Category: Uncategorized

Isabella has joined the lab as an undergraduate intern to design some insect behaviour recording equipment.

Started in during the lockdowns this paper (now published in BMC Biology) looks to examine the variation in results attributable to differences in analysis methods used.

The answer is that (sadly) there is a great deal of variation, and that ‘poor’ methods are also hard for reviewers to spot.

A reminder to stay sceptical of any and all results!

Owen has joined the lab for their MSc looking at the distribution of Orthoptera in Krka National Park.

The Royal Entomological Society has just published a new popular science book on insects – including a small contribution by Darren! The book is full of wonderful illustrations and should interest anyone with an interest in insects.

Last week we put out two new preprints!

Firstly, work led by William Toubiana, shows that our stick insects have very weird chromosome segregation. The major centromere protein, CenH3, binds to the autosomes in a monocentric pattern, but in a holocentric pattern on the X. Despite this, all chromosomes, attach to spindle microtubules at a single location, making this the first instance of a functionally monocentric species with holocentric-like attributes!

Secondly, in work led by Jelisaveta Djordjevic, we show that dosage compensation in male reproductive tissues is present only in the early nymphal stages. This is likely due to the establishment of meiotic sex chromosome inactivation during development.

Congrats to all authors for getting out these super cool papers!

Our huge genome assembly of the dyeing poison frog (Dendrobates tinctorius) is now out in GBE.

Congrats to all involved!

Last week was Jeli’s public PhD defence! The defence went really well and we wish Jeli all the best of luck in the future as she starts her postdoc with Tanja Schwander.

Congrats!

Last week was Popgroup 57 up in St Andrews. It was really good to attend one of these in person again to chat science and catch up. The quality of the talks was also really high, leaving us full of ideas for the future!

Looking forward to next year!