Evolution of compound eye cell types shapes visual behaviors across Heliconius butterflies https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.22.740151v1
Arnaud Martin
@evolvwing.bsky.social
Associate Professor of Biology at the George Washington University Interested in Pattern Formation, Evolutionary Tinkering, Genetics, #lociofevolution #dnacrobatics #evodevo #lepidoptera dnacrobatics.com pubs: https://rb.gy/nfg8p
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
🚨 I am very happy (and relieved!) to announce that I secured Emmy Noether funding by the @dfg.de to start my own group at @unimainz.bsky.social , hosted by Marion Silies & Jakob von Engelhardt in August! 🚨 Website coming soon - open for name/logo suggestions. They better be funny tho!
Sophia Petrillo with Megaphone in Golden Girls
ALT: Sophia Petrillo with Megaphone in Golden Girls
static.klipy.com
Hi all, putting feelers out: folks looking for a job ASAP in the 🇬🇧 in Cornwall, or willing to move? Collaborating group hiring a couple roles with skills in any of: - insect injections (incl. gene edits) - machine learning for image analysis - experience with 🦋 a plus! Can email me at link below.
Discovery
experts.exeter.ac.uk
Our work on the symbiont-containing organelle that supports coral reefs is published today. Also, new genetic tools to study symbiosis in both corals and Aiptasia. Great work by Shumpei Maruyama, Cat Henderson, and the rest of the fantastic team. #SymbioSky www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...
Co-option of lysosomal machinery shapes the evolution of the intracellular photosymbiosis supporting coral reefs
Corals harbor intracellular algal symbionts in specialized organelles that enable them to build diverse reef ecosystems. Corals and other cnidarians have repeatedly evolved this symbiosis through the ...
cell.com
Happy to share our new paper in Nat. Comm. on the evolution of planktivory in surgeonfishes and relatives 🐠🧬 Combining fossils and genomics, we find multiple independent origins of planktivory, plus convergent positive selection in key genes linked to planktivory. 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Repeated evolution of iridescence and hindwing tails is associated with morphometric flight proxies in skipper butterflies academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...
Repeated evolution of iridescence and hindwing tails is associated with morphometric flight proxies in skipper butterflies
Abstract. Phenotypic evolution is shaped by phylogenetic history, ecology and biomechanical constraints. Butterfly wings offer an ideal system to explore t
academic.oup.com
Slippery Slop : liberally using AI tools without gauging the layered consequences of their implementation
NO NO NO NO NO NO Ranking science with AI-based metrics is a slippery slope. Everyone should reject it right now.
Oded Rechavi@odedrechavi.bsky.social · last mo.Gloves are off! TODAY WE RELEASE THE 1% A list of the year’s very best papers 👇 (see thread)
"The entire National Science Foundation budget is less than what we spent in the first week of the war with Iran."
David L. Stern@gallseeker.bsky.social · 2mo agoThis, times a thousand. In EVERY conversation I have with non-scientists, they ask "What is the benefit of your work?" We need to spread the word: Basic science is the roots of the great tree that provides applications. You see the tree, but the tree needs the roots. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/20/o...
Latest paper lead by Asia Hoile with @peterhox.bsky.social is out! 🦋 Nymphalid butterflies have reduced forelegs. Gene expression patterns show support for more palp-like genes involved in sensory processes in the forelegs relative to the walking legs. doi.org/10.1111/imb....
Distinctive gene expression in the reduced first thoracic legs of a nymphalid butterfly
Transcriptome analysis reveals that the small non-walking front legs of a butterfly have distinct gene expression to the four walking legs. Reduced front legs express a gene with putative mechanosen...
doi.org
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)
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...
nature.com
Google Scholar Labs has recently transformed how I look for literature, highly recommended scholar.google.com/scholar_labs...
