Ayush Valecha

Intracellular competition shapes plasmid population dynamics Conflicts between levels of biological organization are central to evolution, from populations of multicellular organisms to selfish genetic elements in microbes. Plasmids are extrachromosomal, self-r...

I'm so happy that I can finally share the results of my first postdoc paper with @baym.lol!!! Turns out plasmids are an amazing system to study multi-scale evolution and we can track within-cell and between-cell dynamics!
(1/n) www.biorxiv.org/content/earl...

Intracellular competition shapes plasmid population dynamics From populations of multicellular organisms to selfish genetic elements, conflicts between levels of biological organization are central to evolution. Plasmids are extrachromosomal, self-replicating g...

Hot off the press! Our latest paper led by @fernpizza.bsky.social, understanding how plasmids evolve inside cells. These small, self-replicating DNA circles live inside bacteria and carry antibiotic resistance genes, but also compete with one another to replicate. 1/
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Warum sind Kinder keine halben Kopien ihrer Eltern? Wie beeinflusst die DNA unsere Fruchtbarkeit? Rajalekshmi Narayana Sarma beantwortet diese und weitere spannende Fragen am Freitag um 21:00 Uhr im Frederik-Paulsen-Hörsaal bei der #NightOfTheProfs der @uni-kiel.de.
@mpi-evolbio.bsky.social

Poster announcing the workshop.

Join us for an @smtpb.bsky.social workshop on Modern Coexistence Theory. We'll cover mathematical foundations, the theory of partitioning, and data-based applications. Featuring @swatipatel.bsky.social, Nick Kortessis, & Lauren Shoemaker. Zoom link here: smtpb.org/event-6426026

ECE 2026 - XIII European Congress of Entomology It is our great pleasure to welcome you to Tours, France, in the heart of the Loire Valley, from June 29 to July 3, 2026.

Excited to announce our symposium on eco-evolutionary dynamics of #sexualselection & #sexualconflict at the XIII European Congress of Entomology (29 June–3 July 2026, Tours, France), co-organised with Lucas Marie-Orleach!

Call for abstracts is open until 15 Dec 2025.

www.ece2026.org

Image of yeast spotted on an agar plate. Some grow well, others are dying.

We're looking for a PhD student! If you're interested in #fungal #genomics & #TEs, meiotic drive, or pathogens, please consider applying. The project is about toxin/antidote genes in the human fungal pathogen A. fumigatus. uu.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

Figure 1. Unbeatable sex allocation strategy of unconstrained females (r*) as a function of proportion of constrained females (p) under local mate competition with two foundresses colonising the patch. Shown are the result for Godfray’s (1990) erroneous diploidy solution (dashed grey line), our corrected diploidy solution (solid grey line), and our haplodiploidy solution (solid black line). Overlaid are results from individual-based simulations (discs).

New paper: "The consequences of constrained sex allocation in diploids and haplodiploids under local mate competition", with Chedhawat Chokechaipaisarn:

doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

@jevbio.bsky.social

Exploring the concept of bacterial memory - Nature Microbiology This Perspective discusses the concept, mechanisms and evidence for memory in bacteria at individual and community levels.

#Review

Bacteria can “remember” past environments through genetic & biochemical imprints helping them adapt and thrive! 🦠🧠

#MicroSky

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

EASTBIO: When Phages Collide: Understanding How Multiple Prophages Shape Bacterial Behaviour at University of St Andrews on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - EASTBIO: When Phages Collide: Understanding How Multiple Prophages Shape Bacterial Behaviour at University of St Andrews, listed on FindAPhD.com

🚨 PhD opportunity! 🚨
Join us at St Andrews to study how multiple prophages shape bacterial behaviour & AMR.
Co-supervised with @tatianadimitriu.bsky.social
This is a competition-based EASTBIO PhD.
Full details and the application link are in the advert 👇
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Modelling approaches for meta‐analyses with dependent effect sizes in ecology and evolution: A simulation study In ecology and evolution, meta-analysis is an important tool to synthesise findings across separate studies and identify sources of heterogeneity. However, ecological and evolutionary data often e...

The second paper of my PhD came out in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social:

We assessed approaches for meta-analyses with dependent effect sizes and sampling errors 🔍 doi.org/10.1111/2041...

This is especially relevant for ecologists and evolutionary biologists planning to conduct a meta-analysis.

Predicting Hybrid Fitness: The Effects of Ploidy and Complex Ancestry Abstract. Hybridization between divergent populations places alleles in novel genomic contexts. This can inject adaptive variation – which is useful for br

New paper published together with John Welch on hybrid fitness and how it depends on ploidy and # of distinct ancestries, incl some remarkable fits of data & theory 😶. Keen to hear any thoughts/comments/questions! doi.org/10.1093/gene... Thanks to the team @ Genetics for the smooth experience :)

Omnipresent Allies: The Role of Temperate Phages in Microbial Adaptation Across Ecosystems This review synthesises evidence from culture-dependent systems and complex environments, concluding that temperate phages drive microbial adaptation across individual, population and community level....

Omnipresent Allies: The Role of Temperate Phages in Microbial Adaptation Across Ecosystems

- #EnvironMicrobiol Review

enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

#PhageSky

"productive phage infection triggers the horizontal transfer of the mobile element carrying the immune system, ensuring its persistence within the bacterial population"

This is a reminder that @asn-amnat.bsky.social publishes abstracts in both English and your native language, using your native alphabet. You can see and read those online. Here is a screenshot of a great example. Love seeing this in my favorite journal.

