Go out at night and you might find springtails all over logs or trees where they're absent in the day. Why? I was glad to collaborate on this new paper, where we show that even in dry-tolerant Willowsia, nocturnal activity is related to environmental moisture. soil-organisms.org/SO/article/v...

Be a dipterist. Be in Costa Rica for #FlySchool2026. See a muscoid #fly perching on a leaf. Tell student so they can collect it. Success!! Wait a minute 🤔 That's not a fly, but weevil mimicking one! This was so convincing, even rapidly moving & poking its wings out 🥰 #Curculionidae: cf. #Mnemynurus

New preprint: 338 coleopteran genomes reveal exceptional rearrangement variation compared to other insect orders. Big congrats to @arf-mln.bsky.social, for getting this giant piece together. Big collaboration of @joanameier.bsky.social's and my groups. 🧵👇 doi.org/10.64898/202...

Pleased to say that the first half of my PhD project is now out in preprint format! Using cortical organoids to model the mechanical transitions involved in early neurogenesis, we find that nuclear mechanotransduction is a crucial regulator of the timing and outcome of neuronal differentiation:

Organoids reveal niche-specific mechanotransduction-guided human cortical patterning and cell fate acquisition

The highly dynamic mechanical environment of the developing cerebral cortex has the potential to encode information vital for neuronal differentiation. Changes in local biophysical properties have bee...

biorxiv.org

Organoids reveal niche-specific mechanotransduction-guided human cortical patterning and cell fate acquisition https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.15.736390v1

Another springtail to find this summer! ☀️ Fab photo from @josscarr.bsky.social of Fasciosminthurus quinquefasciatus from Dorset yesterday. The 1st UK record outside Cornwall, where it was found new to Britain 2 yrs ago! www.researchgate.net/publication/... Can we track its expansion further?

Exploring Copenhagen while at #SMBE2026 Visit The Little Mermaid & look a few m along the shoreline. You’ll see some impressive (and polycentric) Bolboschoenus (club-rush). Their polycentromeres are likely underpinned by satellites I called Garrett and Colleen More: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

James McCulloch@jamesimcc.bsky.social · last mo.

I’m excited to be at #SMBE2026! I’m keen to talk to people about chromosome evolution/centromeres in the polycentric sedges and rushes (see poster or www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...) … … or about population genomics of soil arthropods!

I’m excited to be at #SMBE2026! I’m keen to talk to people about chromosome evolution/centromeres in the polycentric sedges and rushes (see poster or www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...) … … or about population genomics of soil arthropods!

It's certainly not classic springtail weather out there. Most are reliant on the cool & damp and have hidden themselves away. But there are some summer specialists: on Monday, I found all 3 of the UK's Deuterosminthurus species in the grounds of the @sangerinstitute.bsky.social ☀️ 🧵⬇️

🧬🦋 New preprint out! 🦋🧬 What mechanisms underlie large-scale chromosomal rearrangements? Why do rearrangement rates vary so massively across taxa? We explored these questions in Erebia butterflies, a genus with extraordinary chromosome number diversity, from 7 to 52! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

When I sat down with @jamesimcc.bsky.social to learn about all things springtails, I never imagined I'd leave our conversation so inspired about the future of natural science research. I can't wait to see what the future has in store for James. I certainly look forward to following the journey! 😊

Wellcome Sanger Institute@sangerinstitute.bsky.social · 2mo ago

No clue what a springtail is? Never fret. We've interviewed the UK's national springtail biological recorder and PhD student @jamesimcc.bsky.social . Head to our blog to learn more ⤵️ https://sangerinstitute.blog/2026/03/26/studying-soils-unsung-heroes/ 📸 Tim Jonas #NameItToSaveIt

A big preprint from my group! Muller Elements are considered to be conserved in flies. We tested it by reconstructing the ancestral dipteran karyotype using 340 chromosomal genomes and suprise suprise, they're not... Led by @juliagries.bsky.social and Sam Ebdon. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧵👇

Huge congratulations to @stuwest.bsky.social on his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society! From fig wasps to Pseudomonas, he’s shown just how powerful behavioural ecology can be. I couldn't think of anyone more deserving. www.biology.ox.ac.uk/article/prof...

Professors Tim Coulson, Stuart West, and Kathy Willis elected as Fellows of the Royal Society

biology.ox.ac.uk

No clue what a springtail is? Never fret. We've interviewed the UK's national springtail biological recorder and PhD student @jamesimcc.bsky.social . Head to our blog to learn more ⤵️ https://sangerinstitute.blog/2026/03/26/studying-soils-unsung-heroes/ 📸 Tim Jonas #NameItToSaveIt

Want to start doing soil animal macrophotography? Or fancy a rare glimpse into mine and @mesofauna.bsky.social's minds? An article has just dropped in @soilorganismsj.bsky.social, showcasing mine and Andy's love for documenting soil biodiversity! 🧪🪱 Open Access: soil-organisms.org/SO/article/v...

Is there anyone around Newcastle owning a patch of green where we could collect springtails this Tuesday by any chance? More about the project in @jamesimcc.bsky.social's blog post: sangerinstitute.blog/2026/03/26/s...

