Benoit Nabholz

A Dark-edged Bee-fly sat on a leaf, basking in sunshine - library photo by @kitenet.bsky.social

Bee-flies are go! A 1st #BeeFlyWatch record for 2026 is in, from east Surrey on 26 Feb. Look out for more during warm & sunny spells over coming weeks, & please send in sightings, via iRecord if possible. Full details on the @dipteristsforum.bsky.social website: dipterists.org.uk/bee-fly-watch

Post doc position in Evolutionary biology and bioinformatics - work environment: This postdoctoral position will be supervised by Aline Muyle and hosted at the Institute of Evolutionary Sciences of Montpellier (ISEM), within the CHANGE department and the Plant ...

I am hiring a Postdoc (18 months contract in Montpellier, France) to study how polyploidy affects sex chromosomes in the plant Silene latifolia, using bioinformatic analyses of RNA-seq and DNA-seq data. Deadline for applications March 24th. euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/412961

A Beginner's Guide to Structural Variants in Eco‐Evolutionary Population Genomics Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) has greatly expanded researchers' ability to study structural variants (SVs), that is, the variation in the presence, number, orientation or position of a DNA sequence. ....

New out: A Beginner’s Guide to Structural Variants in Eco-Evolutionary Population Genomics.

We outline how to detect and analyse SVs, discuss key challenges, and provide a practical framework for population-level studies

A resource for students entering SV research.
doi.org/10.1111/mec....

Our paper on convergent regressive evolution of genes involved in oral anatomy of myrmecophagous mammals is now officially published @molbioevol.bsky.social

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msag009

starting March 1, 2026, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences are prohibited from using central government funds to pay Article Processing Charges for high-priced OA journals, specifically Nature Communications and Science Advances.

Evolution, genomics and conservation of butterflies and moths - Nature Reviews Biodiversity Butterflies and moths are key indicators of functioning and healthy ecosystems around the world. This Review describes the evolutionary history of the order Lepidoptera and tracks shifts in researcher...

Now online! In this review, we cover four major topics on butterflies and moths: their evolutionary history and diversification dynamics, genomics, global diversity patterns, and conservation 🦋🌏 (1/8) @natrevbiodiv.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Updated version of our manuscript now available on bioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1....

We show how synaptic high-frequency jumping and morphodynamic sampling synchronise vision to high-speed behaviour in the housefly, extending visual bandwidth to ~1,000 Hz while minimising synaptic delays.

Ficaria verna flower in bloom

Spring is here! Ficaria verna, a very beautiful flower that attracts very few pollinators. I spent five minutes watching and saw only two flies.

Selection-driven color variation in the aposematic strawberry poison frog, Oophaga pumilio Aguilar-Gómez et al. use exome sequencing of 347 strawberry poison frogs to uncover the genetic basis of color variation. They identify that kit, ttc39b, and bco1 underlie blue-red, yellow-red, and gr...

The last chapter of my PhD is finally out !!!! In the same species, on neighboring islands, we see radically different warning colors emerge. Evolution in action:
Selection-driven color variation in the aposematic strawberry poison frog, Oophaga pumilio: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...

Time-calibrated phylogeny of the family Drosophilidae showing major species groups, surrounded by representative adult flies that highlight the remarkable morphological diversity of this model insect group. The composite image was created using Microsoft PowerPoint. Fly photographs were taken by Darren J. Obbard and are published under the Creative Commons Attribution License with permission.

The #fly community aims to achieve a comprehensive genomic study of the Drosophilidae family. @pankajd.bsky.social @bernardkim.bsky.social @petrovadmitri.bsky.social @darrenobbard.bsky.social present a comparative gene annotation for 301 #Drosophilidae species @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4c3pyrI

Jardin en bazar en février ? Les spécialistes vous demandent surtout de ne plus y toucher, voici pourquoi ... si votre jardin ressemble à un champ de bataille en ce moment, vous avez officiellement le droit… de ne rien toucher. Pour le reste de février, les spécialistes de la faune recommandent au contraire de laisser son jardin en désordre en février, car ce fouillis devient un véritable kit de survie pour les animaux.   La rédaction Vie Pratique 14 Fév 2026   "... Pour l’expert en jardinage Benedict Vanheems, mieux vaut freiner sur le nettoyage : "Laissez les bordures ornementales non coupées aussi longtemps que vous le pouvez. De nombreux insectes bénéfiques se réfugient parmi les tiges de plantes anciennes et les têtes de graines, ce qui aidera également à nourrir les oiseaux. Il n'est pas vraiment nécessaire de tailler avant le début du printemps, lorsque la nouvelle croissance commence à percer. Si vous avez besoin de propreté, vous pouvez toujours laisser juste une zone non coupée", a-t-il expliqué au média britannique Express. Les herbes un peu longues gardent aussi des débris de graines que les merles et pinsons viennent fouiller.   Les feuilles mortes laissées sous les haies ou au pied des arbres forment une couverture qui protège le sol du froid, abrite insectes et vers, et finit par nourrir la terre." (...)

De nombreux insectes bénéfiques se réfugient parmi les tiges de plantes anciennes et les têtes de graines, ce qui aidera également à nourrir les oiseaux. Il n'est pas vraiment nécessaire de tailler avant le début du printemps, lorsque la nouvelle croissance commence à percer.

