Glad to share our new paper! Previously, we knew burying beetles' phoretic mites aren't just hitchhikers. Now we ask: do beetles read mites as an environmental cue to adjust reproduction? We split broods into 3 groups—no mites, 24h mite exposure then removed, mites throughout.

Symbionts unmask the latent trade-off between reproduction and survival

Biological sciences; Zoology; Evolutionary biology

cell.com

What a great insect parental care symposium at #ece2026tours! Thanks to @jmeunierearwig.bsky.social, @max-evolbio.bsky.social and Jos Kramer for organizing.

Joël Meunier@jmeunierearwig.bsky.social · last mo.

#ece2026tours is already drawing to a close 😥 It was a fantastic opportunity to bring together a lot of the insect parental care (IPC) community and to lay the groundwork for a future IPC conference. I'm looking forward to it and I'd like to thank everyone for coming to Tours. I had a blast! 🤩🤩🤩

#ece2026tours is already drawing to a close 😥 It was a fantastic opportunity to bring together a lot of the insect parental care (IPC) community and to lay the groundwork for a future IPC conference. I'm looking forward to it and I'd like to thank everyone for coming to Tours. I had a blast! 🤩🤩🤩

Just after presenting our work about how different patterns of parental care can affect immunity in #nicrophorus offspring at the @ece2026tours.bsky.social, it's now published by @insect-science.bsky.social and you can (open) access it here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Males are worse mothers: Comparing care patterns in a facultatively caring beetle

Why should biparental care exist if offspring fare just as well when only one parent is present? In the facultatively dependent burying beetle, Nicrophorus vespilloides, manipulating environmental qu...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Setting the mood at ECE, nice work @irbi-tours.bsky.social Tours :) youtu.be/nnr3lqW80gQ?...

An Entomological Odyssey

YouTube video by Université de Tours (Univ Tours)

youtu.be

Here we go @ece2026tours.bsky.social ! Looking forward to this :)

Thrilled to see our burying beetle model system on the front cover of Journal of Chemical Ecology! We show that maternal pheromone emission during care shows consistent individual differences and appears to reflect maternal investment. @johannes-stoekl.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Our new paper is out in Frontiers in Zoology on the molecular basis of parental care. We show that in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides, extensive molecular reprogramming already occurs before offspring hatch. Congrats to Julius! #Nicrophorus

Volker Nehring@volkernehring.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Beetle brood care looks exhausting, too link.springer.com/article/10.1... #Nicrophorus

And another paper out today in Physiological Entomology 🪲 We show that egg laying reshape immunity in earwigs: mothers had fewer immune cells and shifts in haemocyte types. These findings reveal physiological costs of motherhood in insects. resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Comparative analysis of immune responses in ovipositing and non‐ovipositing females of European earwig

Oviposition and care decrease the total haemocyte concentration. Oviposition and care affect haemocyte type proportions. Serratia marcescens challenge does not affect the immune cell parameters.

resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

New paper accepted in Proc B! 🎉 We disentangled how heatwaves affect maternal egg care in earwigs. We found that mothers adjust care depending on both their own heat stress and the stress of their eggs, but these effects act independently rather than interactively. doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

Heat stress disrupts maternal care through independent effects on mothers and eggs

Abstract. Parental care typically protects offspring from environmental stress. Yet, it remains unclear whether this protection arises from stress effects

doi.org

Ever wonder how different burying beetle species vary in terms of immunity, and if the vast differences in larval dependency are reflected? I bet you did! So did we: doi.org/10.1111/eea.... Congratulations to Laura and @leo-theo.bsky.social, and big thanks to @steigerlab.bsky.social!

Offspring Dependency Is Not Reflected in the Social Immunity of Three Burying Beetle Species

Nicrophorus pustulatus, Nicrophorus vespilloides, and Nicrophorus orbicollis are three burying beetle species that differ both in their ecology and in the dependency of their offspring on parental ca...

doi.org

dzg-meeting.de/en/welcome-ms/ The Meeting of the German Zoological Society will take place in Münster from September 7 to 11! Abstract submission until June 15! 🧪

📢 Mark your calendars for the Joint Graduate Meeting 2026, sponsored by @ethoges.bsky.social and the German Zoological Society (DZG)! Don't miss this fantastic opportunity to showcase your research & network with peers! 📆 30.09. - 02.10.2026 🌍 @uni-muenster.de Abstract submission will open soon.

