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Leeban Yusuf

@leebanhy.bsky.social
897 followers 848 following 23 posts

Evolutionary biologist. Sanger Excellence Postdoctoral Fellow. Interested in speciation, host-parasite evolution and viviparity. He/him. First gen. 🌈

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Reposted by Leeban Yusuf
KamilSJaron.bsky.social @kamilsjaron.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I am so excited to see this preprint out. I started working on springtails with @laurarossevo.bsky.social in 2019, but this pinnacle of our efforts manifested only with heroric leadership of Sam Ebdon! So, what's the deal? 👇
Globular springtail Allacma fusca. Female, one of the samples in the linked preprint.
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Leeban Yusuf @leebanhy.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Excited to share that I've just started a postdoctoral fellowship at the Sanger Institute working on recombination evolution in butterflies and moths in @joanameier.bsky.social's group 🤩🦋
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Renjie Zhang @renjiezhang.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Congrats Jack!! 🦗🧬 So excited to see this one out—fantastic work! This work investigates how cricket populations have adapted at the genomic level following the introduction of the parasitoid fly and show how this novel selective pressure has shaped both population structure and genetic variation.
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Leeban Yusuf @leebanhy.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Working with minimal genomic samples from two species? I’ve put together DemogFit, a small R package for fitting IM models and estimating gene flow parameters from a single whole-genome sample per species, plus a Snakemake pipeline to generate the input files. github.com/LeebanY/Demo...
github.com
GitHub - LeebanY/DemogFit: Have minimal genomic samples from two species and want to infer their demographic history? DemogFit is an R package for fitting four simple likelihood-based demographic mode...
Have minimal genomic samples from two species and want to infer their demographic history? DemogFit is an R package for fitting four simple likelihood-based demographic models using the distributio...
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Giorgio Gilestro @giorgio.gilest.ro · 16/08/2026
Four claims about Jason Arday spread like wildfire in the days around his death: that he was unqualified, that he plagiarised his thesis, that he was hired as a poster boy, that he lied his way to the top. All four are checkable, so I checked them. giorgio.gilest.ro/four-lies-ar...
giorgio.gilest.ro
Four lies about Jason Arday that spread too easily – la bottega
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Martin Garlovsky @martingarlovsky.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Very happy to see our paper just published in @molbioevol.bsky.social highlighted: academic.oup.com/mbe/article/... Probably my favourite paper to be a part of and really fun working with some great people! Bedbugs are very gross but also very cool! Paper here: academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...
academic.oup.com
Highlight: Traumatic insemination and the molecular evolution of a novel reproductive organ in bed bugs
Sex can be complicated—just ask bed bugs. The bane of many conference goers, these blood-feeding parasitic insects mate via traumatic insemination, a repro
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Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺 @katherineschof8.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
This is hands down the best opinion piece you will read on the Arday case. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
The takedown of Jason Arday has overjoyed the right, and must be a wake-up call for the left | Jason Okundaye
The Cambridge academic has rightly now resigned. But that won’t end the targeting of senior black figures or the lazy way institutions promote faux equality, says Guardian columnist Jason Okundaye
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PLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · 06/08/2026
#Scientific papers are written to mask the human in the process, by design. This Perspective by @prof-tregoning.bsky.social invites us to consider the structure of the paper, and the need to celebrate the human in an age when #AI threatens to overwhelm us. 🧪 #AcademicSky plos.io/4xn4OlZ
Title and byline of the piece. Title: Is the scientific paper still a fraud? Author: John S Tregoning, Department of Infectious Disease, Imperial College, London, UK
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Henry Arenas-Castro @henryarenas.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
"How two hybridizing monkeyflowers resist phenotypic homogenization" I'm very happy to share this. We would really appreciate your feedback!
Slide with the title and authors list of a manuscript along with illustrations of the monkeyflowers Mimulus guttatus (left) and Mimulus glaucescens (right). In the background, a Manhattan plot with outlier loci and QTL locations.
