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Alicja Witwicka

@aswitwicka.bsky.social
289 followers 189 following 9 posts

Researcher | BIOSCAN, Tree of Life, Sanger Institute 👩🏻‍💻🧬🌱🐝🦋🪲🪰🌍 #Entomology #Genomics #Biomonitoring #Pollinators #Pesticides #Conservation #SciencePolicy she/her

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Reposted by Alicja Witwicka
Charlotte Wright @charlottewright.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
We need your help! If you have a few minutes, please fill out a very short survey about your preferences on butterflies and art - all responses are welcome! www.unveiling.eu This is part of a project that aims to understand how the beauty of butterflies influences conservation: Unveiling (1/2)
unveiling.eu
Unveiling - Home
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Joseph Tobias @josephtobias.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
PhD up for grabs in applied ecology focusing on species traits and ecological processes, supervised by @jmbecologist.bsky.social @orlyrazgour.bsky.social, Ben Woodcock, and me. Worth a look!
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Entomologists of Color @entopoc.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
Are you a POC student, early career researcher, or professional entomologist from a country in the Global South? We are now funding memberships! Apply from October 1st to December 15th. More info: www.entopoc.org/apply.html Apply: docs.google.com/.../1FAIpQLS...
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Jim Fouracre @jimfouracre.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
PhD opportunity in plant developmental biology for UK based students of Black heritage! How do they know when to grow up? Join us at the University of Bristol to find out. Application deadline Jan 6th www.findaphd.com/phds/project... #PlantSciencePhDs @blackinplantsci.bsky.social
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Phil Stevenson @philstevenson.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
I have a PhD opportunity with @juliakoricheva.bsky.social at @rhulbiology.bsky.social and @rbgkew.bsky.social to research the effect of forest diversification on understory forage provision for pollinators in an experimental mixed forest in Finland. www.trees-dla.ac.uk/projects/eff... please share
trees-dla.ac.uk
Effects of forest diversification on floral reward production for pollinators | TREES DLA
The herb layer in forests has a large potential to provide nectar and pollen for pollinators, but forest management practices such as planting tree species mixtures vs monocultures can affect floral r...
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Reposted by Alicja Witwicka
Petra Korlević @petrathepostdoc.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
Day 26 #Invertober2025 - Sea bunny (Jorunna parva) 🐰 #SciArt #invertebrates
semi-relistic drawing of two sea bunnies, sea slugs with white and yello bodies covered in little black dots, with big black ear like structures and fuzzy tails, on a black background.semi-relistic drawing of two sea bunnies, sea slugs with white and yello bodies covered in little black dots, with big black ear like structures and fuzzy tails, on a white background.
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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
Friday Flyday! A mating pair of big-headed flies, Pipunculidae, photographed in Texas.
Macro photograph of two mating flies in side view, the smaller one underneath and perched on a brown twig, against a smooth dark green background. The flys' heads are large, rounded, and made almost entirely out of giant, encompassing rusty red compound eyes.
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Jack Ashby @jackdashby.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
Sometimes a #wombat's eyes light up and they move with a sudden sense of purpose, to nowhere in particular. #WombatWednesday #Tasmania #MammalWatching #WildOz #wombats
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Paul Savary @psavary.bsky.social · 29/09/2025
Happy to announce an open post-doctoral position (24 months) in the ThéMA lab (Besançon, CNRS-Univ.Marie et Louis Pasteur) to work on the coupled modelling of population genetic structure and metacommunity dynamics in habitat networks. Details here: shorturl.at/7muyx For any questions, contact me!
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Prof Bill McGuire @profbillmcguire.bsky.social · 27/09/2025
