A bacterial gene acquired by parasitoid wasps contributes to venom secretion against host defence -in @embojournal.org with @rokaslab.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Are you curious about animal origins? Want to perturb their genetics to find out more? Now it's a lot cheaper: the FUNR @frutag33.bsky.social Lab's effort to make transfection more accessible for choanos (& relatives) is up now! 🧬 
 A brief 🧵1/5

Proposals are due May 18 for this year’s Graduate Research Excellence Grants! Up to $2500 for 1st and 2nd year grad students and up to $3500 for 3rd years and above. Learn more and apply now! www.evolutionsociety.org/content/soci...

Now that the cat’s out of the bag: Excited to announce I will be starting a research group as a Sandler Fellow this August at UCSF! We will study the evolution of protein toxins at the host-pathogen interface across scales of biological organization. Learn more here: www.tarnopollab.org

Very honored to receive this award from GSA! I have immense gratitude for my advisor @nkwhiteman.bsky.social, labmates, collaborators, mentees, and the fly community, who in many ways potentiated my graduate research. Looking forward to sharing my work at my favorite meeting in my favorite city!

The #fly community aims to achieve a comprehensive genomic study of the Drosophilidae family. @pankajd.bsky.social @bernardkim.bsky.social @petrovadmitri.bsky.social @darrenobbard.bsky.social present a comparative gene annotation for 301 #Drosophilidae species @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4c3pyrI

Are you a Drosophila researcher & member of @genetics-gsa.bsky.social (at any level of training)? Please vote in the Flyboard elections (we have an amazing slate of candidates) before Feb 20, 2026. Please check your email or go to this website to vote: genetics-gsa.org/2026-fly-boa... Pl repost.

Did you know there are 2 types of avocado varieties? A-types switch from female to male, B-types male to female, within a single day. This reciprocal sex alternation promotes cross-pollination and has a simple genetic basis. Read more in this recent preprint from the final chapter of my PhD thesis 🥑

The GRFP lives!! (due end of October) www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

Excited to share the latest work by outstanding PhD student @kdc509.bsky.social. This was one of our first forays into experimental evolution and uncovered some cool connections between potassium transport and antimicrobial resistance in S. aureus. Major kudos to Killian!

FlyBase needs your help! We ask that European labs continue to contribute to Cambridge, UK FlyBase, whereas US and other non-European labs can contribute to US FlyBase. For more information and how to donate: wiki.flybase.org/wiki/FlyBase...

@ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social undergrads, there is still space in this course on the cellular, genetic, and developmental basis of evolution taught by Professor Nicole King and me this Fall. Find out why, as Dobzhansky, said "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."

Applications now open for the SSE GREG Rosemary Grant Advanced Awards! These grants provide up to $3500 to expand your dissertation work. Submit your proposal by September 15! www.evolutionsociety.org/content/soci...

📢 There is a lab technician or lab specialist position available in my lab, starting fall 2025. The position will involve molecular biology, microbiology, drosophila work, and more. Please share with anyone who may be interested and apply here: jobs.virginia.edu/us/en/job/R0...

Pleased this paper led by Teru Matsunaga at University of Tokyo (former postdoc) and in collaboration with many colleagues is out @official-smbe.bsky.social Molecular Biology & Evolution: doi.org/10.1093/molb.... Palp-expressed Or42a is an isothiocyanate sensor and can drive aversion to ITCs…

We currently have a call for support that has gone out to European labs, to support FlyBase-UK. We are asking our colleagues from labs in the US and other countries to wait for a similar call to them that will go out in the near future, to support the US sites. We thank you for your patience.

Get the word out far and wide. New opportunity from the Simons Foundation in the Eco-Evo space. 2026 Simons Graduate Fellowship in Ecology and Evolution Awards, due July 31, 2025, only for incoming PhD students who plan to start their PhDs in Fall 2026. www.simonsfoundation.org/grant/simons...

🚨New paper alert!🚨 We show that hummingbird beaks have changed in shape & size since around WWII, driven by the rise of commercialized feeders! 🧵 📄 Paper: dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb.... #ornithology #evolution #GlobalChangeBiology

Wolbachia uses ankyrin repeats to target specific fly proteins https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.15.654400v1

I know you like #Drosophila and I know you like #Genomes - but do you also like #Genes? Coding DNA annotation of 304 species of Drosophilidae! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Genomics and reproductive biology of Leptopilina malgretoutensis Buffington, Lue, Davis & Tracey sp. nov. (Hymenoptera: Figitidae): An asexual parasitoid of Caribbean Drosophila https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.28.645512v1

Excited to be in sunny San Diego for my 5th (!) fly meeting #Dros25! I will be giving a poster (329T) tomorrow on some new host-parasitoid experiments — would love to chat with interested folks!

Excellent news about an excellent resource from our excellent collaborator!!

Our work on Velvet Ant venom was published online today in Current Biology www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Excited to share the major work of my dissertation, out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social! We use Drosophila genetics to dissect the evolution of phage-derived toxins that were horizontally transferred to insects and now function as potent anti-parasitoid defenses (1/n): tinyurl.com/2k9ypyxr