Our new paper is out in @nature.com! We uncovered how a naked mole-rat queen 👑 controls an entire colony: a natural contraceptive scent that suppresses reproduction in other females! A remarkable mammalian parallel to bees and ants! 🐝🐜 @garyrlewin.bsky.social youtu.be/enfv3zJrWKM?...

Naked mole-rats are ruled by a queen: this chemical puts her in power

YouTube video by nature video

youtu.be

Hi #TEsky, please remember that we have an amazing community in the TransposonsWorldWide slack channel (join.slack.com/t/transposon...), which I encourage you to join. Another great resource is tehub.org. Please share !

Join TransposonsWorldwide on Slack

Slack is a new way to communicate with your team. It’s faster, better organized, and more secure than email.

join.slack.com

Our lab is recruiting 🐜🧬 : - PhD student, functional genomics, Chinese nationals only - Postdocs, population genomics, open internationally Lab info and contact: lab-darras.github.io Based at Zhejiang University 🇨🇳, one of the very best research universities in the world (tinyurl.com/4nb56pv6).

Researchers estimate our planet is home to roughly 20 million insect species—only 1 million of which have been scientifically described. Learn more: https://scim.ag/4b1vRuu

Excited to share that our paper on Horizontal Gene Transfer is now out in its final form in @gigascience.bsky.social! 🥳 By analysing 163 high-quality ant genomes, we show that HGT from bacteria is widespread across the ants and likely has adaptive functions! doi.org/10.1093/giga... 🐜📸: Alex Wild

The new OrthoFinder paper is out now! In this new work, we introduce major advances in accuracy and scalability, allowing analysis on much larger datasets www.nature.com/articles/s41... github.com/OrthoFinder/...

OrthoFinder: improved phylogenetic orthology inference with enhanced accuracy and scalability - Nature Methods

The updated OrthoFinder v3 software boosts accuracy and scalability in phylogenetic orthology inference with massive and diverse datasets.

nature.com

📣 Funded* #PhD position (4 years) Wood #Ant #conservation project in Ireland🐜 @maynoothuniversity.ie Application close: 3 June 2026 More info: dirilgenecology.com/contact/ - @muresearch.bsky.social | @mu-gra25.bsky.social | @maynooth-bgs.bsky.social | * @npwsireland.bsky.social #findaphd

Join us

Join the Terrestrial Ecology Lab VacanciesOPEN [closing 3 June 2026] PhD: Irish wood ant conservation project (4 years) Postdoctoral ResearchersReach out to me if you are interested in pursuing sup…

dirilgenecology.com

Pellen, @shaggyschrader.bsky.social @eyalprivman.bsky.social et al. analyse the most comprehensive ant odorant receptor dataset to date, showing that worker polymorphism involves extensive adaptation of chemical communication. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msag103 #evobio #molbio #ant

Adaptive evolution of odorant receptors is associated with elaborations of social organization in ants

Abstract. Cooperation in social insect colonies depends on complex chemical communication, requiring a large array of chemosensory receptors. Ant odorant r

doi.org

Even ants deserve their spa day go.nature.com/4mH6eUi

Little ants groom big ones in a desert spa

Arizona ‘cleaner’ ant nibbles and licks the workers of a different ant species.

go.nature.com

Understanding cryptic diversity within the honeypot ant species complex of Myrmecocystus mendax https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.20.719579v1

Job alert! PhD position "Evolutionary Genomics of Transcriptional Regulation in Beetle Sociality" with @bfeldmeyer.bsky.social in collaboration with me and the fantastic burying beetles!

SPP 2349 Gevol @gevol.bsky.social · 5mo ago

You want to work on Transcriptional Regulation in Beetles 🐞? Join our GEvol Community and work with many great people ➡️ Two open PhD positions in @bfeldmeyer.bsky.social lab in Frankfurt: g-evol.uni-muenster.de/open-positio...

Bull ants use a first-of-its-kind lunar compass to find their way home. Learn more: https://scim.ag/4uc9zy6

Thanks to micro-CT and www.antscan.info, you can now explore high resolution, 3D ant images from anywhere in the world. Fantastic work from Julian Katzke, Francisco Hita Garcia, @economo.bsky.social, Thomas van de Kamp and colleagues just dropped: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Antscan

antscan.info

Our paper is now out in Nature: “Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres” www.nature.com/articles/s41... A short thread on how retrotransposons helped give rise to yeast point centromeres. 1/14

Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres - Nature

Evolutionarily related ‘proto-point’ centromeres providing resolution to the evolutionary origins of point centromeres are identified in yeast, and comparison shows they evolved in an ancestor with re...

nature.com

🚨📢📄 Article in press in Genome Biology doi.org/10.1186/s130... We introduce panREPET, a reference-free pipeline to detect shared transposable element (TE) insertions across pangenomes and retrace their evolutionary dynamics #TEsky 🧵👇

A reference-free pipeline for detecting shared transposable elements from pan-genomes to retrace their dynamics in a species - Genome Biology

Background The role of transposable elements (TEs) in host adaptation has gained interest in recent years. Individuals of the same species undergo independent TE insertions, providing genetic variabil...

doi.org

#TEsky Arms races between selfish genetic elements and their host defence in termites doi.org/10.1038/s414...