"Today, we clear a soccer field’s worth of tropical forest every six seconds, a loss dramatically worsened by humanity’s growing hunger for meat" Wean ourselves off meat now, or the switch to a Pliocene climate that's locked in will do it for us www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Meat is a leading emissions source – but few outlets report on it, analysis finds
Sentient Media reveals less than 4% of climate news stories mention animal agriculture as source of carbon emissions
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Corrie Moreau @corriemoreau.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
UPDATE: The 2025-2026 list of faculty and postdoc positions in ecology and evolutionary biology is out! Be sure to check out this active and helpful community run resources! docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
docs.google.com
ecoevojobs.net 2025-26
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Sam Yeaman @samyeaman.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
I'm looking to recruit a PhD student to study patterns of local adaptation and introgression across the spruce hybrid zone in the Rockies near Calgary. Projects can include field work, bioinformatics, pop gen theory, or comparison to plant/ conifer species yeamanlab.weebly.com/uploads/5/7/...
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Pesticide Action Network Europe (PAN Europe) @paneurope.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
1/3 🧵🐞 A 2025 meta-analysis of 1,705 studies confirms that #pesticides are widely toxic to many non-target organisms. @davegoulson.bsky.social www.pan-europe.info/blog/pestici...
pan-europe.info
Pesticides found widely toxic to non-target organisms in low concentrations
A 2025 meta-analysis of 1,705 studies confirms that pesticides are widely toxic to many non-target organisms. “Pesticides affect a diverse range of non-target species and may be linked to global biodi...
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Nature Ecology & Evolution @natecoevo.nature.com · 18/09/2025
Measuring selection and dominance in fitness of the insecticide-resistant Ace alleles in Drosophila melanogaster, the authors show evidence for beneficial reversal of dominance, a mechanism that can stabilize large-effect polymorphisms in nature. 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Beneficial reversal of dominance maintains a large-effect resistance polymorphism under fluctuating insecticide selection - Nature Ecology & Evolution
Measuring selection and dominance in fitness of the insecticide-resistant Ace alleles in Drosophila melanogaster, the authors show evidence for beneficial reversal of dominance, a mechanism that can s...
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IUSSI-NWES @iussi-nwes.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
We are delighted that our Winter Meeting 2025 in Leuven 🇧🇪 is approaching! Abstract submissions now open: www.iussi-nweurope.org/meetings Date: December 18-19 Abstract deadline: October 15 Host: Laboratory of Socioecology and Social Evolution at KU Leuven Plenary: Ido Pen & @rmash.bsky.social
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Nature @nature.com · 03/09/2025
A common type of ant in Europe breaks a fundamental rule in biology: its queens can produce male offspring that are a whole different species go.nature.com/4mOb5T9
go.nature.com
‘Almost unimaginable’: these ants are different species but share a mother
Ant queens of one species clone ants of another to create hybrid workers that do their bidding.
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Rayan Chikhi @rayanchikhi.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
🌎👩‍🔬 For 15+ years biology has accumulated petabytes (million gigabytes) of🧬DNA sequencing data🧬 from the far reaches of our planet.🦠🍄🌵 Logan now democratizes efficient access to the world’s most comprehensive genetics dataset. Free and open. doi.org/10.1101/2024...
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Seirian Sumner @waspwoman.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
We are 3 records short of 400!! Please submit your picnic wasp food observations! More info on how and why here: theconversation.com/what-to-do-w... @theconversation.com
theconversation.com
What to do when wasps crash your picnic – a scientist’s guide to dining safely with these insects
Did you know wasps switch from ham to jam foraging during the late summer?
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Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
The community of Drosophila researchers is amazing, mutually supportive and collaborative. Right now a key resource for our community, @flybase.bsky.social , is threatened by the cancellation of its NIH grant and is seeking community help in raising short term funds 1/n 🧪 please share
Dear Fly Community,

