Aposematic color patterns are the dominant axis of phenotypic diversification in Nymphalid butterflies https://t.co/MOqJG3A8D0 #biorxiv_evobio

We’d love feedback (e.g. any comments, predictions for predator communities, or datasets we should stress-test on). DMs welcome.

Moreover, we demonstrate that aposematic species have more similar dorsal & ventral patterns and reduced sexual dimorphism. These were long-standing hypotheses in this field which were really hard to test with conventional methods.

What we found? Across Nymphalidae, the aposematic axis is a dominant axis of variation in color patterns. It also separates aposematic vs. non-aposematic phenotypes in an out-of-distribution moth dataset.

What we did? Extract multivariate features from images → derive a continuous aposematic score → evaluate some long-standing hypotheses for the partitioning of variation in wing patterns in butterflies

Why aposematism? Warning signals are predicted to be conspicuous and convergent. If they’re pervasive, they could dominate the geometry of pattern space

Our new preprint on butterfly wing patterns, led by @mluerig and with many fantastic collaborators. We use a large-scale database of museum images to quantify an aposematic axis and test how it structures phenotypic diversity in Nymphalidae https://t.co/fZcLaYwgbd

Now Hiring! Whitney Laboratory Assistant/Associate Professor in Technology Driven Discovery in Marine Bioscience https://t.co/LvH8F7q0hh

Identifying the Big Questions in paleontology: a community-driven project| Palaeobiology

🚨 We're hiring! PhD position in Evolutionary Systems Biology at Stockholm University & SciLifeLab 🎓 Focus: evolution, development, computational & mathematical modeling, prediction 📍 Stockholm, Sweden 🕒 4 years, fully-funded 🔍 Details: https://t.co/nIbcxSeF8T Please share!

A fun collaboration led by Christophe Pelabon. We argue for a clearer, measurable program for evolvability research and sketch priority questions for the field. https://t.co/SCKlU0suCn

Congrats to Moritz Lürig @mluerig! 👏👏👏 He has been awarded a group starter grant by the European Research Council @ERC_Research to create an atlas for moth and butterfly wing patterns using machine learning. https://t.co/8eFO9LaTHv 🧵

Delighted to see @mluerig get an ERC Starting Grant for his work. Working with him has been a privilege. Excited for the next steps in @UniBonn (and happy we keep him around for a few more months).

depressing to me how biologists, because of their allergy to all things AI/ML, have basically ceded the AI+Bio space to computer scientists

looking forward to see y'all at #evolution2025 @Evol_mtg in Georgia next week! feel free to stop by session Adaptation I on Saturday, 9:30-10:30

A classic

4 years ago, Anjali Gupta spent a summer in Lund and collected amazing data of #Odonata with me and @EvolOdonata. The data/results are published https://t.co/AqkbkBJOxW @JEvBio. Highlight: we proposed a way to relate present-day selection (#microevolution) with #macroevolution.

What can #population-level processes tell us about large-scale #biodiversity? 🧵: 1/9 A key question in #evolutionary #biology: Can we predict how quickly lineages diversify (#speciation rates) based on #traits observable at the population level? #microevolution #macroevolution

Fossils in space! 🚀 Friend of the Museum Rob Ferl, director of the @UFAstraeus, recently went into space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket and took a few of our fossils with him—a snail, horse and early ancestor of modern primates. There's more: https://t.co/xzqqcmHYwC

Do you use, develop, or review Bayesian models for evolutionary biology applications? Here are some thoughts on how such models should be validated