Really nice opportunity to run polygenic adaptation experiments on Drosophila as a postdoc with the great @nedabarghi.bsky.social ! Located at MPI in the lovely town of Ploen. Come join this wonderful research community ::))

evol.mcmaster.ca/brian/evoldi...

Big cheers from MPI for Evolutionary Biology! 🎉
Our alumna Dr. Christin Nyhoegen wins the KlarText Prize 2025 for her piece “Penicillin and a Small Dose of Mathematics.”
She shows how math helps improve antibiotic treatments and prevent resistance. 👏
#KlarTextPreis #MPIEvolBio #ScienceCommunication

Glass beads of all sorts balancing on wavy threads.

How is functional variation at large-effect loci maintained in natural populations, even as environments change? In a paper led by @mkarag.bsky.social, we tracked known pesticide resistant alleles in outdoor 𝘋. 𝘮𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘨𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳 cages & inferred selection and dominance from temporal sequencing data.

Happy to share this AREES paper on Evolutionary Immunology
www.annualreviews.org/docserver/fu...
Now "officially" published OA. Hope its useful... it was a joy working w great colleagues on this one. @nataliesteinel.bsky.social @grahammunology.bsky.social @laurenfuess.bsky.social

Great to have Dr David Sünderhauf visit Oxford over the past couple of days!

A really nice talk on competition between plasmids carrying CRISPR-Cas and Toxin-antitoxin systems. Theory, experiments and bioinformatics all in one project!

@davvi36.bsky.social @biology.ox.ac.uk

Strain displacement in microbiomes via ecological competition - Nature Microbiology Mathematical modelling and experimental tests reveal principles that govern displacement of a resident strain by an invader in microbial communities.

#NewResearch

Strain displacement in microbiomes via ecological competition

@erikbakkeren.bsky.social

#microsky

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

The evolution of STEM Lego set.

Lego set on sale from $79.99 to $45.99. Sale ends Friday

For some (like 👉 this guy 👈) this is Drop Everything Important.

www.target.com/p/lego-ideas...

With @aconga.bsky.social we wrote a short Dispatch to highlight two awesome companion papers in @currentbiology.bsky.social by @jeffgroh.bsky.social, @gcbias.bsky.social and by Liu et al. on how the control of heterodichogamy is going nuts in the Juglandaceae :

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

Hermaphroditic plants also use TIME ⏰🌿 to avoid selfing.

Two new @currentbiology.bsky.social papers explore the rapid turnover of this trait in the wingnut family.

Both @vincentcastric.bsky.social and I summarized these findings 👉 authors.elsevier.com/a/1m2MA3QW8S...

#Evolution #PlantBiology

Evolution: Disassortative mating going nuts Reciprocal timing of the maturity of male and female flowers on distinct plants is a powerful outcrossing-enforcing mechanism. Two new studies reveal surprising diversity of genetic systems controllin...

A nice commentary by Contreras-Garrido & @vincentcastric.bsky.social on our & Liu, Wang et al's papers on the fascinating genetics & evolutionary turnover of wingnut tree mating systems
@currentbiology.bsky.social
www.cell.com/current-biol...

The Equilibrium Conundrum Although an assumption of equilibrium dynamics underlies most ecological theory, the evidence for this dynamic in nature and in empirical studies is scarce. This creates an unfortunate disconnect bet...

Most major theories in ecology assume some sort of equilibrium, but only ~half of empirical tests acknowledge it & even fewer observed it in their system. Does this matter? How did the idea become so pervasive in ecology anyway? Find out in our new paper! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

We have an open PhD position (application deadline 9 January 2026) in "Theory of fitness landscapes" at @unibe.ch 🤓⛰️📊👩‍💻🎓: banklab.github.io/positions/

Please share widely!

#QueerInSTEM #DisabledInSTEM #BlackInSTEM #WomenInSTEM #CarersInSTEM #AcademicSky #HigherED

My new Emmy Noether Group is recruiting!

🔬 Two PhD positions in plant pathogen evolution

🧬 Start: April 2026 (flexible)

📍 Dept. of Phytopathology & Plant Protection @rstam.bsky.social @uni-kiel.de

⏰ Apply by 15 Dec 2025

🔗 More info: www.uni-kiel.de/personal/de/...

Do get in touch or share 😊

Rigorous validation of ecological models against empirical time series - Nature Ecology & Evolution Validating theoretical models against empirical data presents challenges. Here the authors present an assumption-light method to validate ecological models against time series data, along with a dedic...

Ecology faces an accumulation of models but not an accumulation of confidence. Our new paper w/ Jonathan Levine www.nature.com/articles/s41... in @natecoevo.nature.com introduces a rigorous test rooted in queueing theory to falsify inadequate models and build confidence in useful ones.

Bacteria can borrow viruses to spread defence genes! 🦠🔬
Researchers at @MPI_EvolBio found that “jumbo phages” can carry bacterial mobile DNA, allowing the bacteria to hijack viral machinery for their own protection.
👉 www.evolbio.mpg.de/3840277/news...

Thanks, yes, it's going good! Hopefully see you at some workshop/conference soon!