In May 2025, the NIH terminated all grant funding to Harvard University, including the NHGRI grant that supported FlyBase. This grant also funded FlyBase teams at Indiana University (IU) and the University of Cambridge (UK), and as a result, their subawards were also canceled.

The Cambridge team has secured support for one to two years through generous donations from the European fly community, emergency funding from the Wellcome Trust, and support from the University of Cambridge. At IU, funding has been secured for one year thanks to reserve funds from Thom Kaufman and a supplement from ORIP/NIH to the Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center (BDSC).

Unfortunately, the situation at Harvard is far more critical. Harvard University had supported FlyBase staff since May but recently denied a request for extended bridge funding. As a result, all eight employees (four full-time and four part-time) were abruptly laid off, with termination dates ranging from August to mid-October depending on their positions. In addition, our curator at the University of New Mexico will leave her position at the end of August. This decision came as a shock, and we are urgently pursuing all possible funding options.

To put the need into perspective: although FlyBase is free to use, it is not free to make. It takes large teams of people and millions of dollars a year to create FlyBase to support fly research (the last NHGRI grant supported us with more than 2 million USD per annum).

To help sustain FlyBase operations, we have been reaching out to you to ask for your support. We have set up a donation site in Cambridge, UK, to which European labs have and can continue to contribute, and a new donation site at IU to which labs in the US and the rest of the world can contribute. We urge researchers to work with their grant administrators to contribute to FlyBase via these sites if at all possible, as more of the money will go to FlyBase. However, we appreciate that some fu…https://wiki.flybase.org/wiki/FlyBase:Contribute_to_FlyBase

Our immediate goals are:

1. To maintain core curation activities and keep the FlyBase website online

2. To complete integration with the Alliance of Genome Resources (The Alliance).

Integration with the Alliance is essential for FlyBase’s long-term sustainability. For nearly a decade, NHGRI/NIH has supported the unification of Model Organism Databases (MODs) into the Alliance, which we aim to achieve by 2028. Therefore, securing bridge funding to sustain FlyBase over the next three years is crucial for successful integration and the long-term access to FlyBase data.

At present, our remaining funds will allow us to keep the FlyBase website online for approximately one more year. Beyond that, its future is uncertain unless new funding is secured. We will, of course, continue pursuing additional grant opportunities as they arise.

Given the uncertainty of future NIH or alternative funding sources, we are relying on the Fly community for support. Your contributions will directly help us retain the staff needed to complete this transition and to secure ongoing fly data curation into the Alliance beyond 2028.

We at FlyBase are incredibly grateful for the outpouring of support from the community during this challenging time. Your encouragement has strengthened our resolve and underscores how vital this resource remains to Drosophila research worldwide.

