Matthias H. Weissensteiner

Rant of the day: why are people still submitting manuscripts for review without line numbers? We all review papers, we all know that referring to line numbers makes easier to write the review. So, why do people keep doing this!?

Andrea wearing her PhD hat after successfully defending her thesis.

Congratulations, Dr. Andrea. What a very special day. Happy, proud and honoured to see you fledge 🐦‍⬛🧬🏝️🧪 - fly on @mpi-evolbio.bsky.social

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning Drowning is not the violent, splashing call for help that most people expect.

Thanks for the reminder @janemunday.bsky.social. Every summer, I repost this article DROWNING DOES NOT LOOK LIKE DROWNING. To date, I know of FOUR kids who were saved after someone who'd clicked on the link learnt how to spot actual drowning. Take time to read and pass on.

slate.com/technology/2...

Accumulation of a biparentally-inherited Neptune transposable element in natural Killifish hybrids (Fundulus diaphanus X F. heteroclitus) Transposable elements (TEs) are abundant selfish genetic elements that can mobilize in their host genome, causing DNA damage, mutations and chromosome rearrangements. TE silencing is thus critical, an...

New preprint from the lab led by former masters student AJ Roussel in collaboration with Alexander Suh and @fjruizruano.bsky.social. We found a ~4-fold accumulation of a Neptune #transposon in asexually reproducing "F1" fish hybrids. An unexpected and fascinating finding! #TEsky

🚨 Wanted: PhD student excited about population genomics, Natural History Collections and birds!
📍 Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany
🕒 3 Years, fully funded by the Leibniz Junior Researchgroup program

Details and Application portal 👇

jobs.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin/jobposting/8...

Home - NaviSense NaviSense - International Cluster of Excellence Proposal for the Sensory Basis, Mechanisms, and Impacts of Animal Navigation.

over the moon happy and grateful! on my way to @lundvision.bsky.social I followd the announcement of #ClustersOfExcellence by the @dfg.de on the floor of a crowded train. #NaviSense 🦋🧭🧬🧪🧠🐝🪲🔬 in all its beauty flew high! such a fantastic team, amazing spirit and wonderful vision - ready for take off!

GitHub - NBISweden/GenErode at 0.6.3 GitHub repository for GenErode, a Snakemake pipeline for the analysis of whole-genome sequencing data from historical and modern samples to study patterns of genome erosion. - GitHub - NBISweden/Ge...

The next GenErode version is available (0.6.3)! 🎉 github.com/NBISweden/Ge...

Interested in a PhD connecting sensory ecology and evolutionary genetics? Applications are now open for a project on the Speciation Genomics of Eye Size Variation in Heliconius Butterflies in our lab at LMU Munich: www.evol.bio.lmu.de/research/mer... Please repost!

Really excited that our DFG grant on the Speciation Genomics of Eye Size variation in *Heliconius* has been funded :) In the next weeks, I will post an advert for a PhD, but if you know of good students, please suggest they get in touch. Please repost.

I'm very happy to announce our new pubblication out now in @animalecology.bsky.social🥳
Many thanks to @oscarvedder.bsky.social and @ifv-whv.bsky.social.

Read the full text if you want to know more about this work👇
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Poor developmental conditions decrease adult body size and egg size, but not egg laying rate and survival throughout adulthood: A long‐term experiment in a precocial bird This research experimentally manipulated the quality of early-life conditions in Japanese quail, and monitored individual performance over the complete adult lifespan under standardized conditions. I...

New publication in @animalecology.bsky.social by @oscarvedder.bsky.social & @matteobeccardi.bsky.social 'Poor developmental conditions decrease adult body size and egg size, but not egg laying rate and survival throughout adulthood: A long-term experiment in a precocial bird'
doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Two more weeks to apply for a PhD position in our yeast genomics and evolution lab at Stockholm University! Please share widely. 🧪🧬🌳🍄

It’s always “We launched these tardigrades into space!” “We froze them to absolute zero!” “We threw them into an erupting volcano!”

Never “We took these tardigrades on a holiday. They’re getting tiny massages and sipping little umbrella drinks on the beach.”

