Leeban Yusuf

Very happy to see our opinion article out in @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social today. 🥳 We ask whether sexual signals can influence the evolutionary trajectory of naturally selected adaptations, such as protective colouration, for better or for worse 🧐 1/n
doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

Happy to share that our paper ‘a formal theory of group-level adaptation for obligate eusociality’ (with @andygardner.bsky.social) is now out in @jevbio.bsky.social advances.

doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

#OpenAccess #Eusociality #GroupAdaptation #FormalDarwinism

Functional and evolutionary synergy of trait components can explain the existence of leaf masquerade in katydids The evolution of complex adaptations often involves synergistic changes in multiple traits that lack standalone function. This study shows that leaf masquerade in katydids evolved through concurrent m...

Leaf? 🍃 Or katydid? 🦗
Our new
@plosbiology.org paper sheds light on how these incredible mimics evolved their disguises, and what this reveals about how complex adaptations arise. We find that coordinated evolution between traits might be the answer… plos.io/4oUE741 1/n

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 ...

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

Genomic signatures of local adaptation across parasitised cricket populations Host-parasite interactions are predicted to exhibit geographic heterogeneity, creating the opportunity for local adaptation. This is difficult to detect because it requires knowledge of selection pres...

We have a preprint out for our study testing conditions/signatures of repeated adaptation in multiple wild cricket populations. Feedback welcome!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Genomic signatures of local adaptation across parasitised cricket populations https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.30.673289v1

BBC International Editor Jeremy Bowen has confirmed that the entire Al Jazeera team in Gaza City has been killed.

Genomics of Neotropical biodiversity indicators: Two butterfly radiations with rampant chromosomal rearrangements and hybridization | PNAS A central question in evolutionary biology is what drives the diversification of lineages. Rapid, recent radiations are ideal systems for this ques...

Fantastic paper from an amazing team:

Genomics of Neotropical biodiversity indicators: Two butterfly radiations with rampant chromosomal rearrangements and hybridization
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Really happy to share this article I'm grateful to have been a part of: 'Impediments to countering racist pseudoscience' coauthored with @kevinlala.bsky.social, @gillianrbrown1.bsky.social and Marcus Feldman. Check out a preprint here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
#ScientificRacism #Antiracism

So very excited for the magnum opus of my #PhD to finally be out in @pnas.org. 🎉🎉 We demosntrate that mutualistic co-mimicking tropical butterflies not only converge in light microhabitat but, as a consequence, have also converged in visual system morphology! 1/n😀
www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Now all typeset and pretty! A little summary:

Excited to see our most recent MS finally out in the world. We used F1 female hybrids (of two behaviourally-isolated cricket species) to show that broad gene expression divergence in the brain underpins context-dependent divergence of female response to male sexual signals.

Testing for age- and sex- specific mitonuclear epistasis in Drosophila Abstract. The need for efficient ATP production is predicted to result in the evolution of cooperation between the mitochondrial and nuclear encoded compon

Just out in @journal-evo.bsky.social: "Testing for age- and sex- specific mitonuclear epistasis in Drosophila"

academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

The clonality window: relatedness and the group covariance effect in the evolution of division of labour Abstract. Cellular division of labour is closely associated with the emergence of organismality in the evolution of obligate multicellularity. Michod has s

Very excited to share that our paper, ‘The clonality window: relatedness and the group covariance effect in the evolution of division of labour’, is out now in @journal-evo.bsky.social advances. With @andygardner.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1093/evol...