I am proud to present our recent #neuroethology paper on #magnetoreception in #ants today on the #InternationalDayofWomenandGirlsinScience where all authors are #WomenInSTEM @chiaratenne.bsky.social 🤩👩‍🔬🧪🧠🐜🧭 Thanks to @sfb1372.bsky.social for featuring our research in a video 🤩 doi.org/10.1007/s003...

International Society for Neuroethology@neuroethology.org · 6mo ago

Today is #InternationalDayofWomenandGirlsinScience 💜👩‍🔬🧪🧠🧫🔬 #WomenInSTEM #Neuroethology Check out the #Unesco virtual museum about #Women in #Science ↘️ www.unesco.org/en/virtual-s... ↙️ Feel free to post interesting facts about women researchers and link women neuroethologists below 👇

New #Review article from #OpenBiology: The interplay of epigenetic remodeling and transposon-mediated genomic instability in aging and longevity royalsocietypublishing.org/rsob/article... | #Genetics #Genomics

It is International Day of Women in Science! For this ocassion, a thread on influential women that illustrate prehistoric life🧵 Marta Szubert. Creator of one of the first to-scale feathered dinosar models (1997). If you've been to Poland or Slovakia, you've probably seen her models on display.

New work from @miyapan.bsky.social and our team, bringing ant, bee, and wasp labs together. @chuanxinyu.bsky.social shows that the ANTSR locus we discovered in ants has determined sex for 150+ My across bees and stinging wasps 🐜🐝, despite virtually no sequence conservation 😮 doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Whale evolution makes me uncomfortable

New in @currentbiology.bsky.social "Genomic evidence of a complex supergene system linking dispersal to social polymorphism" #Myrmecina_graminicola Mona,S., Gay,E.J., Ducancel,J., Laso-Jadart,R., Chifflet-Belle, P., Doums,C. @isyeb.mnhn.fr @ephe-psl.bsky.social et al. 🐜 www.cell.com/current-biol...

Genomic evidence of a complex supergene system linking dispersal to social polymorphism

Mona et al. report a complex supergene system in the ant Myrmecina graminicola characterized by three alleles determining both the number of queens in a colony (monogyne vs. polygyne) and the presence...

cell.com

A young PI here in Mainz has a fabulous PhD position that will be filled soon! By you? Keywords: Social insects, ageing, gene expression. www.blogs.uni-mainz.de/fb10-evoluti...

Interested in phylogenomics and genome evolution? Join us in Cesky Krumlov next January! The list of topics and faculty is simply spectacular! 🧬🪾🧬🪲🦞🦐🌿🌾🦠🧫

Workshops@evomics.bsky.social · 10mo ago

The 2026 Workshop on Phylogenomics will take place between the 25th of January and 7th of February, in Cesky Krumlov, Czechia. 🧬🌳 Applications are now open! Deadline: 15th of November, 2025. Do not miss the chance to attend! Spread the word among colleagues! 🤗 evomics.org/apply-worksh...

Obituary: Jane Goodall (1934-2025) Pioneer primatologist who inspired generations of scientists go.nature.com/48aWjRU

Jane Goodall obituary: pioneer primatologist who inspired generations of scientists

She was a tireless advocate for conservation, the welfare of captive chimpanzees and the protection of habitats.

go.nature.com

A new Science study of ants in Fiji—involving genomic sequencing of over 4000 ant specimens from museum collections—shows that most native species have been in decline since humans first arrived in the archipelago 3000 years ago. https://scim.ag/489mI2o

Genomic signatures indicate biodiversity loss in an endemic island ant fauna

Insect populations have declined worldwide, but the extent and drivers of these declines are debated. Most studies rely on field surveys performed in the past century, leaving gaps in our understandin...

science.org

day 2 #InverteFest #invertebrate weird fact: there are some ants with only a single chromosome, while some butterflies shred their genome into multiple "microchromosomes" 🧬🐜🦋

Early bird applications for the Workshop on Genomics 2026 are still open until the 1st of August, we have a few spots left! Do not miss the chance to get a discount! 🙆🏽‍♀️ #evomics2026 Apply here: evomics.org/apply-worksh...

Workshops@evomics.bsky.social · last yr.

Applications are now open for the Workshop on Genomics 2026 (11-24 Jan) in Cesky Krumlov, Czechia. For the first time, we are offering Early Bird Registration discounts! 🐣 Do not miss the chance! 🤩 Help us spread the word among friends and colleagues! 🙆🏽‍♀️ #evomics2026 evomics.org/apply-worksh...

谢谢北京！ What more is there to say? 👏 A beautiful closing ceremony with credit where credit is due - established and upcoming researchers, volunteers, organizers - more than just science, SMBE is about people. Thank you for being with us for #SMBE2025, either onsite or from afar!

The inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility symposium at #SMBE2025 was a much-needed reminder: science thrives when we create space for everyone. Let’s keep these conversations going