Sincerely,
The FlyBase Team
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Vicencio Oostra @climate-adaptation.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
Goodbye #eseb2025 @eseb2025.bsky.social see you next time! Perhaps what stuck most was powerful talk on resilience and survival by Palestinian researcher, play director, and ESEB EUEA awardee May Shehady. Let's not forget, let's not look away. 🇵🇸
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José Cerca @naturalselection.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
*PhD position* 🦉 Would you like to do a PhD with Indo-Pacific birds and evolutionary genomics? Join us in Stockholm: <deadline> 05 September 2025, 23:59 PhD student in Evolution of Indo-Pacific birds recruit.visma.com/spa/public/a...
recruit.visma.com
PhD student in Evolution of Indo-Pacific birds
The Department of Bioinformatics and Genetics is offering a four-year PhD position focused on analyzing population-level genomic data from museum bird samples. The project will employ cutting-edge gen...
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JoyousJoyfulJoyness @joyousjoyness.com · 01/08/2025
✨ A Sprinkle of JoyousJoyness ✨ MLEM! Have a JoyousJoyfulJoyness day! #happy #cat #mlem #cute #joyousjoyness #funny
Close up photo of a tuxedo cat licking the camera with a fish eye lens.
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Dave Goulson @davegoulson.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
New research from Pesticide Action Network reveals the extent of pesticide use by UK councils. These are poisons being sprayed in your street, your local park. Pls share. For links to the full report & to find out what you can do, follow the link below www.pan-uk.org/pesticide-fr...
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Alicja Witwicka @aswitwicka.bsky.social · 27/07/2025
Can I use this for presentations 😂
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titsay 𓆏 @titsay.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
they are tired of being busy bees
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Seirian Sumner @waspwoman.bsky.social · 12/07/2025
If you have a BBQ visitor this wknd, don’t flap and shout. Instead, give a wasp-offering: sausage..pie.. whatever she wants. She’s looking for protein not sugar atm as the colony is growing fast with many brood to feed. Wasps are pest controllers, pollinators- Live with not against them. #WaspLove
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Steven Van Belleghem @svbelleghem.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
Excited to advertise a shared PhD position at KU Leuven (Belgium) and Mondsee (Austria) with @markusmoest.bsky.social on the genetic basis, plasticity and evolution of melanization in Daphnia from alpine lakes. Apply here: www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo...
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Petra Korlević @petrathepostdoc.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
this is most certainly a #SciArt piece about CANCER and NOTHING ELSE* *I'm drowning in sarcasm
drawing of a layer of cells, tiny pink peach ones with worried expressions, getting pushed to the side by giant fat blobby pink cancer cells with teeth and evil eyes. the text says:
You know who else has
UNLIMITED GROWTH?
CANCER!
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Tamara Schenekar @tschenekar.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
🐕🧬💧 New article is out! We tracked how terrestrial mammals like dogs shed DNA into water bodies . Results show that activities like "crossing through" and "defecating" had the highest shedding rates and how direct versus indirect interaction affect eDNA detection probabilities. #eDNA #biomonitoring
dx.doi.org
Water Interaction Type Affects Environmental DNA Shedding Rates of Terrestrial Mammal eDNA Into Surface Water Bodies
Although shedding rates for aquatic species are well studied, little is known about terrestrial mammal shedding rates in water. In this study, we quantify eDNA shedding rates from domestic dogs durin...
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Petra Korlević @petrathepostdoc.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
I will continue circulating the poster until SOMETHING improves 😑
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Doug Parr @dougparr.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
89% of world’s people want stronger action on climate but mistakenly believe they're in a minority 69% willing to contribute 1% of their income to the climate fight, & more than 50% in all but a few countries, but believed only a minority would also be willing www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Activate climate’s ‘silent majority’ to supercharge action, experts say
Making concerned people aware their views are far from alone could unlock the change so urgently needed
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Nature Ecology & Evolution @natecoevo.nature.com · 16/04/2025
An assessment of existing coral restoration projects finds that accessibility drives the choice of restoration sites more than environmental and ecological factors, and most restored reefs have been or will soon be impacted by severe bleaching www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Restoration cannot be scaled up globally to save reefs from loss and degradation - Nature Ecology & Evolution
An assessment of existing coral restoration projects finds that accessibility drives the choice of restoration sites more than environmental and ecological factors, and most restored reefs have been o...
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University of Oxford @ox.ac.uk · 15/04/2025
'What’s the problem? Well, pretty much everything. These aren’t species returned from extinction.' @oxfordgeography.bsky.social's Dr Richard Grenyer argues that extinction is, for the time being, a symptom of our global economic system ⬇️
theconversation.com
Why ‘de-extinct’ dire wolves are a Trojan horse to hide humanity’s destruction of nature
Extinction is, for the time being, forever – and a symptom of our global economic system.
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Alicja Witwicka @aswitwicka.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
Current toxicity tests often use acute exposure, yet bees in the wild are far more likely to face prolonged, low-level exposure 🌸🌼 This mismatch means today’s testing methods are missing critical details. www.qmul.ac.uk/media/news/2...
qmul.ac.uk
What do pesticides do to bumble bee brains over time?
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Alicja Witwicka @aswitwicka.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
We compared the effects of short high-concentration (acute) exposure and prolonged low-concentration (chronic) exposure of #acetamiprid, #clothianidin, and #sulfoxaflor Chronic exposure affected energy production and immunity while acute exposure activated stress responses and caused neural issues.
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Alicja Witwicka @aswitwicka.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
Another paper on #bumblebee #transcriptomics is out! We show that the effects of #pesticides in #bumblebees are determined predominantly by pesticide concentration and exposure time, rather than the pesticide type itself 🐝🧠🧬 doi.org/10.1186/s129... @flopezos.bsky.social @yannickwurm.bsky.social
