A great week at #ISBE2026 in Turin! 🇮🇹 EEI was well represented with @eselenius.bsky.social talking about sexual selection, @michalbartak.bsky.social presenting his first chapter on the effect of photoperiod of life-history and @theobrown.bsky.social discussing why butterflies fly slowly!

When to feed as a caterpillar? Is the activity timing internally controlled or plastic? I’ll present some of our recent behavioural research at the Uni of @helsinki.fi from the @aplantaginis.bsky.social lab at the #ISBE2026 in Torino. 📍Thursday 23 Jul at 12:00, Room Londra @isbe2026.bsky.social

🎨 job alert 🐠 Come join us! We have two positions open! These are part of our @erc.europa.eu funded project on the mechanisms underpinning convergence of colour patterns in cichlid fishes! Closing date: 16th August. Postdoc: www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/researc... Technician: www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/researc...

Callipterus Cichlid Collecting Shell

ALT: Callipterus Cichlid Collecting Shell

static.klipy.com

Our @aplantaginis.bsky.social 🦋 fieldwork season is in full swing — this time we’re in Finnish #Lapland 🦟 No night at all here at this time of the year, only a few hours of twilight with the midnight sun ☀️ Also genuinely concerned about the number of lupines here.

So grateful I can study and work in such a wonderful and safe environment as we have in Helsinki. Share the love for diversity and happy #pride 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Johanna Mappes@jmappes.bsky.social · last mo.

Nature is wonderfully diverse—and so are people. 🌈 As evolutionary biologists, we know that diversity is one of nature's greatest strengths. Happy #Pride from the Wood Tiger Moth Lab! 🐛🏳️‍🌈 @aplantaginis.bsky.social @helsinki.fi

🏳️‍🌈 Happy Pride Month! Mindful that biology has been weaponized against the LGBTQ community by people who don’t know much about biology, I’m making daily, queer, biologically themed posts for #PrideMonth2026 6/19: The bacteria named Wolbachia turns boy butterflies into girl butterflies

In awe of the tremendous diversity of Bulgarian #Lepidoptera we saw and collected to generate reference genomes for @projectpsyche.bsky.social during the @10klepgenomes.bsky.social field workshop, where genomicists, taxonomists, and all Lepidoptera enthusiasts met under one roof.

Reminder that to see the world as one giant, living web, one must go outside. So excited that the summer field season is now in full swing.

A few summers ago, we individually reared 1200 wood tiger moth caterpillars with the aim to understand the associations and genetic basis of different traits; colour, chemical defences, behaviour, pheromones and more. The results are here!

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology@biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Independent major-effect loci and limited trait associations characterise warning colour variation across sexes and life stages in the wood tiger moth (Arctia plantaginis) https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.03.729769v1

The groups first field trip is underway! @paulinea73.bsky.social got the first caterpillar of her PhD 🥳 @michalbartak.bsky.social

One of my PhD chapters is now out! It’s a review on pyrazines in insects and their biological roles and their evolution. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... @lepphylo.bsky.social @jmappes.bsky.social

Ecology and evolution of pyrazines in insects

Chemical communication is the oldest and most widespread form of signalling among and within organisms. Among the many compounds involved in such communication, pyrazines – nitrogen-containing hetero...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Amazing time at the 35th LUOVA Spring Symposium held in Viikki @helsinki.fi, organised by PhD researchers. Grateful to this year’s keynote speakers @ricardonature.bsky.social, @profkathrynelmer.bsky.social, and Marco Gamba for their talks, insights, and engagement with the community of PhDs.

Fantastic people and environment, wanna join? 👀

Johanna Mappes@jmappes.bsky.social · 8mo ago

And here is the working link: jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...

New preprint! “Climate-driven specialisation in plant–pollinator networks peaks outside the tropics” Testing the long-debated latitudinal specialisation gradient using >3,400 quantitative networks (>110,000 interactions). Led by @saileesakhalkar.bsky.social and myself ☺️ doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Someone’s dream PhD position is open right now👀

Melanie Brien@melbrien.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Funded PhD position available 🎉 Come and work with me in Helsinki to uncover the pathways producing colourful tiger moth wings. Lots of options for genomics, CRISPR, fieldwork, behaviour experiments… Email with questions! jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...