Pink flower of common stork's-bill with a tiny male bee, dark in color with many long whitish hairs

I love these striking asymmetries in plant-animal interactions. Here you have one of the most widespread European plants (Erodium cicutarium) visited by Andrena (Avandrena) baldocki, a bee species known only from the southernmost Iberian Peninsula and whose females gather exclusively Erodium pollen

[new paper] Coevolution of phenological traits shapes plant-pollinator coexistence royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article... Great idea conceived and implemented by @fduchenne.bsky.social

#115 : De la beauté dans le monde animal De la beauté dans le monde animal Pour cette première émission de l’année, A l’UM la science vous propose une interview long format de Julien Renoult, chercheur au Centre d’écologie fonctionnelle et é...

🎙️ #PODCAST — De la beauté dans le monde animal. Darwin, ornements sexuels, perception de la beauté chez les animaux… Avec Julien Renoult (Centre d’Écologie Fonctionnelle et Évolutive), explorons le rôle biologique de la beauté dans l’évolution

👉 smartlink.ausha.co/a-l-um-la-sc...

#FemmesEnScience 🎉 Fierté pour l'UM! Isabelle Olivieri figure parmi les 72 femmes scientifiques proposées pour être inscrites sur la tour Eiffel. 1ère professeure de génétique des populations à #Montpellier, son parcours d’exception est aujourd’hui reconnu à l’échelle nationale @isemevol.bsky.social

Yes, for example, young French researchers are quite successful in securing ERC Starting Grants.

"Morituri te salutant" : les universitaires se battent encore pour une université qui se meurt...

La courageuse lettre ouverte de Mme Anne Fraïsse, présidente de l'U de Montpellier-Paul Valéry www.univ-montp3.fr/fr/communiqu...

A figure depicting continental drift from when Gondwana existed to present day, with continents and countries colored according to the ratite species that occur or occurred on them. Next to that is a cartoon of a phylogeny that we would expect support for if continental drift explained patterns of species occurrence and relatedness. And next to that is a cartoon of the phylogeny supported by the genetic data presented in this paper, which demonstrates that closely related species must have traveled great distances after Gondwana broke up, after which flightlessness evolved, and that this happened more than once.

This paper is a great for teaching phylogenetic trees.

"Ancient DNA reveals elephant birds and kiwi are sister taxa and clarifies ratite bird evolution"

Clearly written. It discusses hypotheses of relatedness among species via continental drift vs genetic data. 🧪

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

"The coevolution of colour patterns and hindwing shapes on a large phylogenetic scale reveals predation-driven adaptive syndromes in swallowtail butterflies"
Puissant, A., Chotard, A., Condamine, F. L., @vincentdebat.bsky.social & Llaurens, V.
🦋 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Trop tard, chers amis allemands !

On a déjà recruté tous les meilleurs chercheurs du monde grâce #MakeOurPlanetGreatAgain, #AI4Humanity et #BienvenueEnFrance, tellement qu'il n'y en avait déjà plus pour #ChooseFranceForScience

Et on a fait tout ça avec dix fois moins d'argent ! #STARTUPNATION 🚀

JOB ALERT:
Deux postes de Maitre.sse de Conférences / septembre 2026 /LEHNA / Lyon 1 :

- écologie avec un profil enseignement en Biologie végétale et écologie.
- écologie et évolution avec un profil en Biologie animale et écologie.
umr5023.univ-lyon1.fr/lehna/actual...

The Evolutionary Genomics of Meiotic Drive Abstract. Meiotic drivers are selfish genetic elements that gain transmission advantages by distorting equal, Mendelian segregation. For decades, biologist

Meiotic drive has long been considered as a genetic curiosity. Genomic "footprints" suggest otherwise.

Check out our new review doi.org/10.1093/molb..., a cross-taxa synthesis arguing that recurrent drive is a pervasive and underappreciated force in genome evolution.

Assessing the accuracy of species tree reconstruction using dependent gene trees

evolbiol.peercommunityin.org/PCIEvolBiol/...

New recommandation made by Hirohisa Kishino from PCI evolutionary Biology : evolbiol.peercommunityin.org/PCIEvolBiol

www.biorxiv.org/lookup/doi/1...

Important milestone for the project and huge amount of work by @lvandenabeele.bsky.social to set up a pipeline for both investigating the systematics and characterising structuring reticulation events across the diversification of bee orchids (Ophrys): www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Cool study on Mediterranean Ophrys:
Phylotranscriptomics Allows Distinguishing Major Gene Flow Events from Incomplete Lineage Sorting in Rapidly Diversifying Mimetic Orchids (Genus Ophrys)

Vandenabeele et al.

doi.org/10.64898/202...

Interested in adaptive genomics, genomic offset and simulations? This seems to be an extraordinary opportunity to work with Thibaut Capblancq and Olivier François, two excellent experts in the field (and also great people)

Directors

The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön, Germany, seeks expressions of interest for open Max Planck Director positions. For details: http://www.evolbio.mpg.de/3856225/Directors. #job

Two-way native-invasive introgression and structural variants in invasive moth species. Admixture and exchange of adaptive alleles can facilitate adaptation, but this is also true for pests. Amazing work by @henrylnorth.bsky.social, @chrisjiggins.bsky.social and others, with a lot to think about.