“If they can’t be trusted to perform their core functions, appointed members of ANU council need to be removed. We shouldn’t have to wait until Julie Bishop’s term ends to resolve the leadership and governance crisis at the ANU.” - @nteunion.bsky.social on #ANU

Seeds from the WA Seed Centre have been used to germinate seedlings of critically endangered flora, incl. Banksia montana, on WA’s Bluff Knoll. Seeds from mature plants now flourishing in seed production areas are being collected for future recovery efforts! #ConservationOptimism #EarthOptimism

Should we measure trait evolution in unit of time or in unit of substitutions? Our new paper in @evolletters.bsky.social looks at this from a theoretical perspective. #Evolution #Phylogenetics DOI: doi.org/10.1093/evle... 🧵 thread below 🧵

the policy was set in stone when the gig economy was the cash economy, when official figures did not remotely resemble actual economic-exchange-care activity. Now everything is transactionalised. theconversation.com/the-rbas-pol...

ANU's financial crisis overstated, job cuts unnecessary 👀 region.com.au/anus-125m-bu...

ANU delegates concluded two days of training in Canberra this week. As we look ahead to the future of our sector, we’re committed to addressing the governance crisis and securing full-funding for our universities. Join today: nteu.org/join @nteuact.bsky.social

Biologists Confirm Not Much Evolution Happened Today — theonion.com/biologists-c...

Position of interest for plant evolutionary biologists: two assistant professorships are now open in the System Earth Science (SES) department at Maastricht University! Interested? See the details here, or visit the QR code: vacancies.maastrichtuniversity.nl/job/Venlo-As...

Since ANU has transitioned from Moodle to Canvas LMS, I’ve developed a set of #rstats functions to help me write quizzes directly into Canvas, and I’ve started packaging them up. It’s still a work in progress, but I’d welcome any feedback! github.com/emitanaka/ca...

If we want to conserve evolutionary history, we need to think about this: change the phylogenetic methods, and you change the conservation outcomes. New paper led by honours student Mina Kearns, with @alexskeels.bsky.social & @keaghanjames.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Are you (or something you know) looking for a PhD? Like trait macroevolution but also yearn for an applied topic? Think plants are neat? Want to live in beautiful northeast Scotland?! 🌊🐬⛰️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 I'm advertising a PhD in my lab! Deadline April 22, email me any questions. www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Ancestral state reconstruction with discrete characters using deep learning https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.19.712918v1

Join us on campus & online on Thursday, 2 April 2026 at 1pm for a seminar by Dr Thomas Schmidt from the School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney. Details: rb.gy/cjfh55

Nice! www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03...

I’m looking for a post doc (up to five years) interested in phylogenetics and earth systems - please spread the word!

Well damn, this is cool. Birds That Don't Exist: Niche Pre-Emption as a Constraint on Morphological Evolution in the Passeroidea | Chia et al., 2026 | Ecology Letters onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

😲 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

These captchas just keep getting harder #rstats

🌠 Meet Our Exec Committee for 2026 🌠 Kim is a PhD candidate at the University of Western Australia working on invertebrate cognition, with a current focus on intraspecific variation in cognitive ability. When she’s not staring at ants, Kim enjoys pilates, baking, and occasional photography. 🐜

Our new paper revealing major patterns of diversification across the Tree of Life is here! doi.org/10.1093/evle... Congratulations to @bjorntko.bsky.social for leading this ambitious effort, it was a pleasure to contribute alongside @acapomorphic.bsky.social, @hoehna.bsky.social & Luis Palazzesi.

New paper out from @hoehna.bsky.social Lab, led by the brilliant @bjorntko.bsky.social! We applied the Pesto software (Kopperud & Höhna, 2025) to look at lineage-specific shifts in diversification rate on large, densely-sampled phylogenies across the Tree of Life doi.org/10.1093/evle...

“A complete joke” After the starting gun fires, Australian researchers have to wait 2–3 years before even starting the race. Really clear article explaining the impossibly long new time-frames for Australian Research Council grants. By @liammannix.bsky.social

It’s the first time a frog—or any amphibian—has been observed pollinating a plant, researchers reported in 2023. Learn more on #WorldWildlifeDay: https://scim.ag/4riUU1G

🌠 Meet our Exec Committee for 2026 🌠 @simone66b.bsky.social is an Associate Professor at the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Queensland. Her work sits at the intersection of quantitative methods and evolutionary biology. Beyond academia, she enjoys modern jazz and punk rock. 🎷

🌠 Meet our Exec Committee for 2026 🌠 @timtemizyurek.bsky.social is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland studying how eco-evo shapes individuals and populations of duckweeds. Outside of work he is interested in the extended evolutionary synthesis, philosophy of science and magic realism 🪄

🌠 Meet Our Exec Committee for 2026 🌠 Yong is a DECRA fellow at the University of Western Australia working on the impact of sexual selection on life history traits and their trade-offs. One current focus is the physiological mechanisms mediating these effects, such as diet and oxidative stress 🥦

