6 - These results highlight host traits and cross-kingdom microbial interactions as key drivers of colony-level microbiome assembly, beautifully illustrated by @lifesciencestudios.bsky.social in the final fig. We hope this guides discussions in microbiome research to bee eco-evo and conservation.

Our manuscript on the microbiome of a stingless bee hive is out! 🦠🐝 So excited! Here’s a short thread with some findings, going from the assembly of a consistent multi-kingdom microbiome to discussions on host traits that contribute to it. Please take a look and share : ) rdcu.be/eVNFJ

New research looks into the anthropogenic causes of behavioral diversity loss, and their consequences. I created a figure to show the pathways by which anthropogenic disturbances ultimately increase or decrease behavioral diversity.

Here are just a few of the many fish I painted this year (not to scale). It's fun to stick a bunch of them together into a collage and see some of the incredible diversity of body shape and color patterns. Merry Fishmas! 🐡🐟🐠

Don't forget about your favorite #smallbusiness this holiday season! As a bonus, if you buy manta ray stuff from my shop, the rays get a gift too! A portion of all manta ray sales will be donated to support conservation research at the Mobula Conservation Project. www.lifesciencestudios.com/shop

Check out the recent publication in Annual Reviews of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics where the authors explore genomic species delimitation in depth. You'll see a number of #sciart figures I created to help explain some of the concepts! www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

New lab logo just dropped! @michaelgbertram.bsky.social's lab studies how chemical pollution disrupts animal behavior, using Atlantic salmon and European perch in much of their research. The logo needed to showcase study organisms with an ecotoxicology twist. Enjoy your new lab logo, Bertram Lab!

Gobies big and small. Not just small…. teeny tiny! I painted 6 gobies, 3 of them not even an inch long, for this paper about the evolution of miniaturization. (To be clear, the fish are tiny, but the paintings are not.) Big congratulations to @fishfetisher.bsky.social and colleagues. 🐡🐟🧪

Yellowfin tuna get his fins painted. This fish is built for speed! 🐡🐟

We find that miniaturization has evolved multiple times in gobies! It is especially prominent within the dwarfgobies (Eviota spp.), pygmygobies (Trimma spp.) and the infantfishes (Schindleria spp.). Shoutout to @lifesciencestudios.bsky.social for providing these beautiful goby illustrations!

Who is on my desk today? A shark mackerel! This shiny #fish lives off the north coast of Australia. Unlike his living counterparts, who are busy in the ocean eating little fish, this guy will help scientists communicate their research by adorning scientific figures. Which is also an important job.

What do you mean, as big as a car!? Manta rays and devil rays are caught as bycatch in tuna fisheries, and releasing them back into the ocean is like trying to lift a car off the deck of a boat. How can this be done to maximize the likelihood that the manta ray survives the ordeal? 🧪 #conservation

Gathering guppies! 🐟 🐟 🐟 The figures I create often include a mix of illustrated conceptual elements with data. This figure needed to show how guppy shoaling behavior upstream (no predators) and downstream (predators) differed, and how those differences lead to parasite transmission. 🧪🐡

Just finished @maryroach.bsky.social new book Replaceable You and the Epilogue really got to me. Our loved one got a kidney transplant two weeks ago, and it’s awful to think of all the life saving research that has been halted by the current administration’s NIH and science funding cuts. 💔

I thought it might be fun to show you a little behind the scenes of creating a fish scientific illustration from sketch to painting to publication. 🐟 🐡 #evolutionarybiology #thereisnofrogfishemoji

When creating fish illustrations, it is very important to have a sleeping cat on your desk. Across the middle of the desk is the ideal positioning.

Have you considered using an illustrated poster for outreach? That's just what @vt-invasivespecies.bsky.social did. We created 5 posters about the ISC's mission, Virginia invasive species, and the impacts of invasive species on economics, environment, and health. Visit: tinyurl.com/mr9s93a3 🐡 🧪

Hey ecologists and evolutionary biologists! Is this you? ➡️ "This concept is way too complicated to show in a way reviewers and readers will understand" Ask for help! Life Science Studios is here to create engaging figures that clearly explain your research. 🧪 #academicsky #evolutionarybiology

Spots spots spots, endless spots! 🐟 🐠 🐡 #teamfish

You share this crazy wild world with manta rays. And maybe you'd like to wear a T-shirt that reminds you of that fact! Visit www.lifesciencestudios.com/shop.html if you want more mantas in your life. A portion of sales supports the Mobula Conservation Project. #mantaray 🐡 #marineconservation

This is the cutest thing I’ve seen!

