Animal Ecology Uppsala

and
Emerging Technologies in Bird Monitoring and Research: Artificial Intelligence, eDNA, Remote Sensing, and Other Approaches: www.keaipublishing.com/en/journals/...

The international ornithological journal Avian Research, which publishes Open Access for FREE, has calls for two special issues:
Avian Conservation in the Anthropocene: Challenges, Innovations, and Future Directions: lnkd.in/dcWNqPxu (deadline 31 December 2026)

and

Bar-tailed Lark Ammomanes cincture Photo: Zongzhuang Liu

Congratulations to my former student Zongzhuang Liu for publishing a paper on Weak nuclear divergence despite pronounced mitochondrial divergence within a widespread desert-inhabiting Palearctic lark (Aves: Alaudidae). See doi.org/10.1111/zsc.... (Open Access)

Congratulations to my former student Lei Wu who recently published "Parallel divergence with shared barriers and niche
separation between two sympatric avian species groups" (dx.doi.org/10.1111/jse....) (Open Access). Willow Tit Poecile montanus and Marsh Tit P. palustris species groups in China

Neele giving an overview of the background of the thesis

Huge congrats to Neele Schmidt for successfully defending her PhD thesis “Ecosystem restoration through restocking hatchling cod in the Baltic Sea” 🎉🐟

Neele addressed several ecological challenges in the endeaver of restocking cod hatchlings. Read the thesis at: uu.diva-portal.org/smash/record...

Last week the annual @animecol-uu.bsky.social symposium, 'Revolution', counted with several presentations from the students and researchers in our lab! Yishu Zhu, Ana Gomes, Sophia Stratton, Michaëla Berdougo, and Anna Qvarnström presented the most recent updates on the flycatchers work!

Great Revolution at @animecol-uu.bsky.social : thank you for inviting me, fun to be on the other side of the barricades this time 😀

Alex explaining an experiment where C. elegans received food treatments with or without added odor

Another inspiring plenary talk today by @alexeimaklakov.bsky.social — Why Live Longer on Less (and Why the Sexes Age Differently)? Dietary restriction leads to longer life span, but is it through trade-offs as commonly believed? 🧐

(Preprint at www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...)

Today I had the chance to show some preliminary data from my wolverine #microbiome project at our program symposia Revolution @animecol-uu.bsky.social 🦠

Anna Runemark introducing the sparrow study system

Great plenary talk this morning by Prof. Anna Runemark @biologylu.bsky.social titled ‘Novel variation from hybridization: more than new combinations of alleles in coding genes’. Exciting exploration of hybrid transgression in sparrows at different levels 🤩

#Revolution2026

#Revolution2026 has officially started! 😃

Looking forward to two fun science-filled days. Invited speakers are Anna Runemark and Alexei Maklakov. @animecol-uu.bsky.social

Shout out to the organizers this year! @michaelaberdougo.bsky.social , Ana Gomes, @abhishek11.bsky.social , Hana Merchant, Veronika Mrazek, @christinapan.bsky.social

#Revolution2026

Programme head Anna Qvarnström starting the event. An event flyer is in the foreground.

Our annual programme symposium, 'Revolution', is here again! The two days ahead will be full of great science 🧬

We’ve been working on this paper longer than it took adaptive alleles to cross the species barrier (in both directions) and make two pests ever more resistant to the things we throw at them.

New preprint out 🧬🌱🐛

Gill-associated microbiome as indicators of population stress and condition in Eastern Baltic Cod The skin microbiome contributes to host health by facilitating pathogen exclusion, priming the immune system modulation and maintaining skin homeostasis. We examined how the composition of the skin mi...

Happy to announce that we have a new pre-print out. We analyzed the 16s microbiome profiling of two different Baltic cod poputions in the Eastern baltic sea 😀.

doi.org/10.64898/202...

Master Projects available in the Qvarnström lab @qvarnstromlab.bsky.social studying climate adaptation and speciation using a natural flycatcher hybrid zone on Öland, Sweden!

Check available projects here 👇👇
drive.google.com/file/d/1B69x...

