The final part of the story: "The arduous path to obligate asexuality in Daphnia" is out in #ProcB 🥳 royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article.... 1. Instead of comparing long-established asexuals to sexuals, we generated new asexual lineages to observe the transition in action.
Researchers in the US might be having feelings about writing grants atm-I know I am!
We still need to write them. In this Evolution Exchange, I again chat with Sam Scheiner, who summarizes how to write a competitive proposal.
His advice is gold, and helpful regardless of funder. Pls RT!
"There is still life in the old dog."
Brian Charlesworth on Fisher's Fundamental Theorem in @journal-evo.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1093/evol...
The book I am most looking forward to this year.
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/746822...
Captured d'écran de la barre de navigation chrome montrant l'url de Lifemap et le bouton télécharger permettant d'installer l'app sur son bureau
Lifemap is now installable as an app on your desktop (PWA). 🖥️
Just one click from your browser!
lifemap.cnrs.fr
#Lifemap #CNRS #LBBE
Wikipedia is an antidote to an increasingly poisoned information ecosystem
go.nature.com/4pXIv2d
La loutre dans le Lez!
Registration for the DrosEU/D. suzukii meetings is extended to Jan 30, 2026. The events will be held in Montpellier, France, on Apr 13-17, 2026. Free registration at: https://droseusuz.sciencesconf.org #conference
Peter and Rosemary Grant conducting research
Join Peter Grant FLS FRS & Rosemary Grant FRS on Wed 4 March as they discuss their landmark research on Darwin’s finches and how new species form. Peter and Rosemary are renowned evolutionary biologists, having studied these finches on the Galápagos islands since 1973.
buff.ly/ZbYnmf2
Thanks to @eseb.bsky.social for funding our proposal for a Special Topic Network on Polygenic Adaptation. Watch out for workshops/seminars and more activities. The STN runs for several years, so we hope this innitiative can sustain the network of oldies and new members of the polygenic community!
How do bacteria deal with double costs? And how costly are unusual levels of mistranslation anyway? In short - antibiotics are more of an issue than less/more mistranslation, but the latter changes how populations deal with antibiotics. For the long story, check out our new paper!
Kudos to @pdevillemereuil.bsky.social for writing a blog post about our paper published earlier this years in the one and only @peercomjournal.bsky.social ! You want to know how genetically variable plasticity is in your fav system, and what components of reaction norm shape vary the most? Try this!
Well done @timjanicke.bsky.social and colleagues, looking good !
The Black Death was history's worst documented demographic disaster. New research shows it was also a bizarre anomaly, the unlikely result of volcanic eruptions, multiple consecutive poor harvests in Italy, a war between Genoa, Venice and the Mongols, AND a Black Sea plague outbreak. @science.org
A new study by Evin et al. @isemevol.bsky.social with Colline Brassard #MECADEV in Science reveals that dogs already exhibited a wide variety of shapes and sizes more than 11,000 years ago, long before modern breeding practices. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Check out the paper explaining what this is about, and also the database itself!
Thanks to the organizers for putting together this very interesting symposium on organismal resilience! An associated special issue of the @biojlinnsoc.bsky.social is now open to submission:
academic.oup.com/biolinnean/p...
I was quite impressed and humbled yesterday to give a talk at the @linneansociety.bsky.social, in front of this very portrait and plate!
Safeguarding long-term research in ecology and evolution www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Q&A with Stéphane Blanc, research director at CNRS, about the Long-term Studies in Ecology and Evolution programme and its priorities for supporting long-term monitoring and research
Free to read: rdcu.be/eQltU
Congratulations to Joe Felsenstein on being awarded the 2026 Mendel Medal!
Text: Society for the Study of Evolution Dobzhansky Prize to recognize the accomplishments and future promise of an outstanding early-career evolutionary biologist. Nominations due December 1, 2025.
The Dobzhansky Prize recognizes the accomplishments and future promise of an outstanding early-career evolutionary biologist. The awardee will present the Dobzhansky Prize plenary at #Evol2026. Apply by December 1! shorturl.at/p70wY
A universal thermal performance curve arises in biology and ecology doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
Picture of MEME students on the beach
Do you want to do a Masters in Evolutionary Biology? The call for applying to the MEME program is now open! MEME is a fantastic 2-year MSc between four European Universities on all areas of Evolutionary Biology. Apply and study in Sweden/France/the Netherlands/Germany/USA/Switzerland! www.evobio.eu
Does #SexualSelection fuel #Speciation?
Our new #meta-analysis of comparative studies finds support for a positive relationship, but the rather moderate global effect suggests it’s not necessarily a dominant force.
doi.org/10.1093/evle...
Examples of some recent papers from graduate students in my group - a full list of recent papers and preprints can be found here (https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=pTdxVdIAAAAJ) and profile of the group here: https://egioxford.web.ox.ac.uk/members
The annual Wytham Field Team Photo!
Celebrating a successful field season with great food & good company - May 2025
Front view of the Life & Mind Building, which opened in Oct 2025: The new home of Biology at Oxford
Interested in a PhD in ornithology? Funding available for projects at the interface of ecology, behaviour & evolution from Oct '26 working on long-term population studies of tits at Wytham, based in @biology.ox.ac.uk in the new Life & Mind Building in Oxford
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
Very proud to see this work highlighted by the journal! Publishing in Evolution has always meant something special to me. Congrats to the first author Sylvain Pouzet who found the energy to keep on working on his master project during his PhD.
Heritability and target size underlie differences between trait architectures: examples for three traits. Top: Height (blue) and platelet crit (red) have the same heritability per site h2/L, but height has a much higher mutational target size L. This results in many more hits for height (1533) than for platelet crit (648) (2 left panels). However, the marginal distributions of effect sizes, MAFs, and z-scores of hits are nearly identical for the two traits (3 right panels). Middle: Height (blue) and FEV1 (gold) differ in h2/L, but have similar L. Consequently, the joint distribution of z-scores and MAFs of their hits are markedly different (2 left panels), as are the marginal distributions of hit effect sizes, MAFs and z-scores (right). Bottom: After scaling by their respective , and imposing the more stringent scaled significance threshold (corresponding to FEV1) for both traits, the joint distribution of z-scores and MAFs of their hits (2 left panels) and the corresponding marginal distributions (3 right panels) are highly similar.
Genetic architectures of #ComplexTraits vary widely. @yuvalsim.bsky.social @jkpritch.bsky.social @gs2747.bsky.social &co show these diffs arise from mutational target size & heritability per site; when controlled for, all tested traits have similar architectures @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/47mZXqT
Check also this 🧵
bsky.app/profile/vrin...
I wrote a commentary about the recent paper by @deepaagashe.bsky.social and @vrindarvkm.bsky.social
Also go have a look at the original paper if you haven't !
The timeframe of prediction for eco-evolutionary dynamics | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
MBE Best Student Paper of 2024 award | Julien Joseph (Winner), William S. Henriques (Honorable mention)
The MBE Best Student Paper award of 2024 goes to Julien Joseph (winner) and William S. Henriques (runner-up).
👏 Congratulations Julien and William for this recognition of your amazing work!
Check below for details on their research ⬇️