🐦 Do some birds have #PrettyPrivilege?
💫 New paper: doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2024.2846
We show that ~half the variation in research effort on 293 bird species in US+Canada is explained by just 3 factors: 1)visual appeal, 2)range size, & 3)# of universities w/in ranges. What we did & why it matters:🧵

I remember excluding those in our crow analysis (2020 NatComm paper) because they seemed to be rather enriched in tandem repeats, so very difficult to distinguish from artefacts.

‘They have no one to follow’: how migrating birds use quantum mechanics to navigate Evidence is mounting to explain how birds use the Earth’s magnetic field to help fly thousands of miles with unerring accuracy – a discovery that may help advance quantum technology

Great article on the work of @genmig.bsky.social and others:
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Lungfish xkcd.com/3064

Analysis of ticks (Acari: Ixodida) and associated microorganisms collected on the North Sea Island of Heligoland - Parasitology Research Heligoland is an island located in the North Sea, where vegetation was almost destroyed as a result of heavy bombardment during and after the Second World War. However, over the past 70 years, the veg...

I am very excited to announce our new paper describing the tick communities on Helgoland. We highlighted a potentially stable population of a tick species which has not been described in Germany since the 1970s! Feel free to reach out if you have questions 😄

doi.org/10.1007/s004...

🇺🇦 Three years ago, Russia started a total war against #Ukraine, trying to invade and control the country. They did no succeed, and will not succeed.

I'm looking forward to go back to the free, democratic and sovereign #Ukraine that I knew before the war.

Слава Україні! Героям слава!

Women in NaviSense: Miriam Liedvogel, Marie Dacke, Pauline Fleischmann, Karin Dedek, Bettina Meyer and Sandra Bouwhuis.

To celebrate #InternationalDayofWomenAndGirlsinScience, we took this photo of NaviSense ♀️PIs. Find out more about our Cluster of Excellence Initiative here: ↘️ www.navisense.org ↙️
#WomeninSTEM @commonternproject.bsky.social @lundvision.bsky.social @genmig.bsky.social @hifmb.de @sfb1372.bsky.social

We are happy to introduce you to another member of our society, Matthias Weissensteiner (@mweissensteiner.bsky.social), bioinformatician and researcher at @ifv-whv.bsky.social

Paper alert!
@JesperBoman et al bring empirical evidence for the idea that #chromosome number differences between taxa can contribute to #speciation!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Alex Suh on stage

Switching topics at the Workshop on Population and Speciation Genomics: Today Alex Suh tells us the story of surprise, frustration, and hope in the analysis of structural variation.

Selective disappearance based on navigational efficiency in a long‐lived seabird Changes in migratory performance with age are typically assumed to reflect within-individual learning processes. Here, we show that changes the navigational efficiency in a long-lived seabird instead....

New publication by the @commonternproject.bsky.social. 'Selective disappearance based on navigational efficiency in a long-lived seabird'. In @animalecology.bsky.social.
doi.org/10.1111/1365...

High-recombining genomic regions affect demography inference based on ancestral recombination graphs Abstract. Multiple methods of demography inference are based on the ancestral recombination graph. This powerful approach uses observed mutations to model

New publication by @genmig.bsky.social. 'High-recombining genomic regions affect demography inference based on ancestral recombination graphs.'
doi.org/10.1093/gene...

You have plenty of time to send us your abstracts, but please block the dates in your calendar already! Looking forward to welcoming you in Heidelberg!! #EMBOMobileGenome! @events.embl.org

High-recombining genomic regions affect demography inference based on ancestral recombination graphs Abstract. Multiple methods of demography inference are based on the ancestral recombination graph. This powerful approach uses observed mutations to model

Happy to share our new paper OA in Genetics. We show that population genomic methods based on ARGs (ancestral recombination graphs i.e. genetic ancestry along chromosomes) for demography inference can be biased when applied to genomes with wide high-recombining regions. doi.org/10.1093/gene...

I totally forgot that in addition to the radical genomics, Michelle put together a website where you can learn about the biology of all the species we looked worked with: mcstitzer.github.io/panand_assem...

Ant on a compass (Photo by Robin Grob)

🤩 Today on air: Bob McDonald interviewed me for the #CBC science program 🧪📻 #QuirksAndQuarks about our recent finding that #DesertAnts have a #PolarityCompass that we published in @currentbiology.bsky.social 🧭🐜 Check it out: ↘️ www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks... ↙️ @sfb1372.bsky.social @neuroethology.org

Congratulations Clemens (et al) ! So cool to see this out!