Vincent Debat

The Baldwin Effect Reloaded: Intermediate Levels of Phenotypic Plasticity Favor Evolutionary Rescue | The American Naturalist Abstract Since the late 1890s up until today, how phenotypic plasticity interacts with genetic adaptation has been a debated issue. Proponents of a positive causal role of phenotypic plasticity—James ...

Does phenotypic plasticity promote (Baldwin effect) or hinder (Mayr) genetic adaptation? Lambert et al. mathematically show that when adaptive plasticity increases, the Baldwin effect increases, peaks then decreases as plasticity begins to mask selection.
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Hybridization and introgression are major evolutionary processes. Since the 1940s, the prevailing view has been that they shape plants far more than animals. In our new study (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
), we find the opposite: animals exchange genes more, and for longer, than plants

Constraints on chromosome evolution revealed by the 229 chromosome pairs of the Atlas blue butterfly The genome of the Atlas blue butterfly contains ten times more chromosomes than most butterflies, and more than any other known diploid animal. Wright et al. show that this extraordinary karyotype is ...

How many chromosomes can an animal have?

In our paper out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social we show that the Atlas blue butterfly has 229 chromosome pairs- the highest in diploid Metazoa! These arose by rapid autosome fragmentation while sex chromosomes stayed intact.
www.cell.com/current-biol...

One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants - Nature In a case of obligate cross-species cloning, female ants of Messor ibericus need to clone males of Messor structor to obtain sperm for producing the worker caste, resulting in males from the same moth...

You may have missed this #ant poster at #ESEB2025, but be sure not to miss the article just published in #openacess in @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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

I'm hiring a postdoc... By combining samples that are more than a million years old with the short generation time of small rodents, we hope to gain a unique window into evolution unfolding across millions of generations!

a close up of a fly 's head with a blurred background . ALT: a close up of a fly 's head with a blurred background .

🚨 Hiring! We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher with expertise in computational fluid dynamics and structural simulations to investigate biomechanics and mechanosensory feedback in insect flight.

Extreme agility ✔️
Morphological computing ✔️
Meshes! ✔️

jobs.rvc.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...

Hmm the illustration doesn't match the title :)

Vertical and temporal niche partitioning in Amazonian butterflies: implications for the evolution of thermal tolerance Closely related species living in sympatry are often partitioned into divergent ecological niches. Such specialization can be enabled by the evolution of divergent traits enhancing adaptation to diff...

Super nice study by @titouanbouinier.bsky.social‬ on niche partitioning in Morpho butterflies!

Oikos - Wiley Online Library nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

The Adaptive Significance of Tail‐Flagging: A Test in European Rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) European rabbits use their white tails to warn others of danger and ward off predators, revealing the dual function of a single animal signalling behaviour. Using both field observations and phylogen....

Was great to be involved in such an interesting paper, now published in @ecol-evol.bsky.social!

dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

Two pictures of the 70s Swedish Pop group ABBA. They are in two different arrangements in the left picture vs the right picture, leading to a visual pun about the population genetics measure called “ABBA BABA”.

ABBA / BABA

Join us Opportunities Below are the positions currently open in our lab. PhD position (full-time doctoral funding) We are seeking a highly motivated PhD student to join our team. The goal of the project is…

New PhD position: Butterfly Conservation Genomics 🦋
The project focuses on threatened butterflies in Czech dry grasslands and steppes.
Deadline: September 12, 2025
More info: pavelmatos.wordpress.com/join-us/

A PhD position is open at the Teotónio lab in Paris to study genetic assimilation in C. elegans. Applicants with a master's in evolutionary biology are preferred. Apply by 19 Sept 2025. More info: https://www.ibens.bio.ens.psl.eu/?rubrique28 #phd

Convergent Molecular Evolution Associated With Repeated Transitions to Gregarious Larval Behavior in Heliconiini Abstract. Collective behavior forms the basis for many antipredator strategies. Within Lepidoptera, larval gregariousness has evolved convergently across m

Gregarious behaviour in butterfly larvae has evolved multiple times - Cicconardi, @ebablab.bsky.social et al. use genome data of 60 Heliconiini species, identifying signatures of convergent molecular evolution, on both coding and noncoding loci.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf179

#evobio #molbio

Another paper on polyommatine blue butterflies just published in @genomebiolevol.bsky.social. Blues have high chromosome numbers associated with increased diversification and their karyotypes reveal strategies to maintain genomic integrity amidst profound karyotypic changes doi.org/10.1093/gbe/...

