A new Science study of ants in Fiji—involving genomic sequencing of over 4000 ant specimens from museum collections—shows that most native species have been in decline since humans first arrived in the archipelago 3000 years ago. https://scim.ag/489mI2o

day 2 #InverteFest #invertebrate weird fact: there are some ants with only a single chromosome, while some butterflies shred their genome into multiple "microchromosomes" 🧬🐜🦋

Early bird applications for the Workshop on Genomics 2026 are still open until the 1st of August, we have a few spots left! Do not miss the chance to get a discount! 🙆🏽‍♀️ #evomics2026 Apply here: evomics.org/apply-worksh...

谢谢北京！ What more is there to say? 👏 A beautiful closing ceremony with credit where credit is due - established and upcoming researchers, volunteers, organizers - more than just science, SMBE is about people. Thank you for being with us for #SMBE2025, either onsite or from afar!

The inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility symposium at #SMBE2025 was a much-needed reminder: science thrives when we create space for everyone. Let’s keep these conversations going

If you‘re at #SMBE2025 and you still have a tiny little bit of energy left for the last day tomorrow, I‘d be happy to see you joining my talk at 10:20 tomorrow morning in Room 2, where I‘ll be talking about how TEs can reshape entire genome structures in ants! 🐜🧬👩🏽‍🔬

I was so lucky to hear a very important talk about academic brain drain in the #IDEA symposium at #SMBE2025 by Mehmet Somel, stressing how we can work towards using our capacities to reduce inequality in science.

Inspiring talk by Peter Holland this morning at #SMBE2025 about why we should sequence thousands of genomes, where to go with these large-scale data, sharing our resources and much more! 🧬🧫🧪🔬

If you’re at #SMBE2025 today, make sure to come by at Esther‘s poster to hear some cool facts about the ants in our lab and discuss about transposable element polymorphisms 🐜😍

#TEsky Lepidopteran genomes have denser transposable elements in smaller chromosomes, likely driven by non-allelic homologous recombination doi.org/10.1093/gbe/...

Happy Barbara Day, happy #TransposonDay2025 to all that celebrate! Every day we get to work on transposons is such a privilege and joy, and I will never not be amazed by these jumping weirdos -the neutral, the bad and the good. Share some black walnut brownies with your friends today!

Over 50 researchers from over 25 countries have made this possible. Almost 10 years of work. I have 23,062 emails on this project. It is wonderful to see this published and I hope you enjoy it. There’s a lot on genome evolution in ants and much much more.

Also noted: LINE-1 transcription activates long-range gene expression. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Always a pleasure hanging out with ant enthusiasts 🐜 @jaimesnino.bsky.social @jannelrinke.bsky.social @haplodiploid.bsky.social @mlitto.bsky.social @clariona.bsky.social @bchitadze.bsky.social #cologneinternationalforum

Join us in #Köln! @Simo and @jaimesnino.bsky.social will be discussing what makes #ants such an interesting taxa! And insights on our own research on #socialevolution, #genome #evolution, #aging, and #developmental processes! 6 June 2025 - 6 p.m - International House cif.uni-koeln.de/events

“Among corresponding authors — who take responsibility for a manuscript as it goes through the publication process — just 17% of those who disclosed their gender identified as women” www.nature.com/articles/d41...

It was a pleasure and very inspiring having @theafrogers.bsky.social and @mendezaranda.bsky.social at our institute this week giving a talk about their research! 🧬 Comparing Hi-C contact maps from our different study organisms and learning so much more! 😎

👋 Looking forward to the 117th Annual Meeting of the German Zoological Society. Please like and share 🤩

You can tell how long-lived ant colonies are by whether the local humans erect permanent signage for their nests.

DFAM (database of transposable elements) 3.9 is out! A lot of cool new stuff and a special update for Drosophila melanogaster... 1/2 #Transposon #DFAM

Yesterday I attended the Women‘s* Empowerment Convention 2025 in the castle of the University of Muenster and it was a fantastic day with lots of really good input. Loved to meet everyone and I am very thankful to have been a part of such an important event! 🧬👩🏽‍🔬🧫🥼🧪

Natalie Cooper, Senior Editor for MEE, has written a blog post for #InternationalWomensDay 2025. Read the full post here 👇 buff.ly/SGGUlPU

🚨 New Paper Alert! 🚨 🐜 How did ants evolve their highly specialized queens and workers? With @adriatica.bsky.social, we reveal a key evolutionary innovation: adult control over larval feeding unlocked extreme caste dimorphism and complex societies. 🧵👇 🔗 Read in @pnas.org: doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Thank the jumping genes for all the hot peppers! New study www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Tandem running in 🐜 is a fascinating communication behaviour & is often considered a case of animal teaching. But what do follower ants actually learn?👇 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Great work by @ainacolovila.bsky.social, Tara Williams and Simone Glaser 👏👏

How do complex social behaviors evolve and shape species' success? Here doi.org/10.1038/s420... we reveal how a key social behavior in ants - mouth-to-mouth food sharing #trophallaxis - emerged as ants opportunistically exploited new ecological niches as terrestrial environments changed.

Today is International Day of Women & Girls in Science. Marie Curie, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. Her contributions have left an indelible mark on the world of science & health & continue to inspire generations of scientists & innovators. 🔬 #WomenInScience #WomenInSTEM

Happy International Day of Women and Girls in Science 🔬👩‍🔬 🎉 A big thank you to the fantastic scientists we get to work with every day as well as our enthusiastic event participants! Let's continue to break down barriers and advance equality in science 💪 📸 Kinga Lubowiecka/ EMBL

If there's something we don't understand I assume transposons are responsible unless proven otherwise

Manual versus automatic annotation of transposable elements: case studies in Drosophila melanogaster and Aedes albopictus, balancing accuracy and biological relevance https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01.10.632341v1

If you search a postdoc and would like to work on crispr-cas9 technologies, genomics and ants, consider to apply to this position for the ERC Starting Grant RoyalMess : emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/UMR…

Dosage compensation of transposable elements in mammals https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.16.628797v1

In addition to our genome assembly and annotation, we preformed synteny analyses to investigate chromosome evolution. Notably, the synteny alignment with M. cinxia suggested the reduction in karyotype size in T. bisselliella is due to a whole chromosomal fusion of the ancestral 30 and Z chromosomes.

Ok. I am trying to find time to take pictures of the various Cardiocondyla species we have in the lab now. Starting with this tiny, really tiny!, Cardiocondyla wroughtonii worker. The larva she carries is even tinier! Hard to believe…

I am very happy that I get to study these fascinating ants during my PhD! Can’t wait to see what we will still learn about the fascinating biology of these ants in the future 🤩🐜