1/ There are a ton of cool papers coming out on evolutionary transitions in individuality right now! Here are five recent ones I've really enjoyed, spanning Snowball Earth, volvocine algae, plasmids that fuse into a new individual, the relatives of animals, and... water kefir

Our group is recruiting a PhD student! Interested in microbial interactions, metabolic ecology, and community dynamics? Join us to combine experiments, data, and quantitative thinking, within the context of soil- and plant-associated microbial communities. 📅 Apply by Oct 30 🔗 tinyurl.com/u9bvjphb

When is on-person evolution dominated by neutral vs adaptive forces? If you're looking for a postdoc position and this is a question that interests you, please see my lab website and reach out! [More info in next posts]

Out today in @nature.com: our review on how single cells evolve into multicellular organisms. With Ozan Bozdag, @kaitong25.bsky.social, Peter Yunker, and @matthewherron.bsky.social. rdcu.be/9ZuiKow9twKa For an overview, check out the video below.

Looking to do a PhD in evolutionary cell biology, chromosomes & centromeres? 🧬🔬 The winter call for the UNIGE PhD recruitment is open, and my lab is among those recruiting through the Molecular Biosciences program! 🗓️ Apply by Nov 1st: lifesciencesphd.unige.ch

The super cool Anne Carson got this year's Nobel Prize in Literature! 💛 Whoever is sitting at the committee for the past years should stick around for a few more.

New semester, new lecture series! This time with the fantastic @federicabocchi.bsky.social, @rossbrooks.co.uk, @drandyflack.bsky.social and others. Join us online on Mondays at 4pm (CET). Just click here to register: www.pe.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/philosophie/... #HPBio #HistSci #PhilSci

We are so excited to announce Arvid Ågren as our next webinar speaker on the 21st October at 3:30PM (BST). @arvidagren.bsky.social works on genomic conflict—the selective tensions within every cell and how they are resolved. Register (for free) here: www.britishecologicalsociety.org/content/evol...

New Perspective w/ @petrovadmitri.bsky.social and Paul Schmidt! We ask what evolution-in-action studies tell us about an old question: what genetic variation matters for fitness, and what maintains it? ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

Have you been thinking about the main challenges or theoretical frameworks of #ALife? Do you want to discuss the current directions & future prospects of the field? Then come to Leuven & join us in a great interdisciplinary environment open to both scientists & philosophers #philsky #MolBiol #HPS 🧪

The Ramsey Lab@theramseylab.bsky.social · 3w ago

Are you interested in the past, present & future of Artificial Life (ALife) as a scientific field? 🚨 We are hosting an interdisciplinary minisymposium this December, so send us your work & come along! Please share widely! 🔗 hiw.kuleuven.be/clps/events/... #philsci #academicsky #evobio #AI #HPS

Postdoc position available in my group to work on ERC funded project on evolutionary biology of antibiotic resistance. Looking for someone with expertise in bacterial genetics, AMR, and evolutionary biology. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DSZ416/p...

Postdoctoral Research Associate at University of Oxford

Explore an exciting academic career as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. Don't miss out on other academic jobs. Click to apply and explore more opportunities.

jobs.ac.uk

New paper out with @kaylastoy.bsky.social: academic.oup.com/evlett/advan...

"I believe that science derives its authority from something more than mastering the pipeline from data generation to publication. Rather, it comes from interactions within a community of people trained to interrogate evidence and answer for the conclusions they draw from it."

C. Brandon Ogbunu@cbo.bsky.social · 3w ago

In my latest for @undark.org, I compare AI adoption in science to the Ship of Theseus: "If you swap out every wooden plank on a ship over time, is it still the same vessel?" I argue that science derives authority from something more than data generation + publication. undark.org/2026/09/25/o...

The Evobio Crash Course is coming back for its fifth edition! Join us from December 7 to December 18 for an incredible line up of classes and tutorials from amazing researchers in the field! The course is open to all, completely free and held online. Registration is OPEN, please share widely!

My PhD advisor Serguei Saavedra has assembled an amazing Editorial to launch a new free-to-read, free-to-publish journal in ecology!

Systems Ecology@systems-ecology.bsky.social · 4w ago

🌱 Systems Ecology is now live! A new independent, researcher-run, diamond OA journal for ecological research through systems science. Free to read. Free to publish. No APCs. We are now open for submissions: systems-ecology.org Please help spread the word!

CONVOCATORIA Proceso de selección 3 plazas de investigación @iifsunam.bsky.social Epistemología, Filosofía del lenguaje, Filosofía de la mente, Lógica y filosofía de la lógica, Metafísica Límite para envíos (deadline): 30/Oct/2026 📬concursos.iifs@gmail.com filosoficas.unam.mx/sitio/convoc...

