Congratulations, Stella! Thank you for excellent work on your MSc thesis!
PhD position available at the Czech Academy of Sciences for researching butterfly evolution at high elevations. Apply by Jan 11, 2026. More info: https://www.prf.jcu.cz/en. Email: [email protected]. #phd
PhD Studentship available in eco-evolutionary dynamics at the Biology Centre, Czech Academy of Sciences. Apply by January 7, 2026. Details: http://lab.hrcek.net. Contact Jan Hrcek: [email protected]. #phd
New preprint! Symbionts provide critical functions—but how do they impact host phenotypes in nature? We show a horizontally transferred plasmid in a heritable symbiont drives divergence in defensive traits across insect populations, revealing how mobile DNA rapidly shapes pathogen resistance. 👇
Save the date and spread the word about the next meeting of the @droseu.bsky.social, a friendly research community! Looking forward to welcoming you all in České Budějovice! #Drosophila
I invite applications for a PhD position. Join our team exploring how rapid evolution in communities allows maintenance of genetic variation and species diversity! Application deadline is 7th May 2026. See lab.hrcek.net
Warming weakens natural enemies of insects. We found that higher temperatures strongly reduce the success of parasitoids – tiny wasps that help regulate insect populations in nature - and narrows their diet. Published in Ecology Letters dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele....
Researchers working on insect infection, immunity and microbionts are invited to share their work at the upcoming two-day Infection, Immunity & Microbionts Special Interest Group Meeting at @uniofbath.bsky.social.
📅 16-17 April
📄 Abstracts Deadline: 17:00 (GMT), Friday 13 March 🔽
PhD-position vacancy in Jan Hrcek's lab lab.hrcek.net, Czech Academy of Sciences: Exploring how rapid evolution in communities allows maintenance of genetic variation and species diversity. @erc.europa.eu 🪰 🧬 🌏 🧪Application deadline: January 7th 2026
Heritable microbes profoundly influence insect biology, yet the traits they confer often evolve rapidly and differ among closely related symbiont strains. Despite their importance, we lack a clear understanding of how novel traits arise in symbiosis and how this diversity influences host ecology in natural populations. The aphid facultative symbiont Regiella insecticola is ideally suited to this question because of its strong lineage-specific variation in host benefits. By generating 20 high-quality genomes, we found that Regiella ’s evolution is driven largely by gene gains mediated by mobile genetic elements. We identified a plasmid (pRILSR1) that encodes a type IV secretion system and a highly expressed predicted effector that has been convergently acquired by Regiella strains from pea aphids. Notably, only pRILSR1-bearing strains confer protection against the specialist fungal pathogen Pandora neoaphidis , indicating that gains and losses of the plasmid underlie the evolution of this key defensive phenotype. Using a multi-year field study, we further show that the pRILSR1 plasmid is strongly associated with Regiella found in pea aphid populations adapted to specific host plants, driving variation in symbiont-mediated defense across populations. Together, our results show that mobile genetic elements generate key adaptive traits in microbial symbionts and, in doing so, drive phenotypic divergence among host populations. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.
New paper out in Evolution: Experimental evolution in communities: beyond pairwise interactions
DOI: doi.org/10.1093/evol...
with @janhrcek.bsky.social
Jan Hrcek
EvolDir
EvolDir
📅 Join us on 16-17 April for:
🔬 Day 1: Symbionts & Microbiomes
🦠 Day 2: Pathogens & Immunity
Save the date! The 17th DrosEU workshop will be held in České Budějovice on the 24th to 26th May 2027. Thanks to @janhreck.bsky.social for hosting us! #Drosophila #genomics
Jitka Polechová
Today is the day! 🎉 I defended my MSc. thesis about in situ manipulation of whole Drosophila-parasitoid webs at the University of South Bohemia. 🪰
Thank you for everything, Fly Lab and @janhrcek.bsky.social!
Now comes the next fun part: turning the thesis into a publishable manuscript - stay tuned