Writing on parental care and reproductive strategies? Submit to our collection! We invite studies on the diversity, function and costs of parental care; the evolution of reproductive and mating strategies; the roles of sexual selection and conflict; and the factors that drive variation in parenting.

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...

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...

Two PhD positions available in our lab! www.senckenberg.de/de/stellenan... a) "Genomic Mechanisms of Olfactory Adaptation and Plasticity in Wasps, Ants, and Bees." 🐜🐝 REF.11-26010 b) "Evolutionary Genomics of Transcriptional Regulation in Beetle Sociality."🪲🪳 REF.11-26011

Interested? Click here for more info! Submission deadline is December 7th 2026!

New study out with @steigerlab.bsky.social! We investigated male care in a biparentally caring 🪲. Why does male contribution vary so much? Turns out there are repeatable individual differences, and how much the female does only affects some male care behaviors. authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

HIRING! We are looking for a new PhD student to work on insects in deadwood, effects of microclimate and land use. This is part of the Biodiversity Exploratories @bexplo.bsky.social and will use a new experiment using rain-out shelters in different regions of Germany. EU driver´s licence required.

Please share: We are hosting the 2026 DZG evolutionary biology graduate meeting at Uni Hamburg on March 25-27: "Interactions and Coevolution: from Molecules to Species". #PhD students, early postdocs and advanced Master students in evolutionary biology are welcome to register! t1p.de/dzg2026evolbio

3-year PhD position in insect ecophysiology and land-use intensity with PD Dr. Florian Menzel (@unimainz.bsky.social) and Prof. Dr. Thomas Schmitt ( #Würzburg ). Application deadline: February 4th, 2026. More info here: www.blogs.uni-mainz.de/fb10-evoluti... #insects #ecophysiology #land-use #CHCs

📣 PhD opportunity in my lab 📣 We're looking for a motivated student interested in the effects of thermal stress on animal survival and reproduction: www.findaphd.com/phds/project... Project is open-ended to allow student to define its direction depending on their interests Please share widely!

New article from the lab out today, in which we discuss how social behavior evolves at the molecular level. From parenting across the animal tree of life to caste systems in social insects, it’s all connected (and, therefore, slowly starts to make sense)…

Tomas Kay@tomaskay.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Parental care, and more complex cooperative systems of care, have independently evolved in hundreds of animal lineages. In an article published today, we explore how these behaviors evolve 𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭l shorturl.at/g5OPw /1

GEvol Job Alert: PhD position in Robert Paxtons lab in Halle This research project focuses on the extent to which the origin of eusociality in the socially variable halictid bees is ascribable to changes in gene regulatory mechanisms. Find this and more open positions @ g-evol.uni-muenster.de

📢 Don’t forget! This is the last week of early bird registration for what promises to be a great meeting in Tours, France, next year. Exciting program on all aspects of insects research, great food, lovely wine, a beautiful historic city, castles … it will be memorable! ✨ www.ece2026.org

ECE 2026 - XIII European Congress of Entomology

It is our great pleasure to welcome you to Tours, France, in the heart of the Loire Valley, from June 29 to July 3, 2026.

ece2026.org

Next European Congress of Entomology in the lovely city of Tours, France 👇

Carlos Lopez-Vaamonde@caloptilia.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Call for abstracts – XIII European Congress of Entomology (#ECE2026) 🐞 29 June–2 July 2026, Tours, France I’m co-organizing the symposium “Insect Systematics in the Biodiversity Crisis: Bridging Tradition and Innovation” 🗓 Early-bird & abstract deadline: 15 Dec 2025 www.ece2026.org

📢 18-month PostDoc Fellowship – University of Montpellier (France) 🦠🦋 Interested in insect pathology, immunity, microbiome, or genomics? We’re looking for a motivated candidate (<2 years post-PhD by mid-2026). 🧪 📩 Contact me ASAP for details! ⏳ Application deadline: 16/01/26 🔁 Please RT / Repost

Are you a bachelor's / master's student looking for a thesis project or Erasmus Internship? We’re looking for someone to come and help us collecting data! If you’re interested, feel free to contact me! :)