Gaurav Athreya
@gauravathreya.bsky.social
maths, community & evolutionary ecology, evolution of cooperation. PhD-ing kokkonut in Mainz. amateur hiker and bread baker, professional stick insect parent. Previously: IISER Pune & the MPI for Evolutionary Biology
Pinned
Gaurav Athreya
@gauravathreya.bsky.social
· Jul 23
Interested in host-symbiont interdependence, eukaryogenesis, and evolutionary transitions in individuality? my first paper just came out! With @gokhalecs.bsky.social and Pete Czuppon, we study when & how individuality emerges in a host-endosymbiont collective doi.org/10.1086/737588 a short thread🧵:
i will be giving a talk on some recently published work on the 4th of December. Come by (zoom link below) if you want to think and learn about the evolution of mutual dependence and synchronised reproduction in endosymbioses!
Our Guest: Gaurav S. Athreya.
Title: The Evolution of Dependence and Cohesion in Incipient Endosymbioses.
When: 🌟Thursday, 4th December, at 3 PM (Stockholm time zone).
Zoom link: umu.zoom.us/j/68775661118
Webinar schedule: endosymbiosiswebinar.github.io
#Endosymbiosis
Title: The Evolution of Dependence and Cohesion in Incipient Endosymbioses.
When: 🌟Thursday, 4th December, at 3 PM (Stockholm time zone).
Zoom link: umu.zoom.us/j/68775661118
Webinar schedule: endosymbiosiswebinar.github.io
#Endosymbiosis
November 24, 2025 at 10:30 AM
i will be giving a talk on some recently published work on the 4th of December. Come by (zoom link below) if you want to think and learn about the evolution of mutual dependence and synchronised reproduction in endosymbioses!
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
Hot off the press! Our latest paper led by @fernpizza.bsky.social, understanding how plasmids evolve inside cells. These small, self-replicating DNA circles live inside bacteria and carry antibiotic resistance genes, but also compete with one another to replicate. 1/
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Intracellular competition shapes plasmid population dynamics
From populations of multicellular organisms to selfish genetic elements, conflicts between levels of biological organization are central to evolution. Plasmids are extrachromosomal, self-replicating g...
www.science.org
November 20, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Hot off the press! Our latest paper led by @fernpizza.bsky.social, understanding how plasmids evolve inside cells. These small, self-replicating DNA circles live inside bacteria and carry antibiotic resistance genes, but also compete with one another to replicate. 1/
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
🏔️ EMPSEB31 is heading to the mountains!
This year we’ll meet in Oberwiesenthal, Germany (8–12 June 2026), a quiet mountain town in the Ore Mountains, right on the Czech border. Think forest trails, open skies, and fresh air.
Join us for a week of science and fun!🌿
#EMPSEB31 #EvoBio #PhD
This year we’ll meet in Oberwiesenthal, Germany (8–12 June 2026), a quiet mountain town in the Ore Mountains, right on the Czech border. Think forest trails, open skies, and fresh air.
Join us for a week of science and fun!🌿
#EMPSEB31 #EvoBio #PhD
November 14, 2025 at 10:05 AM
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
Please join us for this exciting new conference on the emergence, function and evolution of biological collectives - unpacking the wonderful world of self-organization: www.embl.org/about/info/c...
Collectivity in living systems: emergence, function, and evolution
www.embl.org
November 8, 2025 at 7:42 AM
Please join us for this exciting new conference on the emergence, function and evolution of biological collectives - unpacking the wonderful world of self-organization: www.embl.org/about/info/c...
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
🗞️📣 New paper "Exact conditions for evolutionary stability in indirect reciprocity under noise" with @chilbe.bsky.social & @yohm.bsky.social
How can cooperation persist in large groups of unrelated individuals? Reputation 🗣️ But which social norms make this stable, even when mistakes happen?
🧵(1/6)
How can cooperation persist in large groups of unrelated individuals? Reputation 🗣️ But which social norms make this stable, even when mistakes happen?
🧵(1/6)
Exact conditions for evolutionary stability in indirect reciprocity under noise
Author summary Understanding how cooperation can evolve and be sustained is a central question in evolutionary biology and social science. One prominent explanation is indirect reciprocity, where indi...
journals.plos.org
November 3, 2025 at 10:54 AM
🗞️📣 New paper "Exact conditions for evolutionary stability in indirect reciprocity under noise" with @chilbe.bsky.social & @yohm.bsky.social
How can cooperation persist in large groups of unrelated individuals? Reputation 🗣️ But which social norms make this stable, even when mistakes happen?