🌠 Meet Our Exec Committee for 2026 🌠 @puttert.bsky.social is a postdoc at the Australian National University working on phylogenomics and conservation genetics mostly on amphibians and reptiles. He is originally from Thailand. Outside of academia, Putter loves SCUBA diving and football ⚽🍌

🌠 Meet Our Exec Committee for 2026 🌠 @hasbeanbeetle.bsky.social is a PhD candidate at the University of Western Australia currently working on sexual selection in cowpea seed beetles. He is not a father, yet still doesn’t have time for hobbies or interests of his own 🥀

I can finally share my main postdoc project! It took a while but we finally got it out So if you want to read about an updated phylogeny for waterfowl and all the convergent evolution they get up to boy do I have a paper/thread for you academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan... 🪶🧪

🌠 Meet Our Exec Committee for 2026 🌠 @damienesquerre.bsky.social is a lecturer and researcher in Biological Sciences from the University of Wollongong, focusing on evolutionary processes, specifically in reptiles and amphibians. In his spare time, he is an avid wildlife photographer 📷

🌠 Meet Our Exec Committee for 2026 🌠 Alistair is an ARC Future Fellow at the University of Sydney, who works on the effects of nutrition on life-history traits. From the UK, he moved to Australia in 2014. He is a father of two, and thus has no time for any hobbies or interests of his own 🧑‍🧒‍🧒

🌠 Meet Our Exec Committee for 2026 🌠 @erinmacartney.bsky.social is an post-doctoral research associate at the University of Sydney, where she is particularly interested in how the environment impacts post-copulatory traits including male-male and male-female reproductive interactions ✍️

🌠 Meet Our Exec Committee for 2026 🌠 @kristoffer-wild.bsky.social is a postdoctoral researcher at the Biophysical Ecology lab at the University of Melbourne, interested in how animals function across variable environments. Outside of his work, he enjoys travelling, photography, and kayaking 🚣🏻‍♂️

🐶🧙‍♂️

The first version of FigTree was released nearly 20 years ago and it is still widely used (including by me). But there are currently 85 issues on the GitHub repo (github.com/rambaut/figt...) and some of them I don’t really like the look of.

New paper alert! 🦜 We gave wild cockatoos puzzle boxes across Canberra’s urban gradient. The finding? Urban birds approach faster, but are not better solvers. Our results suggest that urbanization shapes neophobia independently from cognitive performance. Read it here: doi.org/10.1093/behe...

🚨 #DiscoveryProjects EOI #DPEI27 announcement: ❗️Outcomes for Expressions of Interest should now be available in your RMS account ▶️ rms.arc.gov.xn--au-lmy ARC should also email Lead CIs with their outcomes (may take a while & be staggered). Full apps open 2 Mar, due 22 Apr.

‪ @eveliendegreef.bsky.social's latest is out in the @asn-amnat.bsky.social feature exploring the challenges of genetic forecasting😀 "Identifying Areas of Potential Risk Based on Future Genetic Adaptability in Three Arctic Whale Species" doi.org/10.1086/738889 🧪🌎🧬🌐 #consgen #popgen #evobio

Cutting down the manuscript word-count to fit the journal requirements🤦🏽

Join us on campus & online on Friday, 6 March 2026 at 1pm for a seminar by Kate O'Hara, PhD Candidate from the Moritz Group! Details: rb.gy/u9aqza

ECR/Postdoc position - 2 years. ARC Discovery Project - Transgenerational implications of microplastic toxicity. Field and mammal handling experience preferred. Microplastic analysis experience ideal. Scope to support a PhD student. Please email Renée ([email protected]) for more details!

From the damning Staff Wellbeing Census report, to this. Paints a grim picture of Australian universities... humanrights.gov.au/about-us/med...

To a first approximation, all Australian vertebrates are lizards. 🦎 But not just any lizards, Sphenomorphine skinks! With more than 280 species they are hyper variable. Now, Janne Torkkola has pulled together the biggest phylogeny of the group to date. Read for free: doi.org/10.1016/j.ym... 1/4

Phylogenomics and the origins of sharks https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.13.705779v1

Australian University Census of Staff Wellbeing is now out - some shocking stats! Census WEBSITE for more info and full report: stresscafe.net/census/ #AcademicSky #AustralianUnis

82% of Australian university staff are emotionally exhausted. 70% think their uni doesn’t care. Universities need to do better

Things are looking up at #UniCanberra. UC staff have put in the hard work to turn the University around. The least they deserve is not to have real wages go backwards. @nteunion.bsky.social Member Meeting - 18 Feb. Join at www.nteu.au/join. ✊ More info: ucbargaining.info/cost-of-livi...

Proud to have been one of the 9,200 people who submitted that name to the contest. Lol blockclubchicago.org/2026/01/28/a...