Bear witness! So very excited (yes, okay, I mean 'profoundly relieved') to finally send the magnum opus of my #PhD research into the world. The preprint of our big community-level study of visual system convergence in tropical rainforests is here! 1/n😀

Novel year, novel me: hopefully see you on Bluesky! 👊🏼☺️

The final video of our life changing expedition to Yasuni, Ecuador is up on my YouTube now. 🤗🤗🤗 Some really important topics covered in this one, from indigenous culture to critical conservation. Would really love it if you watched:

Congratulations to our great leader, Professor Nathan Bailey, for a magnificent inaugural lecture today featuring a perfect blend of superb science, embarrassing childhood photos and… errr indecent cricket content. Go Bailey Lab! 🦗💪🏼 @SchoolofBiology @univofstandrews

RT @max_farnworth: Really happy to share that our story on mosaic evolution in the internal mushroom body circuit in Heliconiini butterflie….

RT @Jessie_foley14: The Third and Final Thesis (submitted! 🥳)

RT @PernilleMS: We have a new paper out today in @CurrentBiology ! 🐬 Our research shows that variation in acoustic communication range, dri….

Join us as we search for the Amazon’s most elusive beasts in my latest vid. As you can tell, I get a bit excited… 🤩🐆@DFMTalent

There's some really whacky biology going on in the tropics. 🤯❓🤔 @DFMTalent @YasuniPark

RT @biorxiv_evobio: Mutualisms within light microhabitats drive sensory convergence in a mimetic butterfly community .

@joana_meier @DrMartinJohnHow @EcologyofVision @jTroscianko @PUCE_Ecuador @CamZoology @sangerinstitute @UniExeCEC Oh and of course, a heartfelt thanks to @BristolBioSci for all the good times! ❤️❤️❤️.

And last but certainly not least, thank you to this epic team of ithomiine/sensory ecology titans and mentors: @joana_meier @DrMartinJohnHow @EcologyofVision @jTroscianko 👏👏👏 @PUCE_Ecuador @CamZoology @sangerinstitute @UniExeCEC 18/n.

As well as Theodora, I also had the pleasure of collaborating with some of my best friends on this project so special thanks to Iestyn Penry Williams and @SamJakeEngland. Big kudos to Steve's 2011 field assistant Francisco Ramriez, and former undergrad Annalie Barker too. 17/n.

This work would not have been possible without the immense support and guidance @EBaBlab has given me as a PhD supervisor over the past five years. I also wouldn't have got very far without my world-class field assitant Theodora Loupasaki. We took out work very seriously. 16/n

feat. plenty more interesting nuggets. Looking forward to the reviewer comments but as always, we greatly welcome any thoughts and feedback from anyone else interested! 15/n.

Our work reveals the impact of light on community structure and visual system evolution in megadiverse rainforests like Yasuni. However, it also shows us