Isobelle has joined the lab as an MScRes student (co-supervised with John Mulley) to investigate the Treborth long-term moth dataset!
Welcome to Isobelle!
New preprint!
Our new preprint is out!
We use rarely produced parthenogenetic males to examine what happens to dosage compensation when it is no longer needed (e.g. in parthenogenetic species).
Surprisingly, we find dosage compensation is maintained in our parthenogenetic stick insects even in the absence of selection for it!
This suggests dosage compensation mechanisms are either weakly selected against or evolutionarily constrained.
Congrats to all involved!
Dissertation hand-in
Congrats to all the BSc project students (Christian, Joseph, Chris, Lily, Indigo, and Tyler) and MSc project students (Owen) for getting their theses handed in (and on time!). It was great fun having you all in the lab!
Good luck with your next steps.
Developmental dosage compensation paper now published!
Welcome to Isabella!
Isabella has joined the lab as an undergraduate intern to design some insect behaviour recording equipment.
Many analysts paper now published!
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!
Centromere paper now published!
Welcome to Owen!
Owen has joined the lab for their MSc looking at the distribution of Orthoptera in Krka National Park.
RES book contribution
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.
Two new preprints!
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!