Jamie Walters

The allotetraploid lycophyte Selaginella rupincola growing among the boulders at Cochise Stronghold in the Dragoon Mountains southeast of Tucson, Arizona.

Xanthisma spinulosum growing outside a gym in Tucson, Arizona.

Selaginella arizonica X eremophila hybrid zone at Alamo Canyon in Organ Pipe National Monument.

A Dieteria sp. being visited by a skipper in the White Mountains of Arizona.

I'm recruiting PhD students for the Barker Lab @uofa-eeb.bsky.social We study plant evolutionary genomics - polyploidy, hybridization & machine learning for genome evolution. Work with Selaginella, Xanthisma, Brassica & more. Funding available via CAMBIUM Fellowships. Reach out if interested! 🧬🌵🤖

Daaaaaaamn

Tell KU Chancellor Doug Girod to Reject the Compact On Monday October 20th, KU Chancellor Doug Girod "was invited to provide feedback to federal officials on the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education and related matters impacting universi...

Kansas University Student started a open letter to the Chancellor calling for a rejection of the White House compact on higher education.
actionnetwork.org/letters/tell...

“White House officials have invited Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Kansas and Arizona State University to a Friday meeting” along with the University of Arizona, University of Texas, Dartmouth, and Vanderbilt!

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT📣: I haven’t been this excited to be part of something new in 15 years… Thrilled to reveal the passion project I’ve been working on for the past year and a half!🙀🥳 (thread 👇)

PIWI clade Argonautes are essential for transposon silencing. Without them, animals are sterile due to massive transposon activity.

But how does piRNA-guided target interaction translate into silencing?

PhD student Júlia Portell Montserrat has an intriguing answer

www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

The Art of Data Visualization with ggplot2 The TidyTuesday Cookbook

The Art of Data Visualization with ggplot2: A free online book by @nrennie.bsky.social that guides us through the entire process of creating plots, including why certain decisions were made, using real datasets that have been part of #TidyTuesday. Very excited to get stuck into this one. #rstats

Lepidopteran Genomes Have Denser Transposable Elements in Smaller Chromosomes, Likely Driven by Non-allelic Homologous Recombination Abstract. Transposable elements (TEs) drive major genome size and structural variations, yet evolutionary forces affecting their accumulation and removal r

An & Nam investigated chromosome size and TE organization in ten butterfly species, showing lepidopterans have denser TEs in smaller chromosomes, with nonallelic homologous recombination as a potential driving force.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf137

#genome #evolution #TEsky

KUnion Busting: 427 Days Without a Contract Over a year after winning their union, there is still no contract in sight for faculty and academic staff as KU management stalls negotiations.

The struggle is real. The struggle is ongoing. Here's to hoping that unionizing can, hopefully someday soon, bring about some needed changes here...

weeklyroseku.blogspot.com/2025/08/kuni...

1) Are you an Assistant Professor studying evolutionary biology?

2) Are you in the US?

3) Would you like to give a research seminar in Iowa?

4) Are you available to travel September 4-6?

If you can answer YES x4, please DM me ASAP, or comment below.

Watch 66 Oscar-Nominated-and-Award-Winning Animated Shorts Online, Courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada I recently heard someone quip that proposals to cut the Academy Awards are tantamount to suggesting that the NFL trim down the Super Bowl. Certainly for many who would rather watch the former any day ...

Watch 66 Oscar-Nominated-and-Award-Winning Animated Shorts Online, Courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada

Transgenic Plodia larvae expressing the very bright mBaoJin (mStayGold variant) in its silk glands.

Also some gorgeous 3xP3:mCherry staining of larval ocelli and glia.

(see revised preprint) by pantry moth wizards
@donyaniyaz.bsky.social & @lucalivraghi.bsky.social doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Do orally secreted REPATs to belong to a specific clade? use proteomics on saliva. Most proteins found in paralogous clades.

SelV1 infection reduces the abundance of some REPATS. SelV1 infection modulates plant response to caterpillars.

First perform manual annotations and phylogeny. MBF2 domain is absent in clade in Spodoptera only.
two clades: "one to one" and another clade "many to many" with extensive paralogs.

But many REPAT proteins were initially found in REsponse to PAThothens.
So REPATS are important in insect-plant and insect-pathogen interactions. Is there a 3-way interaction here?

Effector proteins from saliva interact with plants to suppress defense. A recently discovered class include REPAT.
REPAT are co-transcription factors, enhance gene action that suppress Jasmonic Acid pathways.

**REPAT proteins as mediators of pathogen-insect-plant interactions in Spodoptera exigua**
Cristina Crava, Universitat de Valencia

Plants have direct and indirect defenses to insect herbivory.

Gut microbiome overwhelmingly enterococcus. different bacterial enterococcus species are variably pathogenic or beneficial.
kmo-KO have worse adaptation to pepper plant, Higher susceptibility to other pathogens.

Examine bacterial composition via 16s on fore,mid,hind-gut.
kmo-KO have much less diversity in fore & mid, but not hind. Consistent with observation for more HQA in fore & mid gut.

8'-HQA, produced by moth, iron chelator. Primarily found in gut.
Target CRISPR at kmo gene, knocked out production of 8'-HQA. KO individuals have orange eyes, not brown.

**Kynurenine 3-monooxygenase disruption by CRISPR/Cas9 in Spodoptera exigua: phenotype, microbial diversity, and fitness costs**
Daniel Pinos, Universitat de Valencia
#lepgencrete

Focus on plant-insect-pathogen interactions. Some bacteria produce important/required compounds for host.

Considering more recent climates, and predicting future, suggests expansion northward even into southern UK. But also largely absent from Africa, in souther portion of range.

Can then use model to find limiting climatic factors. Suggests max summer temp is limiting to south (into Africa), but in winter, thermal radition & min temps limited northward range.

Deploy species distribution modeling, focusing on
- minimum winter temperature.
- Downward thermal radiation in winter
Analyzed climatic data 1960-1980. Model of suitability fits well the historical distribution before 1980.

Historically ranged in southern europe, to middle France, but is expanding northward notably in the last 15 years, closely following increases in minimum winter temperature.

Eggs and early larvae in summer, larvale development fall-winter, come February larvae "process" in head-tail lines, to find pupation sites underground.

**A climate change winner: How warmer and brighter winters trigger the expansion of the pine processionary moth**
Jean-Pierre Rossi, CBGP, INRAE, Montpelier, France
#lepgenecrete

Pine processionary moth produces urticating hairs producing strong allergic reactions in humans and other animals.

Also investigating medicinal capacity of butterfly detoxification of carcinogenic aristolochic acids.

The pigment transporter Redboy confers programmed body colour transition in orchid mantises - Nature Ecology & Evolution First-instar orchid mantis nymphs avoid predators by mimicking black-red assassin bugs, whereas those in later instars avoid predators and attract prey by camouflaging themselves as lighter-coloured f...

Expanding out in various directions. New publication on Orchid mantis coloration:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Research efforts also include developing machine learning (SVMorph tool) for complex morphological classification, and deep learning for genetic introgression (ERICA tool).