Oxford Biology is growing 📢

We’re appointing 3 Associate Professors in:
🌱 Plant Sciences
🦉 Animal Behaviour
🔬 Molecular Cell Biology

3 fields. 3 opportunities. One new home for Oxford Biology.

Learn more 👉 bit.ly/41S2Tc7
Apply now 👉 bit.ly/488CNW3

Co-organised by Joris Alkemade and @nicholahawkins.bsky.social, contributors include @melonamaranth.bsky.social, @dannagifford.bsky.social, @florianhartig.bsky.social, @gmpreston.bsky.social, @mfseidl.bsky.social, @pietrospanu.bsky.social and more

New paper from our workshop funded by the Calleva Centre ‪@magdalenoxford.bsky.social‬. We discuss how to minimise the risk of resistance evolution for new fungal control methods using RNA sprays - based on lessons from fungicide resistance studies and evolutionary genomics. doi.org/10.1016/j.fb...

Fungicide resistance is a big reason why we need alternative crop protection measures, but we must consider the risk of those other crop protection measures also selecting for resistance, especially for target-specific methods like RNAi.

🚨Fresh out of press!
How do wild bacterial communities respond to environmental perturbations like liming?
We experimentally evolved them to find out!
academic.oup.com/ismej/articl...

Our new paper on experimental evolution in wild tree-holes -Eco-evolutionary robustness of wild bacterial communities to experimental perturbation

#ISMEJournal
@duhitasant.bsky.social Tom Smith Edgar Wong Juli Cohen
@kayla-king.bsky.social
Tom Bell

academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...

Congratulations to Shian-Li Kelly-Williams, who has won Best Initiative in the @mplsoxford.bsky.social Equality, Diversity, and Inclusivity (EDI) Awards!

Shian-Li has created a novel database for undergraduate students in Biology to share resources based on EDI-related content 👇
bit.ly/3IO46dx

Very proud of new DPhil, Simon Kershenbaum; here, messing with planarian (in cake-form). Co-supervised with Aziz Aboobakar. Big thanks to @timbarra.bsky.social and @jordisolana.bsky.social for all their hard work as examiners 🫶 Sorry to miss celebrations in person! 🥂 @biology.ox.ac.uk

Bit of a crime scene @magdalenoxford.bsky.social tower today, but whodunnit? @biology.ox.ac.uk

New paper out "Do the “big four” orders of insects comprise evolutionarily significant higher taxa with coherent patterns of selection on protein-coding genes?" ... well, do they?? @evolletters.bsky.social
@biology.ox.ac.uk academic.oup.com/evlett/advan...

Gene transfer from a different fungus has led to outbreaks of coffee wilt disease 🍄

For the past century, outbreaks have severely impacted coffee production across sub-Saharan Africa

New research with @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social & CABI 👇
bit.ly/4fVLuUV

PhD opportunity: Bdelloid rotifers are strange animals with no males and amazing stress tolerance. 10% of their genes came from bacteria, fungi via HGT, including antimicrobial genes that are unique in animals. Find out how/why and discover new antimicrobials too! www.findaphd.com/phds/project...