doi.org
Acute and chronic pesticide exposure trigger fundamentally different molecular responses in bumble bee brains - BMC Biology
Background Beneficial insects, including pollinators, encounter various pesticide exposure conditions, from brief high-concentration acute exposure to continuous low-level chronic exposure. To effecti...
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Seirian Sumner @waspwoman.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
How to create a #nature-literate society. My latest article @theconversation.com Revaluing naturalists' skills is essential for a future where we work with, not against, nature. Notice Name Nurture #GreenJobs theconversation.com/heres-how-to... @uclnews.bsky.social @curlewaction.bsky.social
theconversation.com
Here’s how to create a more nature-literate society
Nature literacy has inspired creativity and innovation for thousands of years.
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Tim Newbold @tnewbold31.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
In the UCL Dept of Genetics, Evolution & Environment, we are advertising for people interested in applying for senior fellowship funding. I can say personally that it is a fantastic place to hold a fellowship. Apply at www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/... @ucllifesciences.bsky.social @uclcber.bsky.social
ucl.ac.uk
UCL – University College London
UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).
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Prof. Jeff Ollerton @jeffollerton.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
Recently the Bumblebee Conservation Trust (BCT) reported that, in 2024, British bumblebees experienced their worst year since the BCT started its monitoring campaign. All of which begs an important question: what is happening to wild #bees in Britain? jeffollerton.co.uk/2025/03/10/w... #ecology
jeffollerton.co.uk
What is happening to wild bees in Britain?
Recently the Bumblebee Conservation Trust (BCT) reported that, in 2024, British bumblebees experienced their worst year since the BCT started its monitoring campaign. Overall, the numbers of bees w…
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Kate Jones 🦇 @profkatej.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
Science thrives when we challenge assumptions. Many breakthroughs are thanks to women fighting to be heard. Equity, diversity, inclusion are not just nice ideals but essential for science! Happy International Women's Day!
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Tomek Mamos @tomekmamos.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
🔬 New PhD Opportunity: Freshwater Genomics & Transcriptomics 🌊🧬 Fully funded PhD position at University of Lodz to study genomics & transcriptomics of key freshwater invertebrates using cutting-edge molecular tools & bioinformatics! 🧵👇 hashtag#PhD hashtag#Genomics hashtag#Bioinformatics
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Tomek Mamos @tomekmamos.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
🌍📢 The abstract submission for the 20th International Colloquium on Amphipoda in Łódź, Poland is now OPEN (www.20ica2025.com)! This is a great opportunity to share your research, network with fellow scientists, and explore the fascinating world of amphipods.
20ica2025.com
20 ICA 2025
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Arthur Matte @arthurmatte.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
🚨 New Paper Alert! 🚨 🐜 How did ants evolve their highly specialized queens and workers? With @adriatica.bsky.social, we reveal a key evolutionary innovation: adult control over larval feeding unlocked extreme caste dimorphism and complex societies. 🧵👇 🔗 Read in @pnas.org: doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
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Dave Goulson @davegoulson.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
Our new paper, based on data from 1,705 studies, shows that pesticides are toxic to organisms they are not intended to harm, including fungi, microbes, plants, insects, & vertebrates such as ourselves. Questions the wisdom of applying over 3 million tonnes of them every year...
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Nature @nature.com · 11/02/2025
Biologist Tatsuya Amano works to make science a fairer place for non-fluent speakers go.nature.com/4ho0M5r
go.nature.com
Breaking language barriers: ‘Not being fluent in English is often viewed as being an inferior scientist’
Biologist Tatsuya Amano works to make science a fairer place for non-fluent speakers.
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Niklas Wahlberg @lepphylo.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
A postdoc opportunity to work on Noctuidae (Lepidoptera) functional genomics with me, @jadrankarota.bsky.social and @chriswheat.bsky.social in Lund, Sweden. We aim to leverage the amazing amount of data being generated by @projectpsyche.bsky.social and DToL projects. lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/...
lu.varbi.com
Postdoctoral fellow in Noctuidae functional genomics
Subject description The project will use a comparative functional genomes approach to study a species-rich group of moths, Noctuidae (Lepidoptera). Noctuidae have both a huge negative and positive imp
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KamilSJaron.bsky.social @kamilsjaron.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
🚨Registration open🚨 1st - 6th of June, me, Katie Jenike, @rayanchikhi.bsky.social and Gene Myers will run a week long workshop on k-mers for biodiversity genomics organised by @connectingscience.bsky.social at @sangerinstitute.bsky.social. Join us & get equipped to wrestle large genomic datasets!
https://coursesandconferences.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/event/k-mer-workshop-for-biodiversity-genomics-20250601/
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Melisa Olave @melisaolave.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
Excellent PhD fellowship opportunity! PhD fellowship Marie Curie in Evolutionary Hologenomics: understanding the role of gut microorganisms in evolutionary dietary shifts. Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen More info: candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...
candidate.hr-manager.net
PhD fellowship Marie Curie in Evolutionary Hologenomics: understanding the role of gut microorganisms in evolutionary dietary shifts
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Catherine Grueber @cegrueber.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Out now in @nature.com! Our comprehensive meta-analysis of global terrestrial and marine genetic diversity demonstrates rapid loss of genetic diversity and identifies conservation interventions that could mitigate this process www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪🌍🦤🧬 #consgen #PopGen
nature.com
Global meta-analysis shows action is needed to halt genetic diversity loss - Nature
A comprehensive meta-analysis of global terrestrial and marine genetic diversity covering more than three decades of research demonstrates rapid loss of genetic diversity and identifies conservation i...
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