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Chris Balakrishnan

@evolutionpirate.bsky.social
898 followers 1.2K following 94 posts

Nerd Nite Founder and author/editor of "How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi" bit.ly/NerdNiteBook. My postings are my own do not necessarily represent the positions, strategies or opinions of my employer.

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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
(4/4) In this paper, we find that more highly inbred white-winged wood ducks die sooner from TB. We also describe genetic and gene expression differences suggesting possible mechanisms of pathogen susceptibility. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Striking correlation between inbreeding coefficient and lifespan in white-winged wood ducks.
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Birds from India were imported to the UK and then the US where they have been bred in captivity for decades. These birds, however, are highly susceptible to avian tuberculosis, a major challenge for husbandry that has caused US-based populations to collapse. (3/4)
Population sizes of white-winged wood ducks at Sylvan Heights bird park. Populations grew to peak of over 100 individuals, but then crashed dues to pathogen-induced mortality.
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
White-winged wood ducks are native to Southeast Asia, where they are highly dependent on mature forest. Birds sampled from India and Indonesia are genetically distinctive. (2/4)
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
New paper from the lab! In which we, in partnership with Sylvan Heights Bird Park, describe patterns of genetic diversity, pathogen susceptibility, and inbreeding in one of the rarest birds in the world, the white-winged wood duck (not a muscovy duck). A short thread, and link below. (1/4)
Image of three white-winged ducks Asarcornis scutulata. Photo by Katie Lubbock, Sylvan Heights Bird Park
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
All time achievement. Our #nerdnite book “How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi” is touching @edyong209.bsky.social ‘s book.
How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi in display at Barnes & Noble
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
Amid all the continuing good news from the world, another preprint! Inbreeding depression and tuberculosis susceptibility in the critically endangered white-winged wood duck Asarcornis scutulata (photo by Katie Lubbock, Sylvan Heights Bird Park) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Photo of three white-winged wood ducks at Sylvan Heights Bird Park, photo by Katie Lubbock
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
A brief distraction from all the terrible. A new preprint led by Katya Osipova and our brood parasitology, or perhaps parasitomics, team "Comparative population genomics reveals convergent adaptation across independent origins of avian obligate brood parasitism" : www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
clipped portion of a figure showing selection testing in brood parasitic birds.
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 13/04/2025
IS anyone having trouble connecting to the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (for data deposition)? I'm just hoping it is user error (I'm rusty) and that it didn't get DOGEd.
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
3/3 Layered evolution of gene expression in “superfast” muscles for courtship! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
differential expression in manakin muscles involved in display
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
(2/3) This paper is part of a series of papers stemming from our manakin research coordination network (www.manakinsrcn.org). A couple of other recent ones Neurogenomic landscape associated with status-dependent cooperative behaviour: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... ... and ...
differences in testosterone and social network structure in territorial versus floated male Pipra filicauda. Also overall gene expression differences across brain regions.
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Congrats to HC Lim, Kevin Bennett and co on this cool, new paper, highlighting the complex dynamics and mechanisms of color in a hybrid zone and among closely-related manakin species. (1/3) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
phylogeny of Manacus manakins highlighting plumage color variation in the groupfeature structure and an pigmentation variation across Manacus species and populations
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 24/06/2024
Virtual Office Hour - Biodiversity on a Changing Planet, July 8 at noon! debblog.nsfbio.com/2024/06/24/u...
National Science Foundation Logo
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 20/04/2024
Double rainbow over the sky
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 12/04/2024
Now with pretty formatting and all! Neurogenomic landscape associated with status-dependent cooperative behaviour onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/KJWGDT...
Figure 1 from the paper showing behavioral and hormonal differences between territorial and floater male manakins, sampled tissues and PCA of gene expression
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 21/03/2024
Peri did a phenomenal job sorting out this complex data. Her work led us to some real systems-level findings a well, like this regulatory network, differentially expressed across brain tissues, in association with social status. Thanks also to uber constructive review at Molecular Ecology (5/n)
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 21/03/2024
But we also saw plenty of unexpected things, like this lower level of prolactin in the pituitary of more social birds (4/n)
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 21/03/2024
For these field-sampled birds, we saw some amazingly strong(but expected) like this one, between androgen receptor expression and mean testosterone (3/n)
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 21/03/2024
We sampled territorial and "floater" males in the field, throughout different parts of the brain, and examined relationships with testosterone, social status and cooperative behavior (2/n)
The extent to which different tissues show similar gene expression responses to cooperative behavior.
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 21/03/2024
Really excited to have this paper out! "Neurogenomic landscape associated with status-dependent cooperative behaviour", led by former postdoc Peri Bolton. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... (1/n)
Coordinated display of wire-tailed manakins
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 14/02/2024
Hey Folks, I would like to call your attention to this series of Town Halls themes around the "bioeconomy". In my opinion, it is particularly critical ecology/evolution/biodiversity-minded folks contribute their broad perspectives here and participate! www.casa-bio.net
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 12/02/2024
Join us today at 1 PM to hear about "Opportunities for freshwater and marine environmental research" (demystifying the somewhat confusing NSF rules!) debblog.nsfbio.com/office-hours/
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 01/02/2024
I'd like to call your attention to the CIVIC program at NSF. This year, for the first time, the BIO Directorate is partnering in part due to the "Climate and Environmental Instability - Building Resilient Communities through Co-Design, Adaption, and Mitigation" track. new.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 01/02/2024
Hmmm, don't think I could have asked for much more than this in a review of our forthcoming book. "Puns, Pranks and Puerile Humor: Silly Stories about Serious Science" www.scientificamerican.com/article/puns...
How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi book cover
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 12/01/2024
Dear Colleague Letter encouraging Proposals on Neurobiology in Changing Ecosystems (NiCE) iosblog.nsfbio.com/2024/01/12/a... [don't know what a DCL is, ask me!]
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 05/01/2024
Hey everyone! I'm not at #SICB2024 but I am always here to answer your National Science Foundation questions. Hit me up! Also there are healthy number of Program Officers at the meeting so hit them up too at the NSF booth! Sad to be missing all the cool science!
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 11/12/2023
Hey everyone! Please join us today for our monthly "Virtual Office Hours". We'll introduce you to the newest Directorate, Technology, Innovation & Partnerships, and answer questions you might have about connections between BIO and TIP! nsf.zoomgov.com/webinar/regi...
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Chris Balakrishnan @evolutionpirate.bsky.social · 21/09/2023
The @amornith.bsky.social (American #Ornithological Society) is hosting a seminar on Avian Chemosensation Check it out! aos.informz.net/informzdatas...
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