Apply for a PhD position in the Pan lab @miyapan.bsky.social at MPI Biology 🇩🇪 to study the molecular mechanisms and evolution of sex determination in haplodiploid insects 🐜🐝.

Excited to share that I’m starting a research group at MPI for Biology Tübingen — and we’re recruiting PhD students!

We are offering two fully funded PhD positions on sex determination and development in Hymenoptera 🐜🐝.

Please share with prospective students who might be interested.

Excited about the prospect of being able to automatically annotate ant behaviour without going via pose estimation, which struggles in the situations we care most about

New article from the lab out today, in which we discuss how social behavior evolves at the molecular level. From parenting across the animal tree of life to caste systems in social insects, it’s all connected (and, therefore, slowly starts to make sense)…

We (@danielkronauer.bsky.social & Patrick Piekarski) outline a general framework to explain for this convergence. /7

Remarkably, some of the same molecular factors additionally govern lifetime behavioral changes in social insect workers (as they transition from nursing to foraging) and mammals (during puberty). /6

In social insects, entire societies have evolved around offspring care, with morphologically distinct queens and workers. Here, similar molecular regulators govern the differentiation of castes during development and behavioral differences between adults. /5

In some lineages, parental care has evolved into a more co-operative endeavor, where individuals help to raise offspring that are not their own. These elaborations again relied on the repeated co-option of similar molecular pathways. /4

These molecular regulators typically form part of an ancient and highly conserved molecular network that pleiotropically controls feeding, growth and reproduction (three deeply interlinked processes). /3

Across these independent origins parental behavior is repeatedly underpinned by the co-option of functionally analogous, and sometimes evolutionarily homologous, molecular regulators. /2

Convergent evolution of a conserved molecular network underlies parenting and sociality - Nature Reviews Genetics Kay et al. review evidence that parental care, and more complex social behaviour based on parental care, evolved in multiple species through the repeated co-option of members of a pleiotropic molecula...

Parental care, and more complex cooperative systems of care, have independently evolved in hundreds of animal lineages. In an article published today, we explore how these behaviors evolve 𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭l shorturl.at/g5OPw /1

The male genitalia of an 𝘈𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘣𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘴 mosquito

What does mating look like when you only have a single shot at getting it right?

Very excited to share our work on an almost-invisible female control, rapidly evolving mating recognition systems, and species that break the rules and take over the world. IN MOSQUITOES>

@AntCommunity 🐜 🐜 Chengyuan Liu found a Camponotus ant colony where all sexual larvae have red spots of various sizes, but worker larvae don’t. Any idea what this is?🤔 Video in the comment.

Playing hide-and-seek with saltmarsh sparrows at Plumb beach: This East coast endemic inhabits coastal salt marshes and is endangered by habitat loss

These two mourning geckos looked like they were mating outside my hotel room in Gamboa, Panama. They are both female. The mourning gecko is an all female species that engages in pseudo-copulation to stimulate egg laying. Not sure I’ve knowingly seen female-female mounting before.

Strepsipterans in the family Myrmecolacidae induce their hosts to climb blades of grass to increase their chances of being found by a male or to facilitate dispersion. The pictured worker was lingering at the top of a small ground-level plant, which is unusual for 𝘾𝙚𝙥𝙝𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙨 /3.
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Females release a pheromone to attract males, which live for less than half a day & mate by puncturing the females cuticle and releasing sperm into her body. The eggs hatch inside the females body & the larvae consume her from the inside, emerging from her head /2

A 𝘾𝙚𝙥𝙝𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙪𝙨 worker with a strepsipteran parasite in its abdomen. Male strepsipterans look like normal insects but females are neotenic, retaining larval form throughout their lives. Females implant themselves into the abdomens of other insects & expose their anterior tip /1

(1) A moulting Cicada. (2) Moulding is a vulnerable moment - a moulting cicada getting eaten alive by big-headed ants. And (3) aduldhood also dangerous! A cicada in the mouth of a broad-billed motmot. Over the past few days in Panama.

I am humbled and honored to have received this year’s Hamilton Award! Thanks to the @sse-evolution.bsky.social , to my advisor @danielkronauer.bsky.social and the @rockefelleruniv.bsky.social graduate program, and to everyone else who helped me along the way and made this possible.

Central Park is full of active Robin's nests at the moment. This one is at eye-level on the North side of the Pool @birdcpk.bsky.social

An American oystercatcher feeding its chick today at Rockaway beach, NY.

No kiss required to turn this pickerel frog into a prince. Catskills, NY.

What a snake!

One of two wrentits rehydrating at a dripping pipe in Mission Trails, California. These are endemic to west coast scrubland, from Oregon south to Baja California, and are the only New World representative of the Parrotbills. They form lifelong pair bonds.

Pink-footed geese wintering in Norfolk, where they form flocks of thousands and feed on post-harvest sugar beet tops.

Delightful