I am beyond excited to announce that ggplot2 4.0.0 has just landed on CRAN. It's not every day we have a new major #ggplot2 release but it is a fitting 18 year birthday present for the package. Get an overview of the release in this blog post and be on the lookout for more in-depth posts #rstats

ggplot2 4.0.0

A new major version of ggplot2 has been released on CRAN. Find out what is new here.

tidyverse.org

Looking for a PhD? I am advertising two industry sponsored PhD projects. One on black soldier fly genetics with #betabugs and another on searching insect biodiversity for novel enzymes #Syngenta. Get in touch if you are interested!! bbsrcdtp.lifesci.cam.ac.uk/available-ic...

We are looking for Erasmus interns to help with our bird projects at Lammi Biological Station: www.helsinki.fi/en/research-... Apply here and specify that you are interested in the great tit project: www.lyyti.in/Application_...

Excited to soon start my new role as Academy of Finland Research Fellow 🦋🐛I’ll later be advertising a PhD position on tiger moth colour and genomics, and will be speaking at #ESEB2025 this week if you want an idea of what’s going on!

We're hiring a postdoc!👀 Join us to explore the amazing world of (deep-sea) fish vision! We're looking for a curious researcher to work with histology, FISH, and even crispr! Apply by 14 July 2025. Thks for sharing! #PostdocJobs #DeepSea #FishVision #Evolution www.fishevo.com/open-postdoc...

With Pride Month🏳️‍🌈 at its peak, it’s a good time to revisit this powerful piece by Kamran & Jennings (2023): fieldwork must be made inclusive and safe by recognising differences, rethinking planning, protocols, and hearing LGBTQ+ voices. Safety is inclusion. #PrideInSTEM 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/icb/...

Fieldwork and LGBTQ+ Identities: Queering the Outdoors

Synopsis. Fieldwork is considered an integral component of research within conservation biology and ecology. Oftentimes, institutions and researchers share

doi.org

Opiskelijamme ja tutkijamme saivat tänä keväänä yli 360 apurahaa tai stipendiä työnsä tueksi. Paljon onnea stipendiaateille! 🌹 Apurahoja ja stipendejä jaetaan rahastoista, jotka perustuvat meille tehtyihin lahjoituksiin. Lämmin kiitos lahjoittajat! 💙 Apurahahaku on vuosittain tammikuussa.

Ennätysmäärä osallistujia juhlisti stipendejä ja apurahoja Helsingin yliopiston rahastoista | Helsingin yliopisto

Helsingin yliopiston opiskelijoille ja tutkijoille jaettiin tänä keväänä yli 360 apurahaa, stipendiä tai palkintoa yliopiston omista rahastoista. Rahastot perustuvat Helsingin yliopistolle tehtyihin l...

helsinki.fi

Please share. We are hiring domestic/international #PhD students to work on citizen science, insect migration/conservation at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. If interested, please email me. You can find more about our research interests here. shawanchowdhury.com.

🚨New paper on tropical moth pollination 🧵1/8 - What happens in tropical ecosystems when the day ends?🌔🦋 Our new review that @robtrop.bsky.social and I wrote highlights moths’ vital role in pollination and outlines research gaps, challenges and biases. Sharing valued! Link: doi.org/10.1017/S026...

Grateful for the opportunity to present our very recently accepted review paper on Nocturnal Moths as Pollinators in the Tropics that @robtrop.bsky.social and I wrote at the #OIKOSFin2025. Stay tuned for the full paper coming soon!

Great kick-off by my team @aplantaginis.bsky.social at #OIKOSFin25! 🎉 @zowioudendijk.bsky.social shared fascinating insights on the evolution of reflex bleeding in Arctiinae, and @theobrown.bsky.social made a compelling case for 'why to pay to be lazy'(—if you’re a toxic butterfly!) 🦋🔥

Excited to kick off my PhD at the @helsinki.fi with a talk about my doctoral research plans at the 34th LUOVA Spring Symposium

Out now in @nature.com! Our comprehensive meta-analysis of global terrestrial and marine genetic diversity demonstrates rapid loss of genetic diversity and identifies conservation interventions that could mitigate this process www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪🌍🦤🧬 #consgen #PopGen

Global meta-analysis shows action is needed to halt genetic diversity loss - Nature

A comprehensive meta-analysis of global terrestrial and marine genetic diversity covering more than three decades of research demonstrates rapid loss of genetic diversity and identifies conservation i...

nature.com