Brilliant paper by the labs of @epcrocha.bsky.social @jrpenades.bsky.social 'Mobile genetic elements drive a plasmid fusion and deletion lifecycle shaping evolution and antimicrobial resistance' www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Finally online! Cross-feeding enables robust coexistence between four bacterial species | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... #microsky

Cross-feeding enables robust coexistence between four bacterial species | PNAS

Resource supply is generally considered a dominant driver of microbial diversity. Here, using a four-species bacterial consortium, we asked whether...

pnas.org

What a Friday, finally seeing this published in @cp-trendsmicrobiol.bsky.social! We hope this will be of interest to anyone working in the bacterial immune system field (or microbiology in general), and who wants an evolutionary take on it 🦠🧫 Open Access link: authors.elsevier.com/a/1nllx,L%7E...

Ellinor Alseth@ellinoralseth.bsky.social · 5mo ago

When is an antiphage mechanism an evolved defence adaptation? This question has been on my mind for so long, because despite the field’s rapid progress there is currently no widely agreed framework in place to answer it. So @brownlab.bsky.social and I wrote this, and I'm happy to share the preprint!

A wonderful review by Stefano on 100 years of Lotka–Volterra models. Don’t miss the incredibly detailed Supplement, truly the “War and Peace” of LV models. I really wish it had existed when I was a grad student! doi.org/10.1146/annu...

One Hundred Years of Lotka–Volterra Models

Over the past century, the generalized Lotka–Volterra (GLV) model has grown from a mathematical curiosity to a cornerstone of theoretical ecology. Here we celebrate the enduring legacy of Lotka and Vo...

doi.org

Over the past year, I’ve been thinking a lot about functional redundancy. A concept that seems so intuitive it almost feels boring, until you really start thinking it through. So excited to see the results of this brain-twisting thought process now out 🥳 authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Are you into mathematical modelling of ecological and evolutionary systems? Look at this job ad for a senior lecturer in Lund. I've visited many times, splendid compact city, splendid department! lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

Senior Lecturer in Computational Biology

Lund University welcomes applicants with different backgrounds and experiences. Gender equality, equal opportunities and diversity are fundamental principles in all parts of the University’s activit

lu.varbi.com

Very grateful to the editorial board for the opportunity to write about a topic I care deeply about. This review is deliberately opinionated, a personal view of where theory in community ecology stands and where it might go next. Pushback and disagreement are very welcome! doi.org/10.1146/annu...

Toward a Conceptual Commons for Theory in Community Ecology

Community ecology has developed a rich and increasingly diverse body of theory, but its rapid expansion has outpaced efforts to compare and synthesize competing frameworks. As a result, semantic ambig...

doi.org

New 📃🚨! @rosetrappes.bsky.social & I explore how #environment & #niche concepts are understood & mobilized across the life sciences & beyond, highlighting similarities & differences through a rich range of examples! 👇 philsci-archive.pitt.edu/30940/ #HPbio #philsci #philsky #evobio #envhum #HPS

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...

As I return to some of my bookmarks for the current manuscript, I also return to the words and images in the inaugural issue of Draught journal—an unceasing dialogue between past and present. draughtjournal.com/article/on-b...

On Bookmarks and Other Ruins

<p>There is something indescribably intimate about the act of interrupting one’s reading, the act of marking one’s place in a book, a subtle gesture t

draughtjournal.com

What happens when chaos meets noise in evolutionary game theory? 🌀🎲 We’ll explore the interplay between complexity and stochasticity in my upcoming talk at @juliacon.org Join us live on YouTube! 🔗 www.youtube.com/@TheJuliaLan... (Main stage - Tent) #ComplexSystems #EvoSky

As simulations grow in complexity, a set of non-trivial issues emerge: diminished identifiability as free parameters become too numerous relative to exp. constraints & difficulties grasping causality. In our new 📄, we point to potential avenues to move #CellBio forward 👇 arxiv.org/abs/2608.06998

Simulating is not always understanding: When model complexity obscures biology

In cell biology, computational models of biological systems range from minimal representations with a handful of parameters to whole-cell simulations tracking thousands of molecular species across a c...

arxiv.org

The Ramsey Lab@theramseylab.bsky.social · 2mo ago

New 📄 🚨! #CellBio is teeming with simulations comprising an extraordinarily high number of components. We argue that model complexity will not automatically lead to a better understanding of biological systems & discuss how modeling practices could be repurposed: arxiv.org/abs/2608.06998 #philsci

📣 We’re hiring a postdoc for @hot-mes-asu.bsky.social ! 🦠🔬 We’re looking for someone excited about microbial interactions, ecology & evolution, and using molecular genetics and microfluidics to understand microbial communities. Come do fun science with us! apply.interfolio.com/190859

Ever wondered how new evolutionary individuals arise? Wanted to engineer communities so the parts integrate to form a new whole? Or impose conditions that cause simple chemistries to become Darwinian? New MS shows how. Psst… don’t tell AI www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Forging an evolutionary individual from separate replicators

A central puzzle in the evolution of individuality is the origin of heredity. Egalitarian transitions integrate formerly independent replicators into a higher-level individual, but this requires the c...

biorxiv.org