Title: Maintenance of phenotypic divergence in two sympatric monkeyflowers with weak reproductive isolation
Authors: Henry Arenas-Castro, Cage Cochran, Quinn Evans, Hongfei Chen, Jenn M. Coughlan
Manuscript: bioRxiv, 10.64898/2026.07.28.741377
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Alex Mackintosh @thymelicus.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
New preprint on the effect of ancient admixture / structure on genealogical trees. I introduce a new way of summarising reconstructed genealogies that captures a clear signal of ancient gene flow into the ancestors of modern humans. Feedback welcome!
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Sam England @samjakeengland.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Incredibly honoured (and nervous) to have been awarded the Young Investigator Award from @neuroethology.org at this year's ICN in Vancouver - thank you so much to Daniel Robert and @laurensr.bsky.social for supporting my application, the society for the award and grant, and the lovely audience! 🥳
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Jun Ishigohoka @junishigohoka.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
New paper out in Phil. Trans. B! We set out to understand how seasonal migration evolves by combining a common garden experiment and scATAC-seq of the hypothalamus in ancestral migratory and derived resident populations of the Eurasian blackcap. 1/n
doi.org
Differential epigenetic regulation underlies evolutionary transition of seasonal migration
Abstract. Seasonal migratory animals can evolve residency through adaptation. The threshold model of quantitative genetics predicts that residency evolves
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Jan Štefka @jstefka.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Great story on the origins of co-evolutionary adaptations.
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Leeban Yusuf @leebanhy.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
How do coevolutionary interactions begin in nature, and what are the first steps of reciprocal adaptation? Our preprint investigates these questions in a natural experiment: an introduced cricket (T. oceanicus) and its acoustically hunting parasitoid (O. ochracea) in Hawaii. shorturl.at/7llsA 1/n
shorturl.at
Ecological genomics of a novel host-parasitoid arms-race in nature
Novel antagonistic interactions between species are expected to drive especially rapid coevolution. However, little is known about the genomic basis of such coevolution in nature because novel inter-s...
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Faye Dunaway With A Gun |🏳️‍⚧️|🏳️‍🌈| @electradescending.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
And it's not only Francesca the sanctions are hitting, they are also hitting her husband and kid. They have un-personed a whole family so they cannot exist in society because she dared to say that there is a genocide and that Palestinians are human beings.
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Jessica Foley @jessicafoley14.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Very excited to finally have this out in the world! The first paper from my PhD (and my first first-author publication) makes the case for a new entrant to the world of long-lived animal models: Heliconius butterflies. Out now in @natcomms.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41... (1/10)
nature.com
Evolution of increased longevity and slowed ageing in a genus of tropical butterfly - Nature Communications
Studying long-lived species across the animal kingdom could provide insights into healthy ageing in humans. This study reveals long lifespans and slowed ageing in Heliconius butterflies, identifying t...
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Benito Wainwright @benitoexplains.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Leaf-mimicking katydids don’t just use their funky camouflage to survive, they’re using it to find love too! 🥰🍃💘 New paper out now in #ProcB @royalsocietypublishing.org (Photo cred: Christian Ziegler): doi.org/10.1098/rspb... 1/n
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Susan Johnston @susanjohnston.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
📣🧬 Postdoc Alert🧬📣 We are hiring a 2+ year NERC-funded postdoc at Edinburgh Uni investigating causes and consequences of sex differences in recombination in house sparrows in Norway. Informal enquiries welcome at Susan.Johnston@ed.ac.uk 🙂 Details here: elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
A female and male sparrow stand on a wooden post. Photo by Peter S. Ranke.
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Martin Garlovsky @martingarlovsky.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Have you ever lifted the covers to find a bedbug and thought: COOL! I thought not, but hopefully I can change your mind. 🧵 (1/8)
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Benito Wainwright @benitoexplains.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
Introducing the campest katydid of all time. 🦄💅🏽👸💞 Why would this animal (Arota festae) have evolved this way, other than to look utterly fabulous? We have unleashed some (slightly whacky) thoughts, now out in @esajournals.bsky.social. Photo credit: @zekerowe.bsky.social doi.org/10.1002/ecy.... 1/n
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Ecology of Animal Societies @livingingroups.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
3-year Independent Post-doc in Animal Behavior based at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama! Three positions, each including salary & a research budget. Applications due April, 15th. DM if you are interesting in developing a project with us! stri.si.edu/academic-pro...
stri.si.edu
3 Year Postdoctoral Fellowships in Animal Behavior
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Tom Green (they/he) @animalsexpert.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
Booty bumping is officially a scientific term!!!! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
Multispecies analysis of social effects on same-sex sexual behavior challenges mistaken identity hypotheses in insects | PNAS
Same-sex sexual behavior (SSB) in insects has historically been considered a byproduct of sex recognition failure, or “mistaken identity,” and cons...
