Our new pipeline for analysing highly degraded genomic DNA data is now available at biorXiv!

Study led by Bilal Sharif

I am hiring a postdoc for scRNA-seq research in Lund, Sweden on the visual systems of non-model inverts as part of an ERC project on the evolution and ecology of advanced color and polarization vision. Apply here or share the link with someone who may be interested! 🧪

lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

10kLepGenomes and Psyche Spring Meeting poster with official logos.

Niklas Wahlberg presenting the Chromosome Evolution Working Group to meeting attendees with slides projected behind him.

Charlotte Wright and Joana Meier standing at the front of a meeting room, speaking to seated attendees beside a slide titled “Feedback from external reviewers on proposed abstracts” during the meeting.

Today kicks off the first day of the spring #10kLepGenomes and @projectpsyche.bsky.social meeting at the @liverpooluni.bsky.social 🧬🦋

Great to join colleagues to explore ideas for genomes analysis. Looking forward to the discussions ahead!

#10kLepGenomes #Lepidoptera #Genomics

Constraints on chromosome evolution revealed by the 229 chromosome pairs of the Atlas blue butterfly The genome of the Atlas blue butterfly contains ten times more chromosomes than most butterflies, and more than any other known diploid animal. Wright et al. show that this extraordinary karyotype is…

#ERGAReads | 🦋 Constraints on chromosome evolution revealed by the 229 chromosome pairs of the Atlas blue butterfly 🦋
www.cell.com/current-biol...

@charlottewright.bsky.social @projectpsyche.bsky.social
@currentbiology.bsky.social #evolution #chromosomes #butterfly #lepidoptera #Atlas

In the footsteps of Linnaeus: scientists share their passion for species from tiny wasps to hairy plants – in pictures For his project ‘De Oförtrutna’ (The Relentless), photographer Christer Björkman pictured Swedish scientists working in the spirit of Carl Linneaus, the botanist who created the modern taxonomic syste...

well these are cute 🥲
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Phylogenomic mixture models outperform homogeneous and partitioned models Abstract. Significant advances have been made in resolving the tree of life, but many nodes remain debated. The last two decades saw the emergence of mixtu

From Pisani et al: CAT-GTR is one of the most flexible models in the phylogenomic arsenal.

Phylogenomic mixture models outperform homogeneous and partitioned models

academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-...

Postdoc position in Evolutionary Ecology available at IISER Thiruvananthapuram, India. Applications accepted until filled. Salary: ₹60,000/month. More info: www.vanasiri.in. #postdoc

Oh wow. This is really bad! @gbif.org is there any way to counter these kinds of records??

Fossiler Abdruck eines großen "Emperor"-Schmetterlings auf Gestein, Meldung zum ersten fossilen Fund.

#ScienceNews: Researchers present first fossilised “emperor” butterfly

An international team led by Dr. Hossein Rajaei (State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart), described a well-preserved butterfly fossil.

Press release: https://t1p.de/oc67u
Original publication: doi.org/10.4202/app.01332.2026

Two moth species, overlapping morphology… but different genomic stories 🧬

Our new paper shows clear nuclear divergence in the Diachrysia chrysitis complex, despite occasional shared DNA barcodes.

resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/8CGBAS...

@respublications.bsky.social @oulu.fi

Figure 1 of the paper showing two examples of trait loss reversals in the form of phylogenetic trees: on the top, the case of the reinstatement of the second lower molar of the euroasian linx; on the bottom, the case of the reinstatement of stick insect wings.

You ever wondered what happens to a trait after its loss?
Dollo's law predicts that it can't be reinstated in its original form. Actually true (partially)! #evolsky

Happy to see this published: we have reviewed the LOSS, PERSISTENCE & REVERSAL OF PHENOTYPIC TRAITS 🖥️🧬🦑🐜

doi.org/10.1002/brv....

Hi all. I am very excited that after 6 years I finally got my phylogenetic comparative methods book and online exercises online. Feel free to use and share. The book is here: nhcooper123.github.io/pcm-primer/. Note that it is not finished, we had to abandon it before the sunk costs fallacy broke us

Ecology and evolution of pyrazines in insects Chemical communication is the oldest and most widespread form of signalling among and within organisms. Among the many compounds involved in such communication, pyrazines – nitrogen-containing hetero...

One of my PhD chapters is now out! It’s a review on pyrazines in insects and their biological roles and their evolution.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
@lepphylo.bsky.social
@jmappes.bsky.social

WASTER: Practical de novo phylogenomics from low-coverage short reads https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41870206/

Addressing Gaps in Butterfly Population Monitoring to Catalyze Global Insect Conservation The conservation community sorely lacks a global indicator of change in insect populations. Given widespread insect declines, addressing this gap is key for conservation and policy targets. We sugges...

