Here are some photos of the beautiful native bees found in Sri Lanka, where I was lucky enough to visit last month! Did you know that the small island of Sri Lanka is home to just under 150 described species of bees, of which 26 are endemic!
#nativebees
#stinglessbees
#srilanka
The first paper out of my PhD has just been published! Check out our research on the bacterial microbiota associated with the reproductive tissues of stingless bees, and why we think parastitic reproductive bacteria like Wolbachia might be so uncommon in stingless bees. doi.org/10.1007/s135...
Here are some native bees I’ve observed around Sydney this spring! 📸 1: stingless bee (Tetragonula carbonaria), 📸2&3: carpenter bee (Xylocopa sp.), 📸4: blue-banded bee (Amegilla sp.)
This week, I was lucky enough to travel to Beijing to present my work on mitochondrial genomics of the stingless bees at #SMBE2025, as well as hear a ton of amazing research from the international evolution community
The January cover of Genome Biology and Evolution features a Review by Brenman-Sutner & Zayed on how new developments in 'omics techniques have enabled unique insights into the ecology and evolution of bees.
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf226
📸 Amro Zayed
#genome #evolution #bees #pollinators
Check out this new research on how male stingless bees can contribute to pollination, which I played a small part in. Males must visit flowers to feed, and their increased dispersal compared to workers may benefit dispersal of pollen!
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
#nativebees
#stinglessbees
Last week, I got the opportunity to present at the Australasian Entomology Conference in Canberra on my PhD chapter on hybridisation in Tetragonula hockingsi. I’m also very grateful to have been awarded the IUSSI’s award for best student paper (available here: doi.org/10.1002/ece3...)!
Thank you to the Australian Museum for allowing myself and my lab mate to present joint talks at their student forum on brood mites found within stingless bee colonies! Click here to learn more about these fascinating mites: doi.org/10.11158/saa...
Thanks to JAMS @jamsorgsyd.bsky.social for letting me present last night on the reproductive microbiota of stingless bees, it was a great evening and I also learnt a lot about stick insects and bubble columns!
Thanks to some great comments and suggestions, we've updated TADA!
Read it here: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...
Transferable, Available, Documented, Annotated.
The microbiota associated with the reproductive tissues of insects can play an important role in altering host fitness: they can manipulate host fecundity to the microbe’s benefit, modulate their host...
Only female bees actively collect pollen, which they use to provision brood. Although male bees also visit flowers for nectar and thus may passively vector pollen, the contribution of males to pollina...
🎉New preprint!
"TADA! Simple guidelines to improve code sharing"
tinyurl.com/8rmnwjrk
We present simple guidelines to help researchers of all coding levels improve the transparency and reproducibility of their analytical code, TADA!
Transferable, Accessible, Documented, Annotated.