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Journal of Thermal Biology @thermal-biology.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
🌡️How might an increase in extreme thermal events with climate change impact the reproductive success of ectotherms? 🪲 @jakobwiil.bsky.social and @nataliepilakouta.bsky.social show that beetle larvae exposed to a heatwave suffered a reduction in survival to adulthood. 📖 doi.org/10.1016/j.jt...
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Dr Robert Bohan @robertbohan.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
Quelle surprise, as these say in the Old Bailey! UK ban on Palestine Action unlawful, high court rules. Protest group’s co-founder wins legal challenge against decision to proscribe it under anti-terrorism laws Sir Keir Stormfront’s censorship of protest is struck down. Protest is a human right.
theguardian.com
UK ban on Palestine Action unlawful, high court judges rule
Protest group’s co-founder wins legal challenge against decision to proscribe it under anti-terrorism laws
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Leeban Yusuf @leebanhy.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
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]
doi.org
Genomic analyses in Drosophila do not support the classic allopatric model of speciation
Abstract. The allopatric model of speciation has dominated our understanding of speciation biology and biogeography since the Modern Synthesis. It is uncon
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bioRxiv Ecology @biorxiv-ecology.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
Different transcriptional responses to developmental versus short-term acclimation temperatures in Pieris rapae www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
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Darren Obbard @darrenobbard.bsky.social · 30/12/2025
Hi everyone! Please re-post: I want to highlight the amazing work of @queendroso.bsky.social and a newly formed NGO called the "Blossom STEM Education Initiative (BloSTEMEI)", which aims to support #STEM #Education, #Mentorship, innovation, and research-driven #ScienceOutreach across Africa ..
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Benito Wainwright @benitoexplains.bsky.social · 29/11/2025
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...
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Kalyani Twyman @kztwyman.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Happy to share that our paper ‘a formal theory of group-level adaptation for obligate eusociality’ (with @andygardner.bsky.social) is now out in @jevbio.bsky.social advances. doi.org/10.1093/jeb/... #OpenAccess #Eusociality #GroupAdaptation #FormalDarwinism
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Benito Wainwright @benitoexplains.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
Leaf? 🍃 Or katydid? 🦗 Our new @plosbiology.org paper sheds light on how these incredible mimics evolved their disguises, and what this reveals about how complex adaptations arise. We find that coordinated evolution between traits might be the answer… plos.io/4oUE741 1/n
plos.io
Functional and evolutionary synergy of trait components can explain the existence of leaf masquerade in katydids
The evolution of complex adaptations often involves synergistic changes in multiple traits that lack standalone function. This study shows that leaf masquerade in katydids evolved through concurrent m...
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Aurora Ruiz-Herrera @aruizherrera.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
www.cell.com/current-biol...
cell.com
Constraints on chromosome evolution revealed by the 229 chromosome pairs of the Atlas blue butterfly
The genome of the Atlas blue butterfly contains ten times more chromosomes than most butterflies, and more than any other known diploid animal. Wright et al. show that this extraordinary karyotype is ...
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Jack Rayner @jackrayner.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
We have a preprint out for our study testing conditions/signatures of repeated adaptation in multiple wild cricket populations. Feedback welcome! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
Genomic signatures of local adaptation across parasitised cricket populations
Host-parasite interactions are predicted to exhibit geographic heterogeneity, creating the opportunity for local adaptation. This is difficult to detect because it requires knowledge of selection pres...
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bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
Genomic signatures of local adaptation across parasitised cricket populations www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
BBC International Editor Jeremy Bowen has confirmed that the entire Al Jazeera team in Gaza City has been killed.
