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Dimitris Kontopoulos

@dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy

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Walter Benjamin Fellow @ UCLA with Noa Pinter-Wollman. Looking at the impacts of temperature changes on diverse biological systems. Also husband & dad. 🌉 bridged from ⁂ https://ecoevo.social/@DGKontopoulos, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact

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Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · 18d

I am deeply honored to announce that the Early Career Section of the Ecological Society of America has awarded me the co-second place for the 2025 Outstanding Paper #award by an #earlycareer #ecologist. 🧵1/12

Reposted by Dimitris Kontopoulos

Gaspar Jekely @jekely.biologists.social.ap.brid.gy · 9d

A new banner on a Wiley site.
I am not a healthcare professional, so am I not supposed to look at this evo-devo paper now? Can I read the abstract?

Any ideas why this new #enshittification feature? #publishing

banner on a Wiley site asking readers to confirm that they are healthcare professionals

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Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · 13d

All of US academia is very stressed right now. On top of everything else, could you please NOT send me an invoice that is due only 5 days after the date of issue?

Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · 16d

We have a #newpaper in Evolution (@journal_evo), led by Xueling Yi, on the #Evolution of dietary preferences across (but not only) Phyllostomid #bats. 🦇

https://academic.oup.com/evolut/advance-article/doi/10.1093/evolut/qpaf154/8222499

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Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · 18d

In closing, I am eternally grateful for this amazing honor and look forward to seeing what the future holds! 🧵12/12

Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · 18d

Despite this, he was endlessly patient with me, always with a smile on his face, and encouraged me to set high goals and surpass them. A great deal of my approach to #science can be traced back to Samraat, and I hope that one day I will be half the mentor he is. 🧵11/12

Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · 18d

Samraat and I joined #Imperial within a few months of each other. He was then a Lecturer of #TheoreticalEcology, and I a Master’s (and, later, #phd) student with a severely lacking background in #ecology. 🧵10/12

Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · 18d

This achievement would not have been possible without the contributions of all my academic mentors to whom I am most grateful, but especially to Prof. Samraat Pawar from #ImperialCollegeLondon. 🧵9/12

Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · 18d

For someone whose first academic degree was in #molecularbiology and #genetics, the co-second place for the 2025 Outstanding Paper #award is a strong recognition of where my #research journey has brought me. 🧵8/12

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Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · 18d

Second, the Ecological Society of America counts among its ranks more than 9,000 ecologists, both from #academia and outside it. 🧵7/12

Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · 18d

The days were bleak back in 2020, when I started this project, and the future all but certain, but here we are now! 🧵6/12

Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · 18d

Developing a catalog of effectively all existing thermal performance curve models and comparing their performance across diverse datasets was something that a) had never been done before, b) I could work on from my room on my laptop, and c) did not require any funding. 🧵5/12

Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · 18d

This #award feels completely incredible to me for multiple reasons. First, I came up with the idea behind this #paper during the first COVID-19 quarantine when I was fresh out of my #phd and, unfortunately, unemployed. 🧵4/12

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Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · 18d

I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the #award committee and the external reviewers for this amazing honor, to my co-authors for their role in this achievement, and to my family for their support. 🧵3/12

Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · 18d

I received this #award for my 2024 #NatureCommunications #paper, in which my co-authors and I performed an extensive comparison of 83 thermal performance curve models across the largest compilation of such datasets to date (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-53046-2). 🧵2/12

Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · 18d

Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · 27d

"Heatwaves linked to carbon emissions from specific companies"

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02915-x

Very interesting... 🤔

Dozens of heatwaves linked to carbon emissions from specific companies

Nearly one-quarter of heatwaves would have been ‘virtually impossible’ without global warming — and can be attributed to the emissions of individual energy producers.

www.nature.com

Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · 28d

"Ice gliding #diatoms establish record-low #temperature limits for motility in a eukaryotic cell"

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2423725122?af=R

Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · 28d

"High temperatures amplify aggressiveness of an invasive lizard toward a native congener"

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306456525002141?dgcid=rss_sd_all#bib64

Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · Aug 26

"Repeated heatwaves can age you as much as smoking or drinking" 🤯

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02729-x

Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · Aug 11

On GitHub moving to integration with Microsoft's AI team (see https://ecoevo.social/@[email protected]/115011101022724613).

Switch to @Codeberg. I recently made the move from GitHub to Codeberg to store code that reproduces the analyses of my latest paper ( […]

Original post on ecoevo.social

ecoevo.social

Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · Aug 6

Overall, there is no single solution for thermal #adaptation of this #enzyme, which I think is super cool!
Big thanks to my coauthors for helping make this #paper a reality, and I hope you like it! 🧵7/7

Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · Aug 6

In contrast, there was no systematic relationship between compactness and #temperature. The number and pattern of amino acid contacts also varied tremendously among adenylate kinases and not in a manner that strongly depended on temperature. 🧵6/7

Four network plots of contacts between pairs of amino acid alignment columns of psychrophilic, mesophilic, thermophilic, and hyperthermophilic monomeric adenylate kinases in our study. Panels are labelled from A to D.

Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · Aug 6

In other words, adenylate kinases from cold environments are more flexible than their hot-adapted counterparts at any given #temperature. But when the comparison is done at each species' respective native temperature, then the hot-adapted ones are more flexible! 🧵5/7

Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · Aug 6

Our results showed that there are many different paths towards #adaptation of adenylate kinases to extreme cold or extreme hot environments. In particular, the main pattern that we observed was an increase in structural flexibility with #temperature, both across #species and within. 🧵4/7

Scatterplot of the relationship between the root mean square fluctuation of alpha carbon atoms (a measure of structural flexibility) and temperature for the adenylate kinases in our study. The plot includes fitted lines and regression parameter estimates.

Dimitris Kontopoulos @dgkontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy · Aug 6

By conducting several molecular dynamics simulations, we obtained estimates of flexibility and compactness at temperatures typically experienced by each #species and at non-native temperatures. We also compared the number and pattern of contacts formed among amino acids. 🧵3/7