À la découverte du pika « chou », un animal étonnant menacé par le changement climatique Ces lagomorphes plus proches des lapins que des rats sont aujourd’hui menacés par le changement climatique et par les activités humaines.

À la découverte du pika « chou », un animal étonnant menacé par le changement climatique

Un article de Violaine Nicolas-Colin de l'@isyeb.mnhn.fr dans @france.theconversation.com

theconversation.com/a-la-decouve...

Cellular innovations and diversity in the lepidopteran compound eye - Journal of Comparative Physiology A Lepidoptera, having co-diversified with flowering plants and adapted to various diel niches, present a remarkable system for studying compound eye cell type diversity. Here we synthesize the latest re...

Among insects, lepidoptera 🦋 show one of the most diverse photoreceptor types 👁, explaining diverse spectral sensitivities including a convergent evolution of red vision.

Lu & Kronforst review the lepidopteran eye evolution.

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

... sur la structuration génétique de cette espèce et son comportement de migration.
"A genomic test of sex-biased dispersal in white sharks." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(32), e2507931122.
doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
Laso-Jadart, R., Lesturgie, P., Mona, S. @isyeb.mnhn.fr et al.

Three decades of declines restructure butterfly communities in the Midwestern United States | PNAS Insects are declining worldwide. These declines have been documented across taxonomic groups and are worrisome given ecosystem services provided by...

More bad news for butterflies. Our new paper led by Wendy Leuenberger shows common species are declining even more rapidly than rare ones. @ZipkinLab

Three decades of declines restructure butterfly communities in the Midwestern United States | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2501340122

Our false head work is out! By analysing ~1000 #butterflies, we found many traits at posterior end of hindwings evolved correlatedly, likely forming a trait complex w/adaptive function to dupe predators into thinking these traits together are actual head!!

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

a thin butterfly with black and orange patterns on its long, lobed wings is at rest on the shiny surface of a leaf next to what might be small eggs

A new study tracks the recent and rapid diversification of glasswing butterflies, which evolved within the last two million years in the tropics of South America.
Story:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/geno...

Study:
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Electroreception in treehoppers: How extreme morphologies can increase electrical sensitivity | PNAS The link between form and function of an organism’s morphology is usually apparent or intuitive. However, some clades of organisms show remarkable ...

Why do treehoppers look so weird?! Our latest paper, out this week in @pnas.org, suggests a perhaps unexpected reason - static electricity ⚡ We show that treehoppers can detect the electrostatic cues of predators and that their crazy shapes may boost their electrosensitivity! doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Thanks! The divergence in flight time and its possible contribution to (sympatric?) speciation

[Prix Recherche SFE²] Lauréate 2025 - Violaine Llaurens - sfecologie.org Toutes nos félicitations à Violaine Llaurens (DR CNRS, CIRB & ISYEB, Paris & Université des Antilles), lauréate du Prix Recherche SFE² 2025.

Congrats to Violaine for this well deserved prize!! Champagne!
sfecologie.org/2025/07/16/p...

A bar graph showing a greater prevalence of left-sleeping cats than right-sleeping cats. The category labels are pictures of cats.

Cats like to sleep on the left

www.cell.com/current-biol...

doi.org/10.5802/crbi...
A synthesis of our recent work on Morpho butterflies evolution

#Comptes_Rendus_Biologies (348)
@academiesciences.bsky.social
"Convergences et divergences évolutives chez les espèces sympatriques..."
@vincentdebat.bsky.social ,López-Villavicencio,M. & Llaurens,V. @isyeb.mnhn.fr
#Evolution#Speciation#Flight
🦋 comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/biologies/ar...

Evolution of plasticity and character displacement in a fluctuating environment

Our paper on evolution of plasticity and character displacement in a fluctuating environment is now published as early view in Evolution. Check it out if you're interested in eco-evolutionary dynamics, coevolution... and plasticity of course!
academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

Are you interested in muscle #biomechanics and looking for #postdoc opportunities?

If you have skills in (statistical) shape modelling, advanced data analyses or 3D imaging/model reconstructions, get in touch with me!

I will be at #SEB2025 (Antwerp), #CNB2025 (Helsinki), and #ISB2025 (Stockholm).