Upama Aich

The final round this year for international PhD scholarships at Monash are now open (August 31st 2025). Interested in evolutionary ecology, global change, sex differences, and/or infectious disease? Maybe some ecotox together with @bbmwong.bsky.social. Get in touch. There will be Daphnia involved...

Context-dependent effects of developmental and adult diet on life-history traits in Drosophila melanogaster Abstract. Life-history traits such as body size, reproduction, survival, and stress resistance are fundamental to an organism’s fitness and are highly infl

What you eat when you eat matters!

Diet during development vs adulthood affects survival, fertility, and stress resistance — differently in male & female fruit flies.
Same calories, different outcomes.

Chandrakanth et al.: doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

Calling all evolutionary biologists!

**AES 2025 Conference**

📍 UQ Brisbane | 🗓 1–3 Oct

**Talks close 1 Sept**

Don’t miss out — submit & join us for three days of cutting-edge science + community!

aes.corsizio.com/event/685405...

#AES2025 #Evolution #ECR #SciComm #AusSci

Correlated evolution of multiple traits gives butterflies a false head | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Many butterflies possess a combination of characters at the posterior hindwing end, superficially resembling their head. This false head has been hypothesized to deflect predator attacks towards the f...

Read the full paper here: (2/2)
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Some butterflies adapted to have second ‘heads’ that confuse predators A new evolutionary analysis of butterflies finds “false heads” arose from the coalescence of multiple traits

Some butterflies adapted to have second ‘heads’ that confuse predators | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti... (1/2)

In the #Anthropocene, species face multiple, severe stressors which may be anticipated to interact in harmful ways.

This #Perspective explores a more hopeful alternative: that stressors interact in a cross-protective manner.

Learn more here ➡️ doi.org/10.1093/conp...
🐸 🐦‍⬛ 🐝

@scienceanu.bsky.social @uomresearchit.bsky.social

This afternoon, CEB talk was presented by @hasbeanbeetle.bsky.social, who is studying elytral melanisation as female ornamentation in seed beetles. The live beetle props entertained our audience! 🪲🐞

Aadhi is supervised by Dr Natasha Lebas, Assoc Profs Joe Tomkins & Jason Kennington, & Dr Rob Dugand

We are doing a Hackathon! 💻 Together with senior editor @nhcooper123.bsky.social , we'll be discussing and testing a protocol to check whether published data/code is actually reproducible... (1/2)

Check out our paper in Evolution Letters!

We used D. melanogaster pigmentation as a focal trait to explore parallelism in phenotypic and genomic responses to environmental change - read more at the link below 👇

Parental age effects on offspring telomere length across vertebrates: a meta-analysis https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.26.666864v1

3-year #Postdoc opportunity at the University of York!
I am #hiring a Postdoc to join my URF project on exploring how #biodiversity change is unfolding in the #Anthropocene.

Deadline: 10th August 2025.

All details and the link to apply: shorturl.at/qOQst

@anthropocenebio.bsky.social #ecology

Opinion | Elon Musk’s Legacy Is Disease, Starvation and Death

"Brooke Nichols, an associate professor of global health at Boston University, has estimated that these cuts have already resulted in about 300,000 deaths, most of them of children, and will most likely lead to significantly more by the end of the year."

🎉 Our new paper is out in Evolution!
We show how sexual selection shapes heat tolerance in Drosophila prolongata.
Males evolved under sperm competition suffer more under heat stress.
Led by @adenardo.bsky.social with @StefanLupold lab members.

academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...

#sexualSelectio

Can magpies count? 🦅 New CEB #cognition paper shows WA magpies pick the bigger food reward & birds from SMALLER groups out-count those in larger ones: first evidence that group size shapes quantity skills within a species #HollyHunter @gblackburn.bsky.social #BenjaminJAshton @mandyridley.bsky.social

Had a great run presenting in front of fellow CEB-ists! Onto the real thing tomorrow! 🐜💪🏼

Congratulations @nirjana-dewan.bsky.social and the authors @ceb-uwa.bsky.social! 🎉🎉

Carbon majors and the scientific case for climate liability - Nature A transparent and reproducible scientific framework is introduced to formalize how trillions in economic losses are attributable to the extreme heat caused by emissions from fossil fuel companies, whi...

Published in Nature, an important analysis of the liability of fossil fuel polluters for climate change impacts.

“Chevron, the highest-emitting company, very likely caused between US $791 billion & $3.6 trillion in heat-related losses over the period 1991–2020”

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

From the Anu community on Reddit Explore this post and more from the Anu community

If you're wondering how things are going at #ourANU, it's not good. A lot of voluntary redundancy folks still waiting to hear if they are can go. College budgets slashed, layoffs imminent, but zero communication. So we rely on Reddit posts like this:
www.reddit.com/r/Anu/commen...

How do fish evolve to tolerate higher temperatures, and are there trade-offs? We explore these questions in our new paper
@natclimate.nature.com led by Anna Andreassen
@annahandreassen.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
🧪🐟🦑

Australians want nature protected. These 3 environmental problems should be top of the next government’s to-do list Three experts consider what’s required to protect and conserve Australia’s natural wonders, from fighting invaders to stopping habitat loss and saving species.

So, Murray Watt is the new Environment Minister in the re-elected @albomp.bsky.social government.

Murray, please implement environmental law reform and increase investment in environmental protection and recovery, as large numbers of experts have advised.

theconversation.com/australians-...

🚨New paper alert! Predator-free havens breed the wild out of wildlife. LeBas et al. show that recognising the fecundity–anxiety trade-off can keep both booming numbers & predator wariness in threatened species—best of both worlds. 👉 doi.org/10.1016/j.bi...
#Conservation #Ecology #Evolution #WildOz

Explicit value trade-offs in conservation: integrating animal welfare. Check out our latest TREE paper, led by Kate Lynch. Click here for free access to the article for the next 50 days:

authors.elsevier.com/a/1kzlecZ3X3...

#BobWongLab

📸 Patrick Tomkins

🎉 Huge congrats to PhD student @gabrielmelhado.bsky.social who received an award at the #ASABSpring2025 conference in Liverpool for presenting his research on how pharmaceutical pollution impacts the behaviour and immune system of our Aussie native rainbowfish.
Way to go, Gabriel! 🐠🔬

Congrats again, everyone. Just realised this is gonna make a great contribution to my upcoming lecture on the evolution in the Anthropocene. Yay!

Over the moon to finally share our new study in @science.org led by the amazing @jack-brand.bsky.social!

Pharmaceutical pollution at environmentally realistic levels alters behaviour and migration in Atlantic salmon, directly affecting survival

👉 science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Zoology stall has been busy today with so many enthusiasts around! Darwin was a big hit but stick insects won the race! 🐜🐟🦊
@jenkelley01.bsky.social @1jonevans.bsky.social @beetlebonking.bsky.social @upama.bsky.social

Darwin came to town!
@beetlebonking.bsky.social @brainiants.bsky.social @upama.bsky.social

#UWAOpenDay #EvolBio #EnvironmentalScience

Come find us at the Ezone 207, Zoology stall for UWA Open Day today! Drop by to chat about all things animal behaviour, conservation, and evolutionary biology. Come find out what research at CEB is all about!

#UWAOpenDay #EvolBio #SaferPharma #EnvironmentalScience

Meanwhile, in Europe👇