open!
The programme supports promising early career researchers to submit fellowship applications and move towards research independence. Find out more ⬇️
https://bit.ly/BioIRF
Job alert! 📣 I’m looking for a research assistant to join my new team @idrm.ox.ac.uk
Were using #zebrafish to understand gene-environment interactions that shape the heart 🫀generate natural diversity 🐸🐭 and contribute to congenital defects ❤️🩹
Full info below, and please share! 🫶🏻
bit.ly/467TO0M
📣 Please spread: we’re hiring a Lab Manager! It is a critical position in our new lab. As our lab moves to Barcelona and joins the @crg.eu, we’re looking for a Lab Manager to help build the lab and set the lab atmosphere.
🔗 Apply here 👉 recruitment.crg.eu/content/jobs...
Feb 1 deadline approaching for our @kitp-ucsb.bsky.social QBio summer course on Physical Principles of Morphogenesis in Plants and Animals. @streichan.bsky.social
@maurazimmermann.bsky.social @maizel-lab.org @yusuke-mori.bsky.social @akankshi.bsky.social @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social
Are you planning your summer ahead and are interested in immersing yourself in some intense weeks of research, science and fun?
Then this might be for you: Check out the amazing summer course offerings @mblscience.bsky.social, including the #Zebrafish course!
www.mbl.edu/education/ad...
Well done!!! Congrats Idoia!