PhD-position ALERT! 🧪🪲 🧬
Interested in studying the genomics of local adaptation and niche breadth using long-term experimental evolution?
Come join me and @gmkov.bsky.social at @animecol-uu.bsky.social, Uppsala Univ. Read more and apply here: uu.varbi.com/en/what:job/...
Deadline 22nd of May!
Posts by Liam Dougherty
📢 New work with @gonzalezlabbcn.bsky.social out now in Molecular Biology and Evolution!
Transgenerational effects of heat shock 🥵 on gene regulation 🧬 and fitness-related traits in natural Drosophila 🪰 populations: academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...
I'm looking for a lovely, talented PhD student, working on my ERC-funded project investigating the links between sexual selection and epidemic dynamics. The project uses guppies, worms, behaviour tracking, big experiments, and maths.. email me! Must have a masters! su.varbi.com/what:job/job...
Excited to share our new paper @royalsocietypublishing.org This one took what felt like endless maze trials.
We found that even modest warming (~1°C) changed an ectotherm's behaviour such that it affected cognitive performance. Speeding them up and reducing decision accuracy.
@lajeunesselab.bsky.social has written the paper that meta-analysts were waiting for, and I can't recommend it more:
Converting and Constructing Effect Sizes With the Response Ratio doi.org/10.1111/ele....
Go check it out (and use it!)
Happy to be able to share our review of the consequences of rising temperatures on animal fertility, led by @rhondasnook.bsky.social with @liamdougherty.bsky.social and Claudia Fricke. Research is getting active in this area but there's still a lot of unknowns...
rdcu.be/e7uGm
Amazing! Replication studies will now be accepted by Behavioral Ecology.
Happy to see our paper out now in the January edition of #Evolution 🧪 !
Using #drosophila in outdoor mesocosms, we found evidence for adaptation over a winter period and for putative trade-offs between resistance evolution and overwintering performance
doi.org/10.1093/evol...
We're advertising a PhD project on how social isolation influences aggression in flies. Based at Durham, co-supervised by @clarahowcroft.bsky.social . Despite what the ad says, this is also open to international applicants! Any questions, shoot me a msg! www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
📢Out now in @jevbio.bsky.social, we tried to work out whether heat limits of survival or fertility are reflected in heat shock protein expression across Drosophila 🪰 species. The answer is, well, a bit. With the wonderful @chsmithson.bsky.social @ejduncan.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...
We've got ISSUES. Literally.
We scraped >100k special issues & over 1 million articles to bring you a PISS-poor paper. We quantify just how many excess papers are published by guest editors abusing special issues to boost their CVs. How bad is it & what can we do?
arxiv.org/abs/2601.07563
A 🧵 1/n
PhD project entitled "Are we underestimating the effects of climate change on animal populations?" Supervised by Dr Natalie Pilakouta and Dr David Shuker Deadline: 6 January 2026
📣 PhD opportunity in my lab 📣
We're looking for a motivated student interested in the effects of thermal stress on animal survival and reproduction: www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
Project is open-ended to allow student to define its direction depending on their interests
Please share widely!
Wow! Our long-term collaborator and friend Martín Ramírez is the winner of the @royalsocietypublishing.org photo competition, with a SEM image from our joint research on spider silk!!
royalsociety.org/journals/pub...
📢Out in the NEW issue of @animalecology.bsky.social is our hugely #collaborative paper:
An integrative, peer-reviewed and open-source cooperative-breeding database (Co-BreeD)
#mammals #birds #cooperation #openscience #datasets #alloparents
Led by @benmocha.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1111/1365...
Cool paper suggesting that naturally higher body T˚ in birds leads to flu viruses originating in birds being pre-adapted to resist mammalian fever as a defence mechanism...
Avian-origin influenza A viruses tolerate elevated pyrexic temperatures in mammals | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
An obviously AI-generated figure with AI slop and fake text all over it, recently published in Scientific Reports.
Since AI slop is again all over Scientific Reports, a thread on the economics of grey-zone publishing.
Why does slop keep getting published? What does it mean for science? How can we stop this?
Background readings:
Understand the strain: tinyurl.com/2b6wxx5r
Stop the drain: tinyurl.com/3jfscscy
We are happy to announce that registration for ISBE2026 is now open! We encourage you to register as soon as possible to take advantage of reduced fees and to plan your trip and accommodation in advance.
Please read the information on www.isbe2026.com before proceeding with your registration.
We had a new paper out yesterday in @royalsocietypublishing.org Biology Letters. About how the cranial feathers of male Golden and Lady Amherst’s Pheasants affect their visual fields. Nice to see it picked up The New York Times and Science. Paper link below.
The Thermal Ecology Alliance is growing rapidly and we are now at 51 countries! Join here: www.thermalecologyalliance.org/participation
New paper out in @behavecol.bsky.social!
Multiple studies show that sexually selected traits such as colours can reflect the presence of pathogens/parasites, but, can defensive coloration do the same? L. Schlippe Justicia, @carodittrich.bsky.social, O. Nokelainen & I tackled that question (1/3)
Join us! 🧬🪰🎉🔬
We are currently advertising two #PhD projects to study the #evolution, #development and #genomics of sexual traits in stalk-eyed flies.
Deadline for applying is Wednesday, January 7, 2026. Get in touch for more info!
Interested in pursuing a PhD in animal mating behaviour and zoo conservation? Want to help understand whether mate choice can improve conservation breeding outcomes? I'm advertising a project with colleagues at the amazing Chester Zoo, see: tinyurl.com/47zjtj8e
Please share!
🦋 How will #insects respond to #climatechange? A global review of 351 studies shows no consistent pattern. Some species expand, others shrink, partly due to varied #methodologies. Standardised approaches are crucial to predict future insect ranges. 🌐
🔗 doi.org/10.1111/ddi....
Do you get confused when reading meta-analyses? Our new paper offers a practical guide to help researchers understand, interpret, and use them properly. We also show that the insights meta-analyses provide are often overlooked by those who cite them.