We’re missing a global indicator to track insects. By analyzing thousands of butterfly populations, we highlight both promising signals and key challenges—showing why these taxa are strong candidates for building a Global Index to support conservation. conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Figure showing the evolutionary diversification of Lepidopteran larval appendages.

Really excellent paper on the genetics of caterpillar butt ornaments
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Improved gene tree inference from removing alignment errors both from focal genes and when training substitution models Multiple Sequence Alignment (MSA) is a key step in phylogenetic analysis, and is prone to error. Unfortunately, algorithms that remove likely alignment errors from MSAs sometimes also remove informati...

Sequence alignments are notoriously prone to error. Our latest preprint offers a new tool for filtering errors out, assesses it and other filtering tools, and recommends new best practice. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @phylowheeler.bsky.social 1/10

A new species of sack-bearer moth (Lepidoptera, Mimallonidae) from Florida A rarely reported new species of Mimallonidae from Florida, USA, is described. Remarkably, the distinctive new species has not been seen across much of its historical range since the 1960s, and all re...

Introducing the newest species of moth from the US, and likely one of the rarest. Cicinnus albarenicolus is known from just 19 specimens, all in white sand scrub in peninsular Florida. Only one verified extant population! zookeys.pensoft.net/article/1817...

Imaging Assistant:South Kensington

JOB CLAXON: Imaging Assistant @nhm-london.bsky.social . Permanent role. Would be good for someone with CT experience! jobs.nhm.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

Global Biodiversity Framework Targets Can Drive Action on Insect Declines, but Lack Robust Indicators to Prove Their Effectiveness Insects are the most diverse and functionally important animals on Earth. In at least some regions, terrestrial populations are declining. Despite this, insects are often overlooked in conservation p...

Great to see insect conservation getting the attention it needs

conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

The photo shows the cover of the nature journal, displaying a colorful moth sitting on moss. The caption says: Heat Sensitive. Tropical insects show limited ability to cope with a warming world.

Really happy that a moth made it to the cover of @nature.com! Thanks to my co-author Gunnar Brehm for this great photo 📸

Find our study on thermal limits in this week's issue:
www.nature.com/nature/volum...

@ecoresearchzoo3.bsky.social
@biologie-uniwue.bsky.social
@uni-wuerzburg.de

Butterflies crossing oceans, moths navigating by the stars: unravelling the mysteries of insect migrations Trillions of insects embark, largely unnoticed, on epic journeys every year across mountain ranges, deserts and seas, and it is only now, as their numbers suffer huge declines, that scientists are tra...

Nice summary of long distance insect migration in the Guardian today with fancy graphics www.theguardian.com/environment/...

A map of anatolia, indicating the spatial distribution of yellow and white bees.

Figure 1 from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13596-2

I've just had a jaw-to-the-floor moment with this new paper from the Hines lab. They describe a yellow-white switch in bees, which maps to the same TF as the yellow-white switch in Colias butterflies, previously described by the @chriswheat.bsky.social lab. journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

I’m looking for a post doc (up to five years) interested in phylogenetics and earth systems - please spread the word!

Do dim forests select for bigger butterfly eyes? Surprisingly, no. Across 59 species, eye size evolution reflects ancestry and scaling—not ecology. By @sridharhalali.bsky.social and @lepphylo.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/evle...

Postdoctoral researcher in molecular and cellular bacteriology - ERC CoG VAMPIRE The research group of Prof Géraldine Laloux at the de Duve Institute (UCLouvain) is looking for a highly motivated postdoc to elucidate the molecular factors underlying bacterial prey-predator interac...

#MicroSky Please RT
@erc.europa.eu-funded postdoc position in my lab to identify the molecular basis of prey-predator interactions using our favorite micro-vampire Bdellovibrio exovorus as a model.
Let's find what the bite is made of! 🧛
Flexible start date.
Info: euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/415877

Big effort, exciting results - our paper on the constraints of thermal limits in tropical insects is now out in @nature.com! 🦋🐝🪰🪲🦗
@ecoresearchzoo3.bsky.social
@biologie-uniwue.bsky.social
@uni-wuerzburg.de

A new paper out led by @sridharhalali.bsky.social on eye size evolution in temperate butterflies! Does eye size evolve in response to habitat? Based on an amazing dataset of microCT scans of 443 individuals of 59 spp, Sridhar shows that no, phylogeny explains most!
doi.org/10.1093/evle...

Our paper on convergent regressive evolution of genes involved in oral anatomy of myrmecophagous mammals is now officially published @molbioevol.bsky.social

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msag009