🧵(1/6)
How can cooperation persist in large groups of unrelated individuals? Reputation 🗣️ But which social norms make this stable, even when mistakes happen?
🧵(1/6)
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
Our Guest: István Zachar.
Title: Farming the mitochondrial ancestor as a model of endosymbiotic establishment by natural selection.
When: 🌟NEXT Thursday, 13 of November, at 3 PM CEST (Stockholm time zone).
Zoom link: umu.zoom.us/j/61448056807 #Endosymbiosis
Title: Farming the mitochondrial ancestor as a model of endosymbiotic establishment by natural selection.
When: 🌟NEXT Thursday, 13 of November, at 3 PM CEST (Stockholm time zone).
Zoom link: umu.zoom.us/j/61448056807 #Endosymbiosis
November 3, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Our Guest: István Zachar.
Title: Farming the mitochondrial ancestor as a model of endosymbiotic establishment by natural selection.
When: 🌟NEXT Thursday, 13 of November, at 3 PM CEST (Stockholm time zone).
Zoom link: umu.zoom.us/j/61448056807 #Endosymbiosis
Title: Farming the mitochondrial ancestor as a model of endosymbiotic establishment by natural selection.
When: 🌟NEXT Thursday, 13 of November, at 3 PM CEST (Stockholm time zone).
Zoom link: umu.zoom.us/j/61448056807 #Endosymbiosis
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
I beg your pardon?
November 1, 2025 at 4:59 AM
I beg your pardon?
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
This is the Noperthedron. A portmanteau of “nope” and “Rupert,” it is the only known shape that does not have a trait called Rupert’s property. No matter how you bore a straight tunnel through it, a second Noperthedron cannot fit through. www.quantamagazine.org/first-shape-...
October 25, 2025 at 12:45 PM
This is the Noperthedron. A portmanteau of “nope” and “Rupert,” it is the only known shape that does not have a trait called Rupert’s property. No matter how you bore a straight tunnel through it, a second Noperthedron cannot fit through. www.quantamagazine.org/first-shape-...
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
🧬✨ It’s official!
EMPSEB31 is coming to Germany, June 2026!
Europe’s friendliest evolution meeting returns, organized by PhD students, for PhD students.
Expect inspiring research, new connections, and a mix of science + fun, the EMPSEB way!
📍Save the date & follow us for updates! Link in Bio 🌍
EMPSEB31 is coming to Germany, June 2026!
Europe’s friendliest evolution meeting returns, organized by PhD students, for PhD students.
Expect inspiring research, new connections, and a mix of science + fun, the EMPSEB way!
📍Save the date & follow us for updates! Link in Bio 🌍
October 23, 2025 at 3:48 PM
🧬✨ It’s official!
EMPSEB31 is coming to Germany, June 2026!
Europe’s friendliest evolution meeting returns, organized by PhD students, for PhD students.
Expect inspiring research, new connections, and a mix of science + fun, the EMPSEB way!
📍Save the date & follow us for updates! Link in Bio 🌍
EMPSEB31 is coming to Germany, June 2026!
Europe’s friendliest evolution meeting returns, organized by PhD students, for PhD students.
Expect inspiring research, new connections, and a mix of science + fun, the EMPSEB way!
📍Save the date & follow us for updates! Link in Bio 🌍
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
Applications for the MEME programme (www.evobio.eu
) are now open! MEME is a research- and mobility-oriented master’s in evolutionary biology (& I’m a proud alumna!), jointly run by the Unis of Groningen, Uppsala, Montpellier, and LMU Munich, with Harvard and Lausanne as partners. Spread the word!
) are now open! MEME is a research- and mobility-oriented master’s in evolutionary biology (& I’m a proud alumna!), jointly run by the Unis of Groningen, Uppsala, Montpellier, and LMU Munich, with Harvard and Lausanne as partners. Spread the word!
October 23, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Applications for the MEME programme (www.evobio.eu
) are now open! MEME is a research- and mobility-oriented master’s in evolutionary biology (& I’m a proud alumna!), jointly run by the Unis of Groningen, Uppsala, Montpellier, and LMU Munich, with Harvard and Lausanne as partners. Spread the word!
) are now open! MEME is a research- and mobility-oriented master’s in evolutionary biology (& I’m a proud alumna!), jointly run by the Unis of Groningen, Uppsala, Montpellier, and LMU Munich, with Harvard and Lausanne as partners. Spread the word!
