Molecular phylogeny of Catenulida (Platyhelminthes) with special focus on their diversity in Poland Abstract. Catenulida is a clade of free-living flatworms found abundantly in freshwater habitats across the globe. Despite their ubiquitous distribution, c

To expand our lab cultures with new species of catenulids, we carried out some field sampling, which resulted in a new paper from our lab. It is more focused on taxonomy and diversity than on our usual evo–devo themes, but it was fun to do nonetheless.

academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a...

What happens if your asexual reproduction goes wrong? For instance, you can grow a head instead of a tail. But if you're a flatworm, it's not that bad - as we showed in our newest paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: tinyurl.com/4dnp2ffz

Molecular phylogeny of Catenulida (Platyhelminthes) with special focus on their diversity in Poland Catenulida is a clade of free-living flatworms found abundantly in freshwater habitats across the globe. Despite their ubiquitous distribution, catenulids remain poorly studied; most of the species ar...

Another preprint from our lab. This time, we looked into the diversity of Catenulida in Poland (and some other countries) and traced the evolution of important characters on their phylogeny.

Spontaneous ectopic head formation enables reversal of the body axis polarity in microscopic flatworms In most of the animals the antero-posterior axis is specified during early embryogenesis. However, in the organisms that undergo somatic asexual reproduction constant re-establishment of the body axis...

While caring for our beloved Stenostomum, we found bizarre, malformed worms that grow heads instead of tails during paratomy. We tested whether this phenotype is heritable (it’s not) and whether fragments with ectopic heads can retain their reversed polarity (they do). Check out our latest preprint!

🌍 4 year, fully funded PhD in Evolutionary Biology at the University of Basel! 🌿
Explore flatworm speciation in the African Great Lakes!

✔️ Fieldwork in Zambia & Tanzania
✔️ Training in phylogenetics, molecular ecology, evolutionary biology & stable isotope analysis

📅 Deadline: May 31, 2025

It's official - I'm organizing a field taxonomy workshop on freshwater and limno-terrestrial meiofauna! 27 August-11 Sept, in the Lake District. We have 13 experts covering all major taxa, advanced microscopy, DNA taxonomy, sci-com, publishing. RT! Send your best!

www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/...

Thank you to everyone who joined us at the University of Warsaw #DOKO event yesterday! It was wonderful to meet so many people keen to learn more about UW, its courses, and our student organisations 🧪🦴🦠🔬

The xenacoelomorph gonopore is homologous to the bilaterian anus The bilaterian through gut with an anal opening is a key invention in animals, since it facilitates effective food processing, which allows animals to grow to a larger body size. However, because non-...

This paper provides now solid evidence that the xenacoelomorph male gonopore is homologous to the bilaterian hindgut.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I’m delighted to share the latest work of PhD student June Ordonez, who is working with me on the formation of the nervous system in #chaetognaths!
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

We looked into details of the stem cell system of catenulids. Surprisingly, it was very different from the canonical neoblast-based systems of other flatworms. What does it tell about the evolution of stem cells and regeneration? Check in our latest paper in @naturecomms.bsky.social:
bit.ly/3WK2ZzR

Join the "Zoomorphology & Evolution Meeting" at Dep. of Biology, UCPH, 13-19:30, 7 March 2025
Best wishes
Katrine Worsaae & Peter Funch

Evidence for Multiple Independent Expansions of Fox Gene Families Within Flatworms - Journal of Molecular Evolution Expansion and losses of gene families are important drivers of molecular evolution. A recent survey of Fox genes in flatworms revealed that this superfamily of multifunctional transcription factors, p...

Following up on the paper by @eudaldpascual.bsky.social, I checked the Fox genes complement in additional catenulid and macrostomorph species. It turned out that the evolution of Fox complement in flatworms is related to ancestral losses and multiple, independent, lineage-specific expansions.

I posted this some time ago on the abandoned platform, but maybe it’s worth advertising here as well:

I’m hiring a post-doc (18 months) for our newly established group at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Warsaw.

Apply by 15.12.2024.
More details here: euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/283654