I was happy to play a small part in this study. A rare and ingenious use of a long-lived seabird model from a well-studied population to uncover how mitochondrial function and respiration changes with age and between the sexes. @biologists.bsky.social @biologylu.bsky.social

Matteo Beccardi@matteobeccardi.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Excited to share our new paper out in @jexpbiol.bsky.social! Here, we investigated how sex and age shape mitochondrial function under natural conditions in a long-lived seabird, the Common tern. Read the paper here for more information👇 doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

Dragonflies challenge a long-standing assumption in biology. Across 63 species, @evolodonata.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy found metabolic rate scaled almost in proportion to body size, challenging classic metabolic theory. doi.org/10.1111/ele.... #Biology #Evolution #Metabolism #Odonata

Why fly 4,500km farther than necessary? Jan-Åke Nilsson & colleagues tracked pied flycatchers across Europe & combined geolocators with an egg-translocation experiment. The results show that inherited migration programmes from the Ice Age still shape autumn migration. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Innate factors and ontogeny determine nonbreeding areas of migrant songbirds

Migratory birds connect ecosystems worldwide and often show connectivity between breeding and nonbreeding areas, meaning that individuals have nonbreeding (“wintering”) locations close to others from ...

science.org

Johanna Hedlund (Lund University) and colleagues reviewed 392 papers on Odonata migration, confirming 100 migratory dragonfly and damselfly species and 85 possible migrants, including altitudinal round trips within one lifetime. doi.org/10.1002/brv.... Photo: Johanna Hedlund

Young birds can adapt to heat after hatching, but it may affect growth. Elin Persson’s PhD thesis combines quail lab experiments with heated blue tit nestboxes to show how post-hatch temperature changes thermoregulation. Congratulations, Elin! Summary: www.lunduniversity.lu.se/lup/publicat...

Julia Weber’s PhD thesis shows that legume-rich leys can provide flowers for pollinators despite mowing or grazing. Organic leys offered a more consistent resource, and satellite data helped map where these flowers occur. www.lunduniversity.lu.se/lup/publicat...

Flower-rich road verges can feed bumblebees, but traffic changes the balance. Sofia Blomqvist and colleagues surveyed 60 Scanian verges, counted live and dead bumblebees, and used scent-trained dogs to find nests. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Photo: Kennet Ruona

The baby oil crisis is solved. After @olofhellgren.bsky.social appeal, people donated Johnson’s baby oil gel, enough for about 10 years of fieldwork on malaria-transmitting biting midges in bird nest boxes. Thank you to everyone who helped.

Happy to finally see or phylogenetic comparative study on the macroevolution of steep metabolic allometry in the insect order Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) finally published in Ecology Letters! https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.70399 […] [Original post on ecoevo.social]

In our recent @jexpbiol.bsky.social paper, we test how air temperature during development influences the ontogeny of heat and cold tolerance, using our trusted quail population 🐥🐦 We draw four main conclusions 🧵 shorturl.at/JZpSr

Postnatal temperature triggers predictable thermoregulatory shifts in birds without a trade-off between heat and cold tolerance

Summary: Warm or cold developmental temperatures affect heat and cold tolerance at population levels in Japanese quail; but at individual levels, there was no evidence for a trade-off between toleranc...

shorturl.at

Just published @nordicjbotany.bsky.social! We studied flower color and seed dispersal in Anemone coronaria under climate change. Spoiler: Anemones cannot keep with the pace of climate change. doi.org/10.1002/njb..... Amazing collaboration with TzlilLabin, JinleiZhu and @yuvalsapir.bsky.social

Distribution under climate change of Anemone coronaria: linking flower colour and seed dispersal

Flower colour polymorphism is driven by divergent selection regimes on the colour morphs across time and space. Anemone coronaria, a colour-polymorphic geophyte with red, purple, and white flowers, d...

doi.org

Are you a computational scientist? Within 7 years of your PhD? Come join us at Lund University! We have two new positions as assistant professor! Deadline: 25th of May. The advert is broad, but this is your chance to push computational neuroscience in a fantastic place! lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

I am hiring a PhD student to join our group in Lund, Sweden working on an ERC-funded project to untangle color and polarization vision in some amazing crustaceans – minute water fleas and pugnacious mantis shrimp! Please forward this to promising students. Apply here: lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

This has been a side project for many years, but now our definitions of life study is finally published! www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Birds may be more vulnerable to heatwaves than current data can predict. In a new TREE article, @cyanistesnord.bsky.social & colleagues argue that heat tolerance must be studied across temperature, humidity, life stages & species to identify birds at risk. doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