Studying soil’s unsung heroes - Wellcome Sanger Institute Blog

In this blog, we hear from Wellcome Sanger Institute PhD student James McCulloch about his favourite invertebrates, the springtails, and their extraordinary cryptic diversity.

sangerinstitute.blog

This #IWD2026 we’re shining a light on the incredible women who’ve been nominated, highly commended or won an NBN Award for Wildlife Recording since 2015💛 Huge thanks to all. Know an inspirational woman who records or verifies wildlife? Nominations for #NBNawards26 are open! bit.ly/NBNawards26n...

And this is my favourite figure, nicely illustrating diversity and turnover of oligocentromeric satelites. Look at Carol and Sandra - one invaded the other at least 2x, which I find particularly amusing.

James McCulloch@jamesimcc.bsky.social · 5mo ago

We identified where the oligocentromeres were in each genome using CAP. There's a lot of turnover - across 35 species, we could classify candidate centromere-related satellite DNA into no fewer than 25 families (named after Superstore characters). 🧵4/12

Very proud of @jamesimcc.bsky.social to submit his first PhD paper about evolution of genomes and centromeres in taxa with oligocentromeric organisation. Lots of interesting discoveries including possibly the first reported re-evolution of monocentricity.

James McCulloch@jamesimcc.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Why do the chromosomes of cyperids (sedges & rushes) split and fuse so regularly on evolutionary timescales? Is it because they have so many centromeres? Our new preprint, the first major paper of my PhD, addresses this question. 🧵⬇️ 1/12 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Chromosomes are often classified as either monocentric (single centromere per chr) or holocentric (centromeric activity spread across each chr). In reality, there is a continuum in centromere organisation - and cyperids are a fascinating system to explore this in as James shows in this preprint! 🌱

James McCulloch@jamesimcc.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Why do the chromosomes of cyperids (sedges & rushes) split and fuse so regularly on evolutionary timescales? Is it because they have so many centromeres? Our new preprint, the first major paper of my PhD, addresses this question. 🧵⬇️ 1/12 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Why do the chromosomes of cyperids (sedges & rushes) split and fuse so regularly on evolutionary timescales? Is it because they have so many centromeres? Our new preprint, the first major paper of my PhD, addresses this question. 🧵⬇️ 1/12 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I'm very happy to share that a paper from my DPhil thesis has been selected as the Editor's Choice article in Evolution. 😊 You can read it here: lnkd.in/eCnAQfzT 🐜 @journal-evo.bsky.social #EvolutionaryBiology #SocialEvolution #Insects

Does haplodiploidy - a method of sex determination seen in bees and ants among other animals - promote eusociality? New research from @rbonifacii.bsky.social and @stuwest.bsky.social enters evidence into this long debate that - despite popular belief - this is not the case 👇 bit.ly/4qEoEWm

How insects’ sex is determined is unlikely to be what makes them so social

bit.ly

It was such a privilege to work with @juliet-turner.bsky.social on this project while I was a research assistant in the West group @biology.ox.ac.uk. It's wonderful to see our paper in its final form! 🐜

Juliet Turner@juliet-turner.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Very happy to share that I just published a new paper from my thesis! 🎉 We analysed 546 species of ant to understand how extreme specialisation into reproductive and non-reproductive roles evolved.  Key discoveries in thread🧵 👇 Full paper here: academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

Finding a colony of Hypogastrura springtails on this wall in Peterhouse, Cambridge started me on a trail through old papers, concluding that there may be another - morphologically distinguishable! - species in Britain. The story is in the latest issue of BJENH: www.researchgate.net/publication/...

366 days ago I started my PhD at the @sangerinstitute.bsky.social. No better time to publish my profile on the Sanger website ⬇️ www.sanger.ac.uk/person/mccul... I tend to have my taxonomic hat on when posting here, but there is a bigger picture!

I've reached 100 British springtail species! This was helped by a recent glasshouse sampling trip, where I added these 4 species. 3 are now in the pipeline to have reference-quality genomes sequenced for the first time, by the @sangerinstitute.bsky.social. More info in the thread below! 🧵1/7

We are excited to attending #ESB2025 find … @arf-mln.bsky.social to chat about beetle genomics @jamesimcc.bsky.social about sedges or springtails evolution Sam Ebdon about distr. of dominance Myself about diptera comparative genomics And all of us to chat about any whacky reproduction #obscuromics

I'm doing an online talk on 16/09 about my MSc thesis, which was all about iNaturalist data for invertebrates in the UK, and the alarmingly high proportion of it which 'falls through the cracks' due to data quality concerns. Please join if interested! Link: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/falling-th...

Falling through the Cracks: iNaturalist Invertebrate Records in the UK

Joss Carr discusses his MSc Research Project investigating the data quality of UK invertebrate records on iNaturalist.

eventbrite.co.uk

I'm so excited to share that this springtail, one that seems to have rapidly appeared in graveyards and gardens across the UK, now has a proper name: Entomobrya petri! I hope this will be the first of many new species descriptions, allowing us to track our rapidly changing springtail fauna. 🧵⬇️

Soil Organisms Journal@soilorganismsj.bsky.social · last yr.

📢✨ONLINE FIRST✨ New #collembola species found in the UK! James McCulloch @jamesimcc.bsky.social National Recorder of Sprintails, tells the world about Entomobrya petri! 💚 Please REPOST 📢🪱🌱 soil-organisms.org/index.php/SO...