New King lab paper @currentbiology.bsky.social led by the brilliant @luismsilva.bsky.social on parasite shedders and spreaders: www.cell.com/current-biol...

Transmission heterogeneity emerges from uncoupled parasite shedding and spreading

Silva et al. show that disease transmission emerges from multiple ecological bottlenecks rather than a single host trait. Separating parasite shedding from downstream infection success reveals why hos...

cell.com

New paper out in @currentbiology.bsky.social ! 🎉 Who drives disease transmission? The answer seems obvious: measure who releases or disperses the most parasites. But after dissecting transmission step by step, we found that’s often not the case. 👇 🧵 #EvoSky #IDSky www.cell.com/current-biol...

Transmission heterogeneity emerges from uncoupled parasite shedding and spreading

Silva et al. show that disease transmission emerges from multiple ecological bottlenecks rather than a single host trait. Separating parasite shedding from downstream infection success reveals why hos...

cell.com

What can we learn from disruptions of seasonal patterns of disease during the pandemic? A new paper by @michaelsieber.bsky.social in PLOS Global Public Health, journals.plos.org/globalpublic..., was featured in the German news such as @zeit.de or @spiegel.de - and may be of interest also here. 1/3

Shifts in seasonal timing of respiratory diseases and causes of death following a natural pandemic event

Seasonal respiratory infections typically surge within a limited time window, but what determines the exact timing within a given year is not well understood. Major causes of death show a similar seas...

journals.plos.org

Avocados come in 2 varieties - A-types start each day female and switch to male midday. B-types do the reverse. In work just published from the last chapter of my PhD, we show this system evolved 40+million yrs ago and is regulated by alleles of 1 transcription factor www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Balanced polymorphism in a floral transcription factor underlies the ancient rhythm of daily sex alternation in avocado | PNAS

In avocado and certain wild relatives in Lauraceae, a highly synchronized daily rhythm of floral sex timing promotes cross-pollination between two ...

pnas.org

1/🧵 Excited to finally share my latest paper (and my first solo paper)! 🎉 Pathogens evolve. Hosts respond. But does pathogen evolution simply change the magnitude of the host response, or does it reshape which host programmes are activated? 🤔 👇 doi.org/10.1038/s420... #Anopheles #EvoSky

Our scoping review "Emerging frontiers in infectious disease modelling: reassessing the data-driven feedback loop between human behaviour and disease dynamics" is out now! From a group of epidemiologists, behavioural scientists, & mathematicians. royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...

Emerging frontiers in infectious disease modelling: reassessing the data-driven feedback loop between human behaviour and disease dynamics

Abstract. Mathematical models have produced important insights into the relationships between disease transmission, risk perception, and human behaviour. H

royalsocietypublishing.org

Have ideas for your own, independent research program in Theoretical Biology? Then come and join us as a Group Leader at the @mpi-evolbio.bsky.social in Plön, Germany!

Group Leader in Theoretical Biology (m/f/d)

Experience in Theoretical Biology, Applied Mathematics, Theoretical Physics

mpg.de

A new primer in @microbiologysociety.org on epidemic exponential growth with @bnashby.bsky.social @chadisaadroy.bsky.social and Dan Coombs: www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour... Fun collaboration!

Microbial Primer: Understanding the exponential growth of epidemics

Microbiology Society journals contain high-quality research papers and topical review articles. We are a not-for-profit publisher and we support and invest in the microbiology community, to the benefi...

microbiologyresearch.org

I'm very excited to share this preprint led by @sorenlouislarsen.bsky.social and Chloe Yand, and made possible by the collaboration with my friend and colleague @ayesha-mahmud.bsky.social. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

Same household, different choices: variation in health behaviors related to respiratory viruses in Illinois

While SARS-CoV-2 and influenza continue to place a significant burden on population health, within-household differences in decisions towards vaccination and seeking care across these two pathogens, a...

medrxiv.org

Excited to share our new preprint on noise and determinism in Trinidadian guppy population dynamics! Thanks to all collaborators: Ron, Joe, Arshed, Dave & Simon. We develop a framework for quantifying how stochasticity alters equilibrium structure, stability and vulnerability to perturbations. 1/5

Arshed Nabeel@arshed.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Our new preprint on the stochastic population dynamics of Trinidadian guppies is out! Proud to have been part of this collaboration, led by @harmanjaggi.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Paper is now published in @journal-evo.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1093/evol...

Ben Ashby@bnashby.bsky.social · 5mo ago

New preprint with an awesome former undergraduate student (Alyssa Anderson) on guarding and self-guarding mechanisms in innate immunity: doi.org/10.64898/202... (1/2)

Thermal variability alone promotes adaptation but competition can restrict evolutionary responses in viral parasites By @kayla-king.bsky.social @craigmaclean.bsky.social and others not on Bsky. doi.org/10.1093/evle...

