New preprint from us and @emiliapsantos.bsky.social’s #NERC grant, led by Jake Morris, @gadusmo.bsky.social et al
Using an interspecific cross between two #cichlids to think about models of #brainevolution 🐟🧠
Feedback and suggestions welcome! 🙏🏻
🧪
The culmination of years of work with @ebablab.bsky.social, Camilo Salazar and Carolina Pardo-Diaz @6legsandup.bsky.social, Amaia Alcade-Anton and others. And another fantastic collaboration between @evobiolmu.bsky.social @lmu.de @bristoluni.bsky.social and Universidad del Rosario, Bogatá
Really excited to see @borreroja.bsky.social’s tour de force exploring the behavioural consequences of coordinated visual adaptations in *Heliconius*, and how these may break down in hybrids, out in the world. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Great to see this paper by @borreroja.bsky.social on sexual dimorphism in Heliconius behaviour and related traits out. A lot of work! And he's right Vilcabamba and Ecuador in general is awesome.
Excited to share our new paper on pollen foraging in Heliconius himera @behavecol.bsky.social! 🦋🌼
academic.oup.com/beheco/artic...
We explored how female and male H. himera differ in pollen foraging & sensory traits. 1/6🧵👇
Flyer of the course on "Introduction to Biodiversity Genomics". All information are also here: https://biodiversitygenomicslatam.weebly.com/
In July, we will teach the 3rd biodiversity genomics course in Latin America, this time in Bogotá, following the COLEVOL meeting. We invite applications from students, postdocs and PIs from Latin America interested in learning how to analyse genomic data. biodiversitygenomicslatam.weebly.com
Downloading some data for a student before heading out on holiday ... "4,09TB of 4,1 TB- About 6 mins" ... longest 6 mins of my life.
Come and join Nobel laureate Paul Nurse, President @royalsociety.org, and philosopher Christof Rapp @caslmu.bsky.social @lmu.de in exploring one of the most fundamental questions in science: What is Life?
Save the date: 17 April, 16:15📍LMU, main building
register: info@cas.lmu.de, www.cas.lmu.de
My linocut portrait of Emmy Noether in front of a blackboard with diagrams and equations. Noether is printed in blue. She has her hair up and wears a pin-striped buttoned shirt with puffy sleeves, bow tie, tweed skirt with belt and is shown from waist up, turned slightly away from the viewer. The blackboard is green and shows a simple form of Noether’s equations at the top. On the left are three diagrams to represent translational symmetry (a frame of reference or 3 orthogonal axes and a straight diagonal arrow to a second frame of reference); rotational symmetry (a frame of reference and curved arrow to a second rotated frame of reference); and time symmetry (two simple clocks with an arrow between them and their hands at different places). On the right are the three associated conserved quantities: momentum (a p with arrow above it); angular momentum (an L with arrow above it); and energy (E).
Happy birthday to one of greatest mathematicians of all time Emmy Noether (1882-1935), here with her eponymous theorem, the backbone of modern physics. 🐡🧪👩🏼🔬🧮🎢 #histsci Noether’s theorem links any symmetry of a system with a conservation law. In my portrait, I chose to depict a young Emmy in front 🧵
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
Full professor for plant ecology in Regensburg. #plantscience #plantscijobs
jobs.zeit.de/jobs/w3-prof...
Exciting news:
Our RNA community in @uniregensburg.bsky.social is set to grow!
We are opening a Junior Group Leader position in RNA biochemistry / ribonucleases / RNA stability. A great opportunity to start your own team within our collaborative RNA network.
Details & application 👇
🚨JOB alert🚨
We have three (yes, THREE) 🌟lectureships🌟 advertised in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol.
Broad remit, including #AnimalBehaviour & #GlobalChangeBiology
⏱️Deadline: 8th March 2026
🙏Please circulate widely
😊Come join us!
Full #job details: tinyurl.com/y3us95rc
On March 3rd @ 5pm CET, we are re-starting the Integration of speciation seminar series! The first 3 sessions feature talks by *Early-Career Researchers*, and include a Q&A with an established PI about their career path.
Sign up to get the link: speciation-network.pages.ist.ac.at/seminar-seri...
Nice job (Prof in Animal Ecology) in a nice (unesco) city, in a great department: www.uni-regensburg.de/fileadmin/us...
text was all vintage @ebablab.bsky.social c.2009
A delicious slice of nostalgia pie from @dickmerrill.bsky.social
Back in the carefree days of 2009…
New paper out: “allopatric” Drosophila species aren’t so allopatric after all. We show that most currently allopatric species pairs probably overlapped in the past and exchanged genes at levels similar to sympatric pairs. @evolletters.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1093/evle... [1/6]
Life is like a box of pupae?
Happy pupae, happy Merrill
Please share: Last week to apply for a PhD position on butterfly evolution at high elevations in our lab 🦋
Merrill lab Christmas party outing :) (Traditional fondue delayed until next year)
Very happy to see our opinion article out in @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social today. 🥳 We ask whether sexual signals can influence the evolutionary trajectory of naturally selected adaptations, such as protective colouration, for better or for worse 🧐 1/n
doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...
I am so excited to share new work on a TE insertion that regulates iridescence in swordtails, led by fantastic grad student @nadiahaghani.bsky.social and with help from many coauthors! In a time that has been so difficult to navigate, this & other projects have kept my spirits up: shorturl.at/NE65A
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!
Two rainforest butterflies have evolved to look more alike, likely to confuse shared predators. But why don’t they get confused themselves?
To avoid mating with the wrong species, they’ve cleverly evolved distinct scents.
buff.ly/fxVrlCI
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
@ebablab.bsky.social and I helped a bit in this really informative article by Robin Grob in the el Jundi lab on spatial orientation strategies in Lepidoptera. Have a read :-)
Our new @science.org paper is out! Cuckoos and hosts are locked in a coevolutionary arms race over egg mimicry.
But how are these egg types inherited, and could this drive speciation? We sequenced hundreds of genomes to find out!
doi.org/10.1126/scie...
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