#OpenAccess #Evolution #Multicellularity

This was such a fun start to my @royalcom1851.bsky.social fellowship and involved plenty of stimulating discussions with Nathan Bailey and Graeme Ruxton. Also huge thanks to summer intern Lotte Rolfe for her militarian target checking efforts. Looking forward to the reviewer comments. 9/n

Together, these results show how synergy between trait components (ie colour and shape) can facilitate the evolution of complex adaptations such as masquerade, adding to existing mechanisms of composite trait evolution in other systems. 8/n

But most interestingly of all, we not only found an evolutionary association between colour and shape, but phylogenetic pathway analyses also indicate that these traits were acquired simultaneously during the evolution of leaf masquerade. 7/n

For these analyses, I managed to reach the pinnacle of scientific endeavour... I designed an online survey. Interestingly, when controlling for phylogeny, interactions between colouration and shape also seem to influence human perceptions of "leafiness" (see ms for details). 6/n

So, how did leaf masquerade and its component traits evolve? To explore this, we conduted morphological comparative analyses of 51 katydid species from BCI, Panama where multiple elaboratons and reductions in "leafiness" have taken place across the tree (this is crying out for a pun...). 5/n

The result was very simple: colour and shape synergistically interact to improve masquerade, confirming it is a composite trait. IE. Prey must be the correct colour (green) AND the correct shape (leaf-shaped) if they stand a chance at outfoxing their predators.... 4/n

The origin of complex composite adaptations has been an evolutionary biological puzzle for centuries. Leaf masquerade is one of the most spectcular examples (yes, ok, I'm biased) and lends itself nicely to both experimental and comparative study... (Photo cred: Hannah ter Hofstede) 2/n

Extraordinary adaptations: Functional and evolutionary synergy of trait components can explain the existence of leaf masquerade One of the most enduring mysteries in biology concerns the evolution of complex adaptations made up of interacting component traits. When these component traits lack an obvious adaptive function in is...

🍃New preprint alert!!🍃(maybe I'll start using this app more from now on 😂). Excited for my first piece of katydidling to be released into the wild. Feedback and comments, as always, are very welcome! @uniofstandrews.bsky.social 😊 1/n www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Cover: Northern brown argus (Aricia artaxerxes) mating in the wild in Uppland, Sweden. These individuals (female-left, male-right) and forty of their offspring were later whole-genome resequenced to make a linkage map. Boman J., Nolan, Z.J. And Backström, N. On the origin of an insular hybrid butterfly lineage. Evolution 79 (4)

I feel honored that our work: "On the origin of an insular hybrid butterfly lineage" was picked as "Editor's choice" and that my picture of a mating couple (🧡🤎) covers the latest issue of Evolution @journal-evo.bsky.social. Link to paper: academic.oup.com/evolut/artic... (1/8)

Low accuracy of complex admixture graph inference from f-statistics https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.07.642126v1

Dr. Joseph Graves (North Carolina A&T) will give the inaugural Decolonizing Science Public Lecture at the University of St Andrews, entitled "Racism, Not Race: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions" tomorrow (Wednesday 12th March) at 1pm UK time. All welcome.

Join on Teams: shorturl.at/QTthJ

Neural and behavioral evolution in an eavesdropper with a rapidly evolving host The diversification of animal communication systems is driven by the interacting effects of signalers, signal receivers, and the environment. Yet, the…

Flies from the genus Ormia parasite crickets which they localize by eavesdropping. Cricket songs have therefore rapidly diversed, in Hawaii . A new study @currentbiology.bsky.social gives insights into the rapid evolution in sensory tuning of an eavesdropper.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A new McCarthy era is upon us. Stupid, depressing, and dangerous as ever. I wonder whose name will carry the dunce cap in the history books. Too many are complicit. I’ll need to find upset and action, but for now I’m feeling grief at the dehumanization inherent to all this.

University announces new scholarships for Palestinian students These scholarships will provide fully-funded support for two Palestinian students, with a particular focus on those impacted by the conflict in Gaza

Masters scholarships for Palestinian students at Sussex. Please disseminate?

www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/re...

A wonderful team effort to characterize the actions of HSD17B2, a gene that helps some #ruff males to dial down their testosterone levels, got published @science.org (1/n)

Very proud to share this outstanding work by @kelsiehunnicutt.bsky.social - now out in Genetics!