Amazing! This report suggests that a gall aphid injects into their plant host an enzyme that manipulates auxin levels in the host and thereby induces galls. #plantscience #plantsci www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Super nice podcast by Violaine Llaurens on the evolution of Morpho butterflies (in french!) www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...
wow, neuroscientists are just gonna use FindMarkers and claim DEGs in their snRNA-seq just like they claimed p<0.05 was a legit cutoff for bulk RNA-seq for like a decade.
Our new paper documents highly variable hybridization outcomes across years in sulphur butterflies academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...
Temporal dynamics of color polymorphism and hybridization in Colias butterflies
Abstract. Investigations into the genetic basis of color polymorphism have played a key role in our understanding of genetic architecture and the evolution
academic.oup.com
After months of experiments, failed injections, unexpected results, and those rare moments when everything suddenly works - our manuscript is finally submitted. Read our newest story about a journey of tiny vesicles carrying big biological messages, now in bioRxiv. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
#Bugsky 🐙🌿 Shared with me by a fof in SoCal - this is a gynandromorph (both male & female) valley carpenter bee (Xylocopa sonorina). Females are black, males orange, so the extreme color dimorphism really stands out. Per Doug Yanega at UC Riverside, bee gynandromorphs he’s seen are mosaic instead—
What does the new OMB proposal mean for science? How can we STOP VOUGHT and SAVE SCIENCE together? All of these questions and more to be discussed at the Emergency Science Meeting on June 2nd, 4PM ET, hosted by Stand Up for Science! Register at the link in our bio, or go here: zurl.co/g3vTZ
Very happy to announce a big new paper from the lab, led by grad students @smishra677.bsky.social and Laia Pomar-Pallarès (in collaboration with @roblanfear.bsky.social). We introduce a new way to study introgression, with accompanying software (DAFT) 1/n 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
My new ImageJ / Fiji toolkit is out 🔥! The goal is to make image handling & visualization easy, with an intuitive interface! Install it on Fiji with the "Image Viewer" update site #microscopy #ImageJ #FluorescenceFriday #microscopyMonday imagej.net/plugins/imag...
quick update, barfbow now has a mode for making two-color divergent palettes. Ideal for heatmaps, like this global_warming example
Arnaud Martin@evolvwing.bsky.social · 3mo agointroducing barfbow, a little tool that aims to encourage the use of variable brightness to improve effective com, accessibility and scientific accuracy in figures. github.com/evolvwing/ba... If you need palettes with colors that are easy to distinguish on a plot or map, pls check it out!
Chasing donor backbone insertions in #CRISPR knock-in experiments is a great way to waste an afternoon (or more), unless you use a dominant marker. We like this one from the Carthew lab, in which animals containing the backbone have degenerated eyes: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... #Drosophila
And now it's out! Happy that PNAS selected for the cover this SEM image snapped by @samjlord.bsky.social, one of the most evocative visualizations of Euplotes that I have ever encountered. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Stay tuned for what is shaping up to be some fascinating follow-up in the lab...
Ben Larson@blarson.bsky.social · 11mo agoWhat could be more exciting than watching Euplotes scurry around under the microscope? How about adding some raptorial predation by supergiant cannibal cells? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Video by Vittorio Boscaro. 1/n
Loh, L. S., DeMarr, K. A., Tsimba, M., Heryanto, C., Berrio, A., Patel, N. H., Martin, A., McMillan, W. O., Wray, G. A., Hanly, J. J. (2025). Lepidopteran scale cells derive from sensory organ precursors through a canonical lineage. Development, 152(5) journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...
Lepidopteran scale cells derive from sensory organ precursors through a canonical lineage
Summary: The wing scales of butterflies and moths are derived from sensory organ precursors and are homologues of mechanosensory bristles.
journals.biologists.com
introducing barfbow, a little tool that aims to encourage the use of variable brightness to improve effective com, accessibility and scientific accuracy in figures. github.com/evolvwing/ba... If you need palettes with colors that are easy to distinguish on a plot or map, pls check it out!