Competition constrains parasite adaptation to thermal heterogeneity

Abstract. Temporal thermal heterogeneity is expected to favour intermediate, generalist phenotypes that can maintain growth across a broad thermal range bu

doi.org

We're recruiting! We're looking for two graduate students to join us at UBC in Vancouver. Fully funded and open to global applicants, with flexible start-date. Topics include theory, bioinformatics, and microbiology. More details: asherleeks.com/apply #socialviruses #evosky #virosky 🧪

Excited to share our new paper out today in @natcomms.nature.com Combining multiplex serology, mathematical modelling, and experimental validation reveals arbovirus transmission dynamics despite cross-reactivity. (1/2)

Investigating antibody cross-reactivity and transmission dynamics of alphaviruses and flaviviruses using a multiplex serological assay - Nature Communications

Arboviruses often co-circulate, but cross-reactivity hampers serological diagnostics. Here, the authors paired multiplex serology with competitive immunoassays and Bayesian modelling to quantify antib...

nature.com

The Social Lives of Viruses is coming to Vancouver, Canada, from 4th-8th August 2026! This is a free meeting dedicated to all aspects of virus-virus interactions & evolution. To apply: socialviruses.zoology.ubc.ca @sociovirology.bsky.social #socialviruses #evosky #lovevirology #virosky

Honoured to have been involved in this collaboration, led by the dream team of Kylee Hoffman and @ayesha-mahmud.bsky.social

Waggoner Lab@labwaggoner.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Childhood exposure to different influenza strains shapes the age-profile of seasonal influenza mortality www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social

This pre-printed article discusses insect oviposition as a tractable, mechanistically grounded model for behavioural immunity, linking individual egg-laying decisions to population level disease dynamics. 🪰🦠 doi.org/10.32942/X2W...

I am happy to share this new preprint with Yuxuan Zhao, Kaisheng Zhu, and Yefei Zhang on Pattern Formation in a Spatial Public Goods Dilemma due to Diffusive or Directed Motion. arxiv.org/abs/2603.21025

Pattern Formation in a Spatial Public Goods Dilemma due to Diffusive or Directed Motion

The costly provision of public goods serves as a model problem for the evolution of cooperative behavior, presenting a social dilemma between the collective benefits of shared resources and the indivi...

arxiv.org

For the MMEE 2026 in Cork www.ucc.ie/en/matsci/ev... note the updated deadline! Submission of talks and poster presentations: March 30th, 2026.

Mathematical Models in Ecology and Evolution | University College Cork

Learn, Study and Research in UCC, Ireland's first 5 star university. Our tradition of independent thinking will prepare you for the world and the workplace in a vibrant, modern, green campus.

ucc.ie

Had fun talking with @websedgescience.bsky.social at the #APSSummit26 on how physics & math can explain fashion cycles! @aps-dsnp.bsky.social @stevenstrogatz.com

WebsEdge Science@websedgescience.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Mini skirts are back & according to physics...that might not be a coincidence. At #APSSummit26 @mathemmatician.bsky.social is bringing mathematical models to the runway of human behavior – because the laws of physics can apply to wardrobes AND particles. @apsphysics.bsky.social‬ youtu.be/lCpLFC7TMDA

The need to preserve animal culture in conservation efforts. 🪶 Gift link.

How to Bring a Bird’s Song Back From the Edge of Extinction

nytimes.com

A nice collaboration from post-docs in my lab 😊 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... @jingdi.bsky.social @luismsilva.bsky.social @paradyseb.bsky.social @molecularecolup.bsky.social

Integrating the Microbiome Into Infection Ecology and Evolution in Wild Animals

Parasites are a ubiquitous force in nature threatening wildlife populations and ecosystems. Interactions between hosts and their parasites are impacted by host-associated microbiomes, which are essen...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Very excited to share our latest article in Trends in Microbiology, with @ninan-abraham.bsky.social, @chilbe.bsky.social, @ayesha-mahmud.bsky.social, and Arne Traulsen! We highlight the importance of disentangling these interactions and suggest potential paths forwards

Trends in Microbiology@cp-trendsmicrobiol.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Interactions between immuno-epidemiology and individual decision-making for nonpharmaceutical interventions

Kea! 🪶

Dont miss the ESPIDAM summer program in June 2026 in Stockholm, covering many key concepts for ID modelling: stochastic models, AI for ID control, nowcasting and forecasting, phylodynamics, data analysis, network models, within-host models, health economics www.statistics.su.se/english/divi...

Happy to share our new paper in PLOS Biology journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... Showed that population bottlenecks don't uniformly drive “cooperation” but rather selectively shape which cooperative traits evolve #evolution #ecology #microbiology @vishuguttal.bsky.social @iamsamayp.bsky.social

Bottleneck size drives the evolution of cooperative traits in an aggregative multicellular myxobacterium

Population bottlenecks shape the evolution of cooperative traits in Myxococcus xanthus through life cycle trade-offs. This study shows that stringent bottlenecks favor growth and sporulation, while re...

journals.plos.org

Looking for a faculty job at one of the world's great research stations? We're looking for a marine invertebrate biologist at UW's Friday Harbor Labs. apply.interfolio.com/178804

Recently had the chance to hear @carlbergstrom.com on information foraging in the current space of LLMs. He and @jevinwest.bsky.social have crafted a course that touches various facets of LLMs. Just finished reading through its 18 modules. Absolutely loved it! thebullshitmachines.com

Modern-Day Oracles or Bullshit Machines: Introduction

A free online humanities course about how to learn and work and thrive in an AI world.

thebullshitmachines.com

Its very exciting to see this paper out in @behavecol.bsky.social. These conversations, expertly led by @delphinedemoor.bsky.social, have really shaped how I now think about working with social network data. Check out Delphine's thread to learn more!

Delphine De Moor@delphinedemoor.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Excited to introduce the Latent Layers Framework – now out in @behavecol.bsky.social – to help think through when and why network differences confound inference in (comparative) social network analysis! 🧵 tinyurl.com/3k3yahwy

Super excited that the bulk of my PhD work is now preprinted! Here we used whole-community competition, or coalescence, experiments to quantify selection acting on genetically diverged strains within larger communities. (1/n) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...