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Henry North @henrylnorth.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
Fantastic paper from an amazing team: Genomics of Neotropical biodiversity indicators: Two butterfly radiations with rampant chromosomal rearrangements and hybridization www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
Genomics of Neotropical biodiversity indicators: Two butterfly radiations with rampant chromosomal rearrangements and hybridization | PNAS
A central question in evolutionary biology is what drives the diversification of lineages. Rapid, recent radiations are ideal systems for this ques...
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Kalyani Twyman @kztwyman.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
Really happy to share this article I'm grateful to have been a part of: 'Impediments to countering racist pseudoscience' coauthored with @kevinlala.bsky.social, @gillianrbrown1.bsky.social and Marcus Feldman. Check out a preprint here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #ScientificRacism #Antiracism
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Benito Wainwright @benitoexplains.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
So very excited for the magnum opus of my #PhD to finally be out in @pnas.org. 🎉🎉 We demosntrate that mutualistic co-mimicking tropical butterflies not only converge in light microhabitat but, as a consequence, have also converged in visual system morphology! 1/n😀 www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
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Kalyani Twyman @kztwyman.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Now all typeset and pretty! A little summary:
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Leeban Yusuf @leebanhy.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
Excited to see our most recent MS finally out in the world. We used F1 female hybrids (of two behaviourally-isolated cricket species) to show that broad gene expression divergence in the brain underpins context-dependent divergence of female response to male sexual signals.
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Martin Garlovsky @martingarlovsky.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
Just out in @journal-evo.bsky.social: "Testing for age- and sex- specific mitonuclear epistasis in Drosophila" academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...
academic.oup.com
Testing for age- and sex- specific mitonuclear epistasis in Drosophila
Abstract. The need for efficient ATP production is predicted to result in the evolution of cooperation between the mitochondrial and nuclear encoded compon
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Kalyani Twyman @kztwyman.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
Very excited to share that our paper, ‘The clonality window: relatedness and the group covariance effect in the evolution of division of labour’, is out now in @journal-evo.bsky.social advances. With @andygardner.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/evol... #OpenAccess #Evolution #Multicellularity
doi.org
The clonality window: relatedness and the group covariance effect in the evolution of division of labour
Abstract. Cellular division of labour is closely associated with the emergence of organismality in the evolution of obligate multicellularity. Michod has s
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Benito Wainwright @benitoexplains.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
This was such a fun start to my @royalcom1851.bsky.social fellowship and involved plenty of stimulating discussions with Nathan Bailey and Graeme Ruxton. Also huge thanks to summer intern Lotte Rolfe for her militarian target checking efforts. Looking forward to the reviewer comments. 9/n
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Benito Wainwright @benitoexplains.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
Together, these results show how synergy between trait components (ie colour and shape) can facilitate the evolution of complex adaptations such as masquerade, adding to existing mechanisms of composite trait evolution in other systems. 8/n
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Benito Wainwright @benitoexplains.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
But most interestingly of all, we not only found an evolutionary association between colour and shape, but phylogenetic pathway analyses also indicate that these traits were acquired simultaneously during the evolution of leaf masquerade. 7/n
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Benito Wainwright @benitoexplains.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
For these analyses, I managed to reach the pinnacle of scientific endeavour... I designed an online survey. Interestingly, when controlling for phylogeny, interactions between colouration and shape also seem to influence human perceptions of "leafiness" (see ms for details). 6/n
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Benito Wainwright @benitoexplains.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
So, how did leaf masquerade and its component traits evolve? To explore this, we conduted morphological comparative analyses of 51 katydid species from BCI, Panama where multiple elaboratons and reductions in "leafiness" have taken place across the tree (this is crying out for a pun...). 5/n
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Benito Wainwright @benitoexplains.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
The result was very simple: colour and shape synergistically interact to improve masquerade, confirming it is a composite trait. IE. Prey must be the correct colour (green) AND the correct shape (leaf-shaped) if they stand a chance at outfoxing their predators.... 4/n
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Benito Wainwright @benitoexplains.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
The origin of complex composite adaptations has been an evolutionary biological puzzle for centuries. Leaf masquerade is one of the most spectcular examples (yes, ok, I'm biased) and lends itself nicely to both experimental and comparative study... (Photo cred: Hannah ter Hofstede) 2/n
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