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Daohan "Rex" Jiang

@rexjiang.bsky.social
1.4K followers 777 following 437 posts

Evolutionary biologist. Postdoc @oistedu.bsky.social. Evolutionary theories, complex traits, macroevolution. Views are my own. Website: rexjiang385518549.wordpress.com iNaturalist: www.inaturalist.org/people/rexjiang

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Reposted by Daohan "Rex" Jiang
iNaturalist @inaturalist.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Psst, if you'd like to bring people together around iNaturalist where you live, the Ambassador sign-up form reopens on October 1: www.inaturalist.org/pages/ambass...
Every iNat Together event was hosted by an iNaturalist Ambassador — thank you! If you want to bring people together through iNaturalist where you live, you can sign up to be an iNaturalist Ambassador starting October 1, 2026.
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The sign is from before Gorgosaurus was a separate genus, apparently?
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Please vote, if do have the right to!
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Reposted by Daohan "Rex" Jiang
Per Ahlberg @perahlberg.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
It’s horrendous, I see this in my own postdocs and it’s heartwrenching to not be able to help. Especially when someone embeds really happily in the team: all they want to do is stay, all I want to do is keep them, but I can’t. It feels like evicting a family member.
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I just learned that this broken bridge I saw while walking around is a war memorial. The bridge named Akabashi (lit. Red Bridge) was destroyed in the Battle of Okinawa of WW2, by a teenager guerrilla squad to stop the US military.
The remain of a destroyed bridge in a river mouth area. Plants grow on it. Beside the broken bridge is a functional bridge.The remain of a destroyed bridge in a river mouth area. Plants grow on it. Beside the broken bridge is a functional bridge.
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Happy birthday! It’s a nice day to have as birthday 🎂
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
So this department is generally willing to support faculties who date students... It's frightening to think that it may be based on real departments that do reason like that😩
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The question is kinda misleading though since the “major” component of the exhibition isn’t North American lol
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Freshly observed swimming #crab 🦀 molts. Both Portunus pelagicus I think. #iNatTogether
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
“lifelong conservative Republican” seems like a magical phrase that resolves all the paradoxes and absurdity in the rest of the text lol
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
"He has allegedly been released from the hospital and is in ICE custody at an unknown location, his lawyer's office said." abcnews.com/US/man-hospi...
abcnews.com
ICE officer shoots and injures DoorDash delivery driver in Austin: Police
A man was shot and injured in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement incident in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, according to officials.
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
The cover image is a saltwater crocodile known as "Scarface", whose observations already span >20 years. He's toothless but nonetheless dominates an area of Lower Daintree, Australia. www.inaturalist.org/observations...
inaturalist.org
Saltwater Crocodile (Crocodylus porosus)
Saltwater Crocodile from Lower Daintree QLD 4873, Australia on July 9, 2026 at 05:24 PM by David White. This is the reference photo for a continuous record by year of the one individual croc . This i...
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I suppose there are individuals of other species (especially American #alligator) that are known by people and repeatedly observed, but I don't personally have enough expertise to find them out. I'm looking forward to more people coming and filling the gap.
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
At the time of #iNatTogether, I'd also like to promote another project I'm managing: www.inaturalist.org/projects/ide... This project started a while ago and documents identifiable crocodilian 🐊 individuals. So far we've had >800 observations, mostly of saltwater #crocodile and Nile #crocodile.
inaturalist.org
Identifiable Crocodilian Individuals
This project is for observations of identifiable crocodilian individuals.
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
The observation: www.inaturalist.org/observations... Observed today in #Okinawa, Japan.
inaturalist.org
Common Mormon Swallowtail (Papilio polytes)
Common Mormon Swallowtail from Onna, Onna, Okinawa, JP on September 20, 2026 at 02:12 PM by Rex Jiang
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
A pair of Papilio polytes 🦋. One landing on a beggartick flower, the other hanging behind. They kept flying together before disappearing from my sight. Apparently a courting pair? A newest observation of mine just featured in the #iNatTogether project👇 #butterfly
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Reposted by Daohan "Rex" Jiang
iNaturalist @inaturalist.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Time to get outside & touch some grass! #iNatTogether has officially started. 😎 👀 If you want to meet new people to explore nature with, find an iNat Together event near you, hosted by some of our incredible iNaturalist Ambassadors: www.inaturalist.org/pages/inatto...
A moth sits on top of a frog with the caption iNat Together: September 18-28, 2026. Find your nature friends and get outside! A small speech bubble next to the frog says "you don't have to go far, just together!"
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
New work from my former labmate Mark Kim on the origin of multicellularity. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Unicellular and Multicellular Modes of Selection Impose Distinct Constraints on Cellular Phenotype Evolution
Single-cell sequencing data have revealed that cellular phenotypes, such as gene expression states, are often low-dimensional, suggesting that cellular variation may arise from combinations of a small...
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Reposted by Daohan "Rex" Jiang
Harmit Singh Malik @harmitmalik.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Most excellent summary of the only coherent science policy from current administration
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
A cute #Okitsura collab seen at @oistedu.bsky.social
A leaflet about safety during diving in Okinawa, featuring characters from the manga and anime series Okitsura.
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
In some way they did (almost) exist 😂 (albeit small and not particularly good flyers)
