Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

闵娅(Min Ya; Minya) PhD @minyaaa.bsky.social · 4d

And look at this graphic abstract….. 😱🤯

7 58 190

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

Dr. Sebastian A. Echeverri, PhD @spiderdaynightlive.bsky.social · Oct 16

Most "tarantula-like" (Mygalomorph) spiders can't use silk to balloon around, unlike "typical" (Araneomorph) spiders.
BUT. Ummidia trapdoor spiders can! (still only as babies, same as all spiders.) That's why theyre so widespread around the world compared to their relatives!
#Arachtober 🧪🌿🕷️

Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · Oct 16

Here are some teeny tiny trapdoor spiderlings, found atop a plant stem getting ready to balloon away to find a new home. When I shot this, I didn't realize trapdoor spiders dispersed in this way - they're pretty chunky. But of course the babies are very small. (North Carolina) #Arachtober 🐙🌿

A group of four orange-colored, chunky trapdoor spider spiderlings in a tangle of webbing atop a dry brown plant stem, with out of focus greenery in the background.

4 18 90

Fabian Salgado-Roa @facasaro.bsky.social · 13d

It was a pleasure to be involved in this!

Will Allen @wlallen.bsky.social · 13d

📢🦋 Our paper ‘Global selection on insect antipredator coloration’ is out and featured on the cover of @science.org

We ran a huge experiment to find out how ecological context favours camouflage and warning colouration as antipredator strategies. 1/6

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A white-fronted bee-eater (Merops bullockoides) decides whether to consume a warningly colored white-barred acraea butterfly (Telchinia encedon). Photo (c) Mike Rowe

3

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

Integrative Biology - UT Austin @texas-ib.bsky.social · 15d

Congratulations to Fabian Salgado-Roa, winner of the Medalla Humbold-Caldas Best Publication in Biogeography! His paper is titled "The Andes as a semi-permeable geographical barrier: Genetic connectivity between structured populations in a widespread spider." tinyurl.com/2pmcem2c

3 4

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

Dr Mark E Hauber @thecowbirdlab.bsky.social · 26d

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

An Intergeneric Hybrid Between Historically Isolated Temperate and Tropical Jays Following Recent Range Expansion

We document the first known hybridization event between the Green Jay (Cyanocorax yncas) and Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata), two distantly related species whose ranges now overlap in Texas due to cli...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

2 8

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

Volker Rudolf @volkerrudolf.bsky.social · 26d

Awesome faculty position alert! Tenure-track assistant professor position in Evolutionary Biology, with a focus on organismal responses to environmental change.

Please help spread the word!
apply.interfolio.com/173889

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

apply.interfolio.com

1 33 27

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

Nicolas Bierne @couplingdmi.bsky.social · Sep 2

Still possible to apply to this #post-doc position at CESAB #Montpellier.
Application closing date: September 15th 2025 (12:00 PM CET)
How taking intraspecific diversity and evolutionary processes into account in translocation-based programs.
Please share widely #PopGen #NbS #Biodiversity

Nicolas Bierne @couplingdmi.bsky.social · Jul 10

3-year #postdoc position at Centre de synthèse et d'analyse de la biodiversité (CESAB) in Montpellier to work on how taking intraspecific diversity and evolutionary processes into account in translocation-based programs. Please share widely #PopGen #NbS

FRB｜Fondation pour la recherche sur la biodiversité @frbiodiv.bsky.social · Jun 4

[📢 Postdoc offer in Montpellier] Work on intraspecific diversity & translocation in Nature-based Solutions 🌿

Join the EVOLUTION Knowledge-Hub at the #FRB-CESAB

🔗 More informations: bit.ly/43uRz6Z

@cnrs.fr @inrae-france.bsky.social @umontpellier.bsky.social

28 18

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

Integrative Biology - UT Austin @texas-ib.bsky.social · Aug 5

Applications for the 2026 Stengl-Wyer Scholars Program are open! The program provides up to 3 years of support for talented postdoctoral researchers in the broad area of the diversity of life and/or organisms in their natural environments. Learn more here: utexas.infoready4.com/CompetitionS...

13 9

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

Integrative Biology - UT Austin @texas-ib.bsky.social · Aug 27

Introducing the 2025 Stengl-Wyer Scholars, Fellows, and Grant Awardees! Another talented group we are excited to have! Learn about their fascinating research in our first blog posting of the fall semester. biodiversity.utexas.edu/news/feature...

2 4

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

Liana Lareau @lianafaye.bsky.social · Aug 7

At the same time, we made thousands of synonymous mutations in endogenous yeast genes and measured their growth. We used careful statistics and controls. Only 3%, 204 of 6874, had a fitness effect! This goes against a controversial recent result that most synonymous mutations had fitness effects.

Scatterplot showing fitness effect of ~7000 synonymous mutations in yeast: read count at start vs log2 fold change. Most data points are not significant but 204 points are significant outliers, either advantageous or deleterious.

3 29 80

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

Bruno Alves Buzatto @brunobuzatto.bsky.social · Aug 20

Following funnel-web spiders — amazing work by Caitlin Creak:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Study initially by @braxtonjones.bsky.social, Danilo Harms and I (funded by NatGeo and AusGeo), taken up by Caitlin with Russell Bonduriansky and Mike Kasumovic. Congrats all, especially Caitlin! :)

3 5

Fabian Salgado-Roa @facasaro.bsky.social · Aug 19

Applications for the 2026 Stengl-Wyer scholars program just opened! Consider applying if you want to extend your research after your Ph.D.

cns.utexas.edu/research/res...

