Join Professor Kayla King for the Francis Crick Prize Lecture on 14 October 2026. @kayla-king.bsky.social will explore the rapid evolution of pathogens across the tree of life. She will also reveal what drives evolutionary changes in pathogen virulence: royalsociety.org/science-even...

Come and work with us (the Kokkonuts) as a postdoc! Our research within (theory-evo-eco) is broad; let's say it's implicitly defined by the journal club papers we read. Which is why the application process includes a JC-related task, I hope it'll be a fun one for you! www.evoldir.net/brian/evoldi...

🚨 New paper with @bramvandijk.bsky.social, out now in Genome Biology and Evolution! Why do accessory genes so often hitch a ride on temperate phages? We show that spatial structure alone can tip selection toward a prophage locus over a chromosomal one. doi.org/10.1093/gbe/... 🧵 Two mechanisms:

Viral Lifecycle Dynamics and Spatial Structure Explain Why Accessory Genes Are Associated With Temperate Phages

Abstract. Genes encoding for virulence factors are frequently found on prophages, yet the evolutionary forces driving this association remain unclear. The

doi.org

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

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

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

Ben Ashby@bnashby.bsky.social · 6mo 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)

Today on International Women in Mathematics Day, we celebrate the many women in our department whose research, teaching, mentorship, and leadership continue to shape and strengthen the mathematical community. #WomenInMaths #May12WIM #ubc

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 🧪

PLEASE SHARE. PhD Opportunity with me, Ben Raymond and Jan Engelstaedter and Andrew Letten at University of Queensland. Experimentally testing mechanisms of how temperature may change selection and spread of AMR in E. coli. Coupled with some advanced modelling and sequencing. 🧪🦠 #microsky

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)

Happy International Women’s Day! We are grateful to the incredible women who lead (and have led) the Canadian Society of Ecology and Evolution, & to all the women ecologists & evolutionary biologists across Canada for their important work. You help make our society, country, & planet a better place!

Apart from much else, the naming of this tool defames the guy who said, "The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think".

A super handy database to help support academic society journals and other ethical publishing. academic.oup.com/jeb/article/...

Time to publish responsibly: DAFNEE, a database of academia-friendly journals in ecology and evolutionary biology

Abstract. The current economics of scientific publishing reveal a profound imbalance: academia pays prices far exceeding the actual costs of publication. R

academic.oup.com

I've been thinking a lot about quality vs quantity of publications recently. Like many, I've felt the pressure to publish for various reasons. At times this felt like a conveyor belt, so I've been trying the slow science approach to hopefully enjoy doing science more. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I’m going to halve my publication output. You should consider slow science, too

If we don’t slow down, the research enterprise is going to crash, argues Adrian Barnett.

nature.com

We've got ISSUES. Literally. We scraped >100k special issues & over 1 million articles to bring you a PISS-poor paper. We quantify just how many excess papers are published by guest editors abusing special issues to boost their CVs. How bad is it & what can we do? arxiv.org/abs/2601.07563 A 🧵 1/n

🚨Call for papers🚨 Microbial Evolution: Impacts on Human Health in the society journal Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health Guest Editors: Bob Woods, Silvie Huijben & Camilo Barbosa EIC: me This will be great, please submit and share! academic.oup.com/emph/pages/m...

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

The deadline for applications is Nov 15 - please repost!

Ben Ashby@bnashby.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Join us at SFU for a 2-year Mekler Postdoctoral Fellowship in mathematical biology to work with me and Ailene MacPherson. Apply at www.mathjobs.org/jobs/list/27... by Nov 15.

Super proud of Daniel Kim, whose paper on coevolutionary cycling and the evolution of virulence has just been published in @journal-evo.bsky.social. Daniel was in high school when he did this research and has just started his undergraduate degree @kebleoxford.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1093/evol...

Coevolutionary cycling in allele frequencies and the evolution of virulence

Abstract. Coevolutionary cycling in allele frequencies due to negative frequency-dependent selection—sometimes referred to as Red Queen Dynamics—is a key p

doi.org

So this came online over the weekend: My dive into the "definition" of coevolution is online ahead of publication in @journal-evo.bsky.social! Don’t ask "when is it coevolution?" — ask "how?" doi.org/10.1093/evol...

Don’t ask “when is it coevolution?” — ask “how?”

Abstract. Coevolution has come to be widely understood as specific, simultaneous, reciprocal adaptation by pairs of interacting species. This strict-sense

doi.org

Please spread widely and quickly - the more signatures we get the better chances we have of cajoling NSF into changing course on this small but very impactful item

Daniel Bolnick@danielbolnick.bsky.social · 11mo ago

NSF unexpectedly changed (at the last minute) who is eligible to apply for the Grad Research Fellowship, dropping 2nd year students. We started a petition to reverse this unfair change, Sign here: laurenkuehne.github.io/grfpChanges/ and please spread the word!!!!

Interested in #virulence? Not sure what it is - or how to explain it? Just curious? 🧐🦠🧬🦋 @kayla-king.bsky.social and I just wrote a Primer for @currentbiology.bsky.social on the ecology and evolution of virulence! Check it below and share :) #MicroSky #EvoSky #pathogens

Ecology and evolution of virulence

Silva and King discuss the concept of virulence and the ecological and evolutionary factors that shape it.

cell.com

Join us at SFU for a 2-year Mekler Postdoctoral Fellowship in mathematical biology to work with me and Ailene MacPherson. Apply at www.mathjobs.org/jobs/list/27... by Nov 15.