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
🚨🚨Job! 🚨🚨Permanent (75% time) job! We are a pretty awesome research group & seek a manager who deals with everything: personnel tasks, organizing retreats, preparing code for teaching / data structures for research... Fluency in German & English essential. stellenboerse.uni-mainz.de#/jgu/job/51527
stellenboerse.uni-mainz.de
October 17, 2025 at 7:38 AM
🚨🚨Job! 🚨🚨Permanent (75% time) job! We are a pretty awesome research group & seek a manager who deals with everything: personnel tasks, organizing retreats, preparing code for teaching / data structures for research... Fluency in German & English essential. stellenboerse.uni-mainz.de#/jgu/job/51527
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
Pretty excited to share our new preprint!
Non-photosynthetic Plastid Replacement by a Primary Plastid in the Making
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Non-photosynthetic Plastid Replacement by a Primary Plastid in the Making
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
October 10, 2025 at 3:34 AM
Pretty excited to share our new preprint!
Non-photosynthetic Plastid Replacement by a Primary Plastid in the Making
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Non-photosynthetic Plastid Replacement by a Primary Plastid in the Making
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
And this is a society journal - from the Society for Modeling and Theory in Biology @smtpb.bsky.social !
October 7, 2025 at 5:07 AM
And this is a society journal - from the Society for Modeling and Theory in Biology @smtpb.bsky.social !
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
Looking forward to this! A non-Elsevier alternative to Theoretical Population Biology / Journal of Theoretical Biology
Population Biology Modeling & Theory (PBMT) is a peer-reviewed journal reporting advances in modeling and theory within population biology. Its scope spans demography, ecology, epidemiology, evolutionary biology, population genetics, and phylogenetics. PBMT will be online soon.
October 7, 2025 at 2:42 AM
Looking forward to this! A non-Elsevier alternative to Theoretical Population Biology / Journal of Theoretical Biology
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
Why is it so hard to detect fecundity-longevity #trade-offs in social insects? And what does this have to do with the Gospel of #Matthew??
Find out in our new paper with @kokkonut.bsky.social and Susanne Foitzik @mainzuniversity.bsky.social!
doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...
Find out in our new paper with @kokkonut.bsky.social and Susanne Foitzik @mainzuniversity.bsky.social!
doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...
Luck can explain the positive link between fecundity and longevity: the Matthew effect in social insects and beyond
Abstract. The universality of the trade-off between fecundity and longevity in life-history theory is sometimes contested. Social insects present the argua
doi.org
October 2, 2025 at 9:59 AM
Why is it so hard to detect fecundity-longevity #trade-offs in social insects? And what does this have to do with the Gospel of #Matthew??
Find out in our new paper with @kokkonut.bsky.social and Susanne Foitzik @mainzuniversity.bsky.social!
doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...
Find out in our new paper with @kokkonut.bsky.social and Susanne Foitzik @mainzuniversity.bsky.social!
doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
Want to get the low-down on vulturine guineafowl societies? Here's a summary of our knowledge so far:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
The multifaceted societies of vulturine guineafowl
Vulturine guineafowl, Acryllium vulturinum, are highly social birds that form stable identity groups (SIGs), corresponding to the concept of society p…
www.sciencedirect.com
September 30, 2025 at 4:32 AM
Want to get the low-down on vulturine guineafowl societies? Here's a summary of our knowledge so far:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
New paper out! 🤩 "Shrinking to bird size with dinosaur-level cancer defences: Evolution of cancer suppression over macroevolutionary time" with @kokkonut.bsky.social and @marcanthonytollis.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1371/jour... A short thread:
Shrinking to bird size with dinosaur-level cancer defences: Evolution of cancer suppression over macroevolutionary time
Author summary Humans are not the only species suffering from cancer, yet cancer does not impact all life equally. Body size is relevant because maintaining a large number of cells in a tumour-free st...
doi.org
September 16, 2025 at 11:51 AM
New paper out! 🤩 "Shrinking to bird size with dinosaur-level cancer defences: Evolution of cancer suppression over macroevolutionary time" with @kokkonut.bsky.social and @marcanthonytollis.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1371/jour... A short thread:
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
It started as a master thesis project by Markus Hiltunen, and ended up in this publication in Science. What a fun project to work on! Thanks Markus - and all other coauthors, too, for a great team work! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Early germline sequestration in a basidiomycete fungus
In sexual organisms, inheritance of new mutations is highly dependent on the timing of germline definition. Here, we used the fairy ring–forming fungus Marasmius oreades to challenge the general assum...