✨Starting on Monday!✨ #SciArtSeptember is a month-long creative challenge inspired by natural sciences. 🌿 Post on your own schedule. Post new work, old work, work-in-progress. Post artwork, music, words - whatever you like to make. (Thematic baked goods?🤞) - #SciArt #SciComm #Nature

Species paintings can really enhance your figures. There are real organisms underlying your data, and they are such beautiful organisms! Adding images of your study species can help your audience instantly understand what your work is about. 🐡 🧪 #scientificillustration

@chasedbrownstein.bsky.social @tjnear.bsky.social et al. reveal that amblyopsid fishes colonized caves at least four times from ancestors adapted to low-light environments, and use genomic data to infer ages of subterranean ecosystems in N. America. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf185 #evobio #molbio

Don’t mess up don’t mess up don’t mess up… #botanicalart #sciart

Who is on my desk today? A yellow perch, Perca flavescens! This guy was the perfect excuse to use my gold-green paint, which is practically neon. #sciart #scientificillustration #fishart

Painting brings me closer to the incredible organisms of the world. In creating these paintings of manta rays and devil rays, I got to spend time looking closely at them and learning more about their biology, behavior, and the threats they face. 🐡 #marinelife

Just a pic of my bestie beating the summer heat with her new manta ray water bottle. Manta and devil rays need our help! For every sale of gear featuring my watercolor ray paintings, I will donate 20% to my friends at Mobula Conservation Project. Get yours at www.lifesciencestudios.com/shop.html

This is the look I get when I am 2 minutes late to work.

1/16 🚨🚨 New paper!! I am thrilled to share our study that uses fossils, genomes, and a bit of geology to investigate how many times cavefishes evolved, and how they can help us figure out the ages of caves themselves! Link: academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-...

It’s that time again. 🌟 - #sciartseptember #sciart #scienceart #scicomm

Come join our community science program!! Including online monthly nerd jams meetings open to the public. Please share far and wide, and welcome our new community coordinator @colinjanthony.bsky.social! 🧪🌊

I have been away from home all summer, which means away from my desk and my watercolors. It’s so good to take a break, but I am itching to get back to painting! It’s like a fundamental need. Taking the long flight home tomorrow, I’ll see you soon, wall ‘o fish!

I went to visit my friends the other day and they both wore their mobula shirts! Thanks for making my day 🥰 #sciart #marineconservation #mantarays

One of the challenges we faced when designing the figures for this paper (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...), was how to show representatives of many groups of fish in the phylogeny, but highlight the endothermic species such that they are emphasized and stand out for the reader. #🧪 #🐡

Wouldn’t it be awesome to share your morning coffee with a manta ray? I’ve got you covered! Mobula mugs are for sale on my website, and a portion of sales goes toward manta and devil ray conservation! #MarineLife www.lifesciencestudios.com/shop.html

GNSI VISUAL SCICOMM CONFERENCE 2025 LIVESTREAMS We are thrilled to be able to offer a small selection of this year's conference presentations as free #SciArt livestreams on our YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/@GNSIVideo/s...). Read on for our schedule...

I’m the weirdo taking photos of my water bottle at the beach yesterday. If you want your own manta/devil ray bottle, so you can be as cool as I am when you go to the beach, they are on my website and a portion of sales supports conservation! www.lifesciencestudios.com/shop.html #marinelife #🐡

Early stages of a tetra painting. #sciart #fishart

Sometimes I’ll walk into my studio and find that my daughter has added her own fish to the wall ‘o fish… and it’s just the best thing ever.

This is Pogonophryne barsukovi, the stubbeard plunderfish. Such a great name. They live in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, and they have a pretty great dorsal fin. #sciart #teamfish

Such cool research on endothermy in marine fishes. I had fun creating the #sciart and helping with figure design for this paper. Not only did I get to paint an opah, but also a leatherback sea turtle, penguin, and great white shark! Congrats to the authors, this is super interesting stuff.

My wall o’ fish continues to grow! Why do I tape my fish paintings to my studio wall? So I can easily use them as references for similar species or when I need to use a similar technique. (Plus my drawers are too full to fit more paintings.) #sciart #teamfish

Here are all of the fish I painted for a paper about anglerfish diversification. Many of these guys live in the “midnight zone” of the ocean and have sexual parasitism, where the male is super tiny and attaches himself to the female. Crazy stuff! Not to mention the camouflage on those frogfish. #🐡

Fluffy little toesies on my desk today. 😻🐾

A watercolor lizard is getting ready for his role in a complex research figure design. #sciart #ecology

Someone asked me to make a mug design with Amanitas and Psilocybe mushrooms on it. So I did! They are now for sale in my shop 🍄 www.lifesciencestudios.com/store/p133/p... #mushrooms #sciart #🍄

My 7 year old snuck into my office and drew her own fish. Then my 3 year old colored it. I’ve never been more proud! 🥹

There are ten species of mobulid ray, eight of which are devil rays and two manta rays. These are long-lived oceanic animals with slow reproduction and are vulnerable to becoming bycatch. They are found in tropical and subtropical waters worldwide! #marinelife #oceanconservation #sciart #mantaray

This will be a fun one. Look at that face! #🐡 #teamfish