SAD NEWS! we have found Ranavirus for the first time in scandinavian península affecting wild amphibian populations

doi.org/10.3354/dao0...

The Birgitta Sintring Foundation – Department of Ecology and Genetics – Uppsala University

Interested in applying for a postdoc on wildlife #microbiomes in my lab at Uppsala University, Sweden?

The local Birgitta Sintring Foundation gives out generous 2-year postdoc scholarships to early-career researchers who apply with a PI at the department. Deadline Feb 9.

www.uu.se/en/departmen...

The effects of sexual selection on functional and molecular reproductive divergence during experimental evolution in seed beetles Abstract. Sexual selection can be an engine of divergent evolution between closely related lineages, as a result of idiosyncratic coevolution of male and f

New paper alert! 📜

200 gen of strong sexual selection in beetles 🪲 causes divergent evolution of male and female traits, possibly through more divergent expression of reproductive proteins . Work by Arnqvist group. Check it out 👇

academic.oup.com/evlett/advan...

#evolution

Two weeks left to apply for this position!

Feel free to email if there are any questions.

Happy to share the recent paper by Marta Garrigós et al.

Effects of avian #Plasmodium exposure on the #microbiota of #Culex pipiens. 🦟🦠

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Marta spent a month in our group at UU last year; great to see this published! @jmartinezpuente.bsky.social @cenkvist.bsky.social

Happy to share that I got 6M sek FORMAS career grant to continue investigating infection diseases in amphibian species and its relation to immunity and microbiome and the huge opportunity to be a lab leader! 😀

Postdoctoral researcher in molecular ecology - Uppsala University Postdoctoral researcher in molecular ecology, Department of Ecology and Genetics, Uppsala University

📢 We have an open position for a postdoc to join my lab. It's a great position @animecol-uu.bsky.social, fully salaried for 2.5 years with all benefits.

www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

The project is about transmission patterns of bacteria and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in aquatic insects. 🧬🦠 (1/3)

Excited to share that I was awarded a 6M SEK grant from Formas, the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development ! 🎉

The project is about the early-life gut #microbiome of reindeer calves, and how it's associated with their health and growth. 🦌🦠🧬

Home AviList is a collaborative global effort to produce a single current consensus taxonomy for the birds of the world, along with key information on taxonomy and nomenclature. The checklist is free for d...

I'm too inexperienced w Bluesky to know whether my comment on Delta Bird Festival, where I gave a talk on AviList (avilist.org), the unified global list of birds, is visible, so here's a link to paper where we present the work behind and future of AviList: doi.org/10.1007/s105... #birds #ornithology

Major Histocompatibility Complex modulation of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis and Ranavirus infections in amphibians Abstract. Genetic variation in immune genes is an important component of genetic diversity. The genes in the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) provide

Breaking news! New publication in co-infection dynamics in wild amphibian populations. Thank to all co-author for the support: Jaime Bosch, Gemma Palomar @boixrichter.bsky.social and Peter halvarsson 😀. academic.oup.com/jeb/advance-...

How do insects respond to changing climates? Our new review and analysis in @annualreviews.bsky.social suggests that phenological adaptation trumps thermal adaptation.

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Just published: Conservation genomics of two
endangered buntings reveal genetic diversity
before and after severe population declines. doi.org/10.1186/s129... Despite severe population declines, both species retained high genetic diversity but experienced increased inbreeding. #ornithology #birds

YouTube video by Delta Birding Festival AviList: a unified global bird checklist - Per Alström

I was honoured to be invited to give a talk on AviList, the new unified global checklist of birds, at the Delta Birding Festival 2+ weeks ago, and the organizers just sent me a link to a YouTube video of my talk: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO5x... #birds #ornithology #taxonomy

The reliability of environmental cues shape learning and selection against deleterious alleles in seed beetles | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Behavioural plasticity can play a key role in evolution by either facilitating or impeding genetic adaptation. The latter occurs when behaviours mitigate selection pressures that otherwise would targe...

Behavioral plasticity can be a double-edged sword for genetic adaptation.

Have a look at our experimental demonstration published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....