www.science.org
August 14, 2025 at 7:55 PM
It started as a master thesis project by Markus Hiltunen, and ended up in this publication in Science. What a fun project to work on! Thanks Markus - and all other coauthors, too, for a great team work! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
Here are all the talks I attended and sketched at #ESEB2025 ! Only a fraction of the 642 speakers at the conference 😮
I had an absolutely amazing week chatting about lots of fascinating science
#sciart #eseb #esebcongress @eseb2025.bsky.social
I had an absolutely amazing week chatting about lots of fascinating science
#sciart #eseb #esebcongress @eseb2025.bsky.social
September 2, 2025 at 9:11 AM
Here are all the talks I attended and sketched at #ESEB2025 ! Only a fraction of the 642 speakers at the conference 😮
I had an absolutely amazing week chatting about lots of fascinating science
#sciart #eseb #esebcongress @eseb2025.bsky.social
I had an absolutely amazing week chatting about lots of fascinating science
#sciart #eseb #esebcongress @eseb2025.bsky.social
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
If you work on the internal conflicts, do consider proposing a paper for our upcoming special issue in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.
More info here: internalconflictsstn.wordpress.com/special-issue/
More info here: internalconflictsstn.wordpress.com/special-issue/
August 29, 2025 at 2:35 PM
If you work on the internal conflicts, do consider proposing a paper for our upcoming special issue in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.
More info here: internalconflictsstn.wordpress.com/special-issue/
More info here: internalconflictsstn.wordpress.com/special-issue/
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
Some of the #Bengaluru representation at #ESEB2025 in Barcelona!
@shikharabhat.bsky.social @crazychipkali.bsky.social @vrindarvkm.bsky.social @gauravathreya.bsky.social @utharasrini.bsky.social
@shikharabhat.bsky.social @crazychipkali.bsky.social @vrindarvkm.bsky.social @gauravathreya.bsky.social @utharasrini.bsky.social
August 25, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Some of the #Bengaluru representation at #ESEB2025 in Barcelona!
@shikharabhat.bsky.social @crazychipkali.bsky.social @vrindarvkm.bsky.social @gauravathreya.bsky.social @utharasrini.bsky.social
@shikharabhat.bsky.social @crazychipkali.bsky.social @vrindarvkm.bsky.social @gauravathreya.bsky.social @utharasrini.bsky.social
a bit unhappy that the talks about being trans & Palestinian in academia were concurrent with other science talks #ESEB2025. How will these inspiring people’s stories percolate / get everyone to reflect if the schedule selects for attendance only by those who are already sympathetic?
Thanks to Sofia and May Sheday for the courageous and inspiring talks! The scientific world cannot remain silent @eseb2025.bsky.social #ESEB2025 #inclusivity 🏳️🌈 #transrights 🏳️⚧️ #freepalestine 🇵🇸
August 22, 2025 at 1:38 PM
a bit unhappy that the talks about being trans & Palestinian in academia were concurrent with other science talks #ESEB2025. How will these inspiring people’s stories percolate / get everyone to reflect if the schedule selects for attendance only by those who are already sympathetic?
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
Great talk by @gauravathreya.bsky.social about his work on age-dependent facultative sex! It’s been a super fun and interesting project to work on 🤩 and a preprint will be coming soon! #ESEB2025
August 21, 2025 at 9:44 AM
Great talk by @gauravathreya.bsky.social about his work on age-dependent facultative sex! It’s been a super fun and interesting project to work on 🤩 and a preprint will be coming soon! #ESEB2025
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
Is AI transforming science? Apparently not in evolutionary biology. Of nearly 1,700 abstracts at #ESEB2025, only four mention AI or artificial intelligence, another eight mention deep learning, and another two explicitly refer to AlphaFold.
August 21, 2025 at 10:27 AM
Is AI transforming science? Apparently not in evolutionary biology. Of nearly 1,700 abstracts at #ESEB2025, only four mention AI or artificial intelligence, another eight mention deep learning, and another two explicitly refer to AlphaFold.
Reposted by Gaurav Athreya
What if your family members turn out to be your worst enemies? Come see my talk at #eseb2025 on using pedigree and mark-recapture data to explore how relatedness structures competitive interactions, and whether this maintains variation! Thursday, 11am, S48.02, meeting room 122+123
August 17, 2025 at 2:35 PM
What if your family members turn out to be your worst enemies? Come see my talk at #eseb2025 on using pedigree and mark-recapture data to explore how relatedness structures competitive interactions, and whether this maintains variation! Thursday, 11am, S48.02, meeting room 122+123