Fossil of a small theropod dinosaur named Ambopteryx longibrachium. Behind the fossil is the issue of Nature where the paper describing the species was published. The cover features a reconstruction of the dinosaur with bat-like membrane wings.
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
A windy day. Suddenly felt like seeing waves striking rocks and entered Manzamo. The brutality of nature weirdly let me feel a bit relief this time.
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
They can be stealthy and hard to find though
A box crab dwelling in intertidal shadow water. Its color closely resembles the surrounding environment.
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
When I was a kid, I used to wonder why Greenland is soooo huge yet called an island rather than continent 😂
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Such pleiotropy is the basis of the "cost of complexity" Orr discussed (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...). In this sense traits don't mutate quite "independently" I suppose?
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
ADAPTATION AND THE COST OF COMPLEXITY
Abstract.— Adaptation is characterized by the movement of a population toward a many-character optimum, movement that results in an increase in fitness. Here I calculate the rate at which fitness inc...
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Regarding (ii) though, my understanding of FGM's assumption is that mutations are universally pleiotropic (every mutation affects eery trait) but their effects on different traits are by default uncorrelated...
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Is he speaking English?😩
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Because the first package was lost on the way, it took me a while to finally get my hands on @stevebrusatte.bsky.social’s book, which was received today…
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
More hermit crab congregation…(Coenobita purpureus, I believe?)
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
The 14yo female named Lynn was born in this aquarium. Her parents were caught in Iceland. Her father died in 2014 in his early 30s.
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
An #orca 🫍at the Port of #Nagoya Public Aquarium regurgitating food (fish). She didn’t do so in an obviously repetitive manner though. #whale #dolphin
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
USC postdocs unionized when I was there. We witnessed how PhD students got treated significantly better upon unionization. We saw anti-union misinformation sent from USC admin. We concluded that we need unionization.
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Reposted by Daohan "Rex" Jiang
Zen Faulkes @doctorzen.net · 27/08/2026
Past American dominance in science is not due to a few dozen “top scholars.” It’s due to America 🇺🇸 spending ENORMOUSLY more on science than other countries and distributing it widely. Canada 🇨🇦 boasting about attracting “top talent” of a few dozen people is not serious. And not US “brain drain.”
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Reposted by Daohan "Rex" Jiang
Zen Faulkes @doctorzen.net · 27/08/2026
The real American 🇺🇸 “brain drain” isn’t that a few established scholars might get new jobs outside the US, it’s the enormous number of grad students - particularly international grad students - who can’t or won’t study in the US now or in years to come. That’s the body blow.
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Back on a whale shark
An airplane painted to resemble a whale shark.An airplane painted to resemble a whale shark.
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
I simply don’t get the point. Why does it matter whether I’m leading tarantulas? Or any arthropod that either can’t fly or isn’t deadly venomous?
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I wouldn’t have realized had I not seen this reply 😂
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
New paper on the evolution of A-to-I #RNA editing in #fungi with Jiachen Li and George Zhang, now published on MBE. I did some very preliminary analysis near the tail end of my PhD (but didn't continue) and Jiachen had this project fully developed.
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
The Chinese text above “premium quality” says it benefits lung and kidney. I guess they chose not to translate directly because they know not every customer buy this kind of word?
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
A flying whale shark
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Traffic jam on my way to the Naha Airport. The consequence of the way how Americans built #Okinawa, isn’t it?
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
The nest is gone…Apparently removed by humans.
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Please tell me no alligator was hurt during filming…
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Maybe it’s time for the reticulated python to get some fame?
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Evolution is blind and ruthless and has kept producing and allowing awful things 🥲
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
A #nest of #Okinawa mud #wasp (Delta esuriens) I've been observing for ~2 weeks. I saw the wasp working on it and it expanding over time. The last photo was taken today; it survived the most recent #typhoon.
A potter wasp is working on a nest on the wall of a building.A potter wasp nest. The upper left conner has an opening, from which some Lepidoptera larvae can be vaguely seen.A potter wasp nest, sealed and taller than before.A potter wasp nest. It has expanded further along the wall.
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Our symposium will take place on August 20 from 9:00 to 11:00AM. Dr. Jun Kitano @nigidenken.bsky.social, Drs. Naoki Irie and Hiroshi Ito of SOKENDAI, Dr. Lauren Sallan @oistedu.bsky.social will be speaking. You're all welcome to stop by!
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
I am organizing a symposium titled "How microevolutionary mechanisms produce macroevolutionary patterns" for the annual meeting of the Society for Evolutionary Studies, Japan this year. The conference will take place from Aug. 19-22 in #Nagoya. sesj2026.agr.nagoya-u.ac.jp/program_en.h...
sesj2026.agr.nagoya-u.ac.jp
Schedule & Program | The 28th Annual Meeting of the Society for Evolutionary Studies, Japan (Nagoya Meeting 2026)
This is the program page for the 28th Annual Meeting of the Society for Evolutionary Studies, Japan. Information on symposiums, oral presentations, poster sessions, and other program details will be p...
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Daohan "Rex" Jiang @rexjiang.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
A year of typhoons…🌀
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Reposted by Daohan "Rex" Jiang
Joe Brennan @biologyjoe87.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Well deserved award for @katelaskowski.bsky.social ! I am honored to have her as a mentor at UC Davis and to learn from her what it means to produce rigorous and just science 🥳
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