Stengl-Wyer Scholars

Stengl-Wyer Scholars are postdoctoral scientists in ecology and the life sciences who study at The University of Texas at Austin

cns.utexas.edu

1

Fabian Salgado-Roa @facasaro.bsky.social · Aug 19

I'm happy to share with you that in a couple of weeks I'll start as a Stengl-Wyer Scholar at the University of Texas at Austin. I'll join @becca-young.bsky.social's lab to study the ecology, genomics, and development of my favourite colourful spiders.

3 1 8

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

José Cerca @naturalselection.bsky.social · Aug 19

The 2025-26 Eco-Evo job list is out. Good luck to those applying!

docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

ecoevojobs.net 2025-26

docs.google.com

5 220 210

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

Will Ratcliff @wcratcliff.bsky.social · Aug 18

I am going to lodge a prediction: the AI bubble is going to start to deflate in the next 18 months.

Chatbots have edge case utility, but are not themselves transformative. Agents are as controllable as an alcoholic rabbit; not fit for serious work. Foundation models are no longer improving rapidly

13 14 89

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

Ethan Linck @elinck.bsky.social · Jul 7

the ad is up! applications due 7/15: evol.mcmaster.ca/brian/evoldi...

1 19 16

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

iNaturalist @inaturalist.bsky.social · Jul 7

Goldenrod Crab Spiders (Misumena vatia) are sexually dimorphic in size & color. The spider here is one of a few iNat observations of the species that shows both variations of dimorphism!

📷 cryokinesis on iNaturalist
📍 Canada
🔗: www.inaturalist.org/observations...
#ObservationOfTheDay

A spider that's half pale-yellow and half dark-brown perches on a leaf. It has a large, pale-yellow thorax.

1 20 110

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

Dr Christopher Taylor @mimicryin3d.bsky.social · Jul 2

Why do imperfect mimics (such as many hoverflies) exist? We created 3D printed replicas of flies, wasps and our own custom intermediates and then "asked" various predators what they thought of our 3D stimuli. Read all about it here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Mapping the adaptive landscape of Batesian mimicry using 3D-printed stimuli - Nature

Birds have an excellent ability to learn to discriminate harmless insects from those that they mimic on the basis of subtle differences in appearance.

www.nature.com

2 17 40

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

Emily Roycroft @emilyroycroft.bsky.social · Jun 26

📣 📣 Calling genomics-y and ecology friends, three permanent faculty positions at @monashbiol.bsky.social in Melbourne, Australia! See job listings here.

Bob Wong @bbmwong.bsky.social · Jun 26

The three academic positions (Lecturer/Senior Lecturer) in the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University are now advertised. Details here:

Ecology:
careers.pageuppeople.com/513/cw/en/jo...

Genomics:
careers.pageuppeople.com/513/cw/en/jo...

12 9

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · Jun 2

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...

Simons Graduate Fellowships in Ecology and Evolution

The purpose of these awards is to provide support for students entering U.S.-based Ph.D. programs with a plan to perform research in ecology and evolution. While we will consider all projects in ecolo...

www.simonsfoundation.org

2 77 52

Fabian Salgado-Roa @facasaro.bsky.social · May 27

It is great to see published work with friends out there! We examined the role of reflectivity in thermoregulation and its influence on warning signal variation in the cotton harlequin bug

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Body size rather than reflectivity explains thermal constraints on colour variation in an aposematic jewel bug - Evolutionary Ecology

Theory posits that warning signals should converge phenotypically to reinforce predator memory, yet many aposematic species show substantial variation in warning signals within and between populations...

link.springer.com

3

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

Richard Merrill @dickmerrill.bsky.social · May 23

Just over a week left to apply for this. Please get the word out there and tell your students :)

Richard Merrill @dickmerrill.bsky.social · May 6

Interested in a PhD connecting sensory ecology and evolutionary genetics? Applications are now open for a project on the Speciation Genomics of Eye Size Variation in Heliconius Butterflies in our lab at LMU Munich: www.evol.bio.lmu.de/research/mer... Please repost!

22 13

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

Kelly Zamudio @kzutaustin.bsky.social · May 15

Texas peeps, let's stop this in its tracks!

4 9

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

Richard Merrill @dickmerrill.bsky.social · May 6

Interested in a PhD connecting sensory ecology and evolutionary genetics? Applications are now open for a project on the Speciation Genomics of Eye Size Variation in Heliconius Butterflies in our lab at LMU Munich: www.evol.bio.lmu.de/research/mer... Please repost!

100 100

Reposted by Fabian Salgado-Roa

Daniel Bolnick @danielbolnick.bsky.social · May 5

Thread with an email being sent to @asn-amnat.bsky.social @sse-evolution.bsky.social @systbiol.bsky.social members today calling for a Tri-society week of action for NSF:

Dear members:
The tri-societies (ASN, SSE,SSB) are running a ‘Week of Action for NSF’. Your engagement is crucial.

4 160 180