Larvae of Drosophila enhydrobia live underwater and prey on other insects. Using DNA from a pinned museum specimen, @marcusstensmyr.bsky.social and his colleagues reconstructed the fruit fly's genome and found major losses of smell and taste genes. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Chemosensory evolution in the aquatic predator Drosophila enhydrobia

From the Wunderkammern of Renaissance Europe to the curated vaults of today’s natural history museums, millions of insect specimens have been preserve…

sciencedirect.com

Moonlight shapes life in red-necked nightjars. Anders Hedenström and colleagues used multisensor loggers and GPS to show that foraging, energy saving, migration and reproduction follow the lunar cycle. The article is published in Science Advanced www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Photo: Carlos Camacho

On Palmyra Atoll, restoring Pisonia grandis may require more than removing introduced coconut palms. @ckcornwallis.bsky.social Charlie Cornwallis and colleagues sampled soils on 27 islands and found rare, Pisonia-associated fungi that help sustain the atoll ecosystem. www.cell.com/current-biol...

Olof Hellgren is looking for Johnson’s baby oil gel (chamomile). Used in nest boxes to trap malaria-transmitting midges, its viscosity allows upside-down mounting. Long-term research data require identical methods; the oil can’t be replaced. If you have a bottle, contact olof.hellgren@biol.lu.se

Tracking data show that thrush nightingales are inactive during the day while crossing deserts and fly at night. They rely on energy reserves. @pablomaciastorres.bsky.social et al. quantify diel behaviour across migration using light/activity loggers. royalsocietypublishing.org/rsbl/article...

How fragmentation shapes elephant genomes: 232 genomes across Africa show deep divergence between savanna & forest elephants, but also gene flow and emerging isolation. Led by @patriciachrzan.bsky.social (Univ. of Copenhagen; visiting at Lund). www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Moss metabolomics at scale. In #BRYOMOLECULES, >200 axenic bryophyte cultures enable controlled analyses of intrinsic chemistry. Extracts are profiled using LC-MS and chromatography to map metabolomes. >140 samples analysed. bryomolecules.eu #PlantScience #Biology #LundUniversity

Soot particles don’t affect all animals the same way. Susana Garcia Dominguez shows, using controlled exposures and field data, that air pollution impacts birds & bumblebees through time-dependent effects on immunity, oxidative balance and DNA integrity. 🔗 www.lunduniversity.lu.se/lup/publicat...

Can DNA reveal where someone has been? Eran Elhaik (Lund University) develops AI-based methods combining genetic and microbial data to link people to specific environments, adding a new dimension to forensic analysis. 🔗 www.biologi.lu.se/artikel/ny-d... #Forensics #Genetics #Bioinformatics #AI

New study about insects active in the cold.

Marcus Stensmyr@marcusstensmyr.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Genome of the Abominable Snowfly uncovers the mysteries of cold tolerance in a winter active insect! New cool (literally) paper in @currentbiology.bsky.social from Marco Gallio, @matthewcapek.bsky.social, @tuthill.bsky.social, myself, and fine colleagues! ⛄ 🦟 authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Female resistance, not just mate choice, drives reproductive isolation in Bahamas mosquitofish. In common-garden, no-choice trials, females were more aggressive to males from other populations, reducing fertilisation success and gene flow. link.springer.com/article/10.1... Photo: Brian Langhans

PhD defence: Ashish Ahlawat Using transcriptomics + Raman spectroscopy, fungi grown on cellulose show decomposition strategies form a continuum—not strict white vs brown rot. Nitrogen availability shapes responses. 🔗 www.lunduniversity.lu.se/lup/publicat... Photo: Annabel, Wikimedia Commons

Congrats to Elin Dirlik, who has defended her thesis, Getting It Straight: Dynamic Cue Weighting and Orientation Strategies in Ball-Rolling Dung Beetles. The work shows how dung beetles dynamically integrate cues such as sun position and wind direction to maintain straight-line orientation.

Open position as an Associate Senior Lecturer/Assistant Professor in Molecular Microbiology at the Department of Biology, Lund University. Apply before 28 April 2026. More info & application at lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/... Please share.

After 5 years of developing, a new preprint from the lab - introducing our workflow for comparative insect connectomics, aimed at democratizing connectomics. @erc.europa.eu @lundvision.bsky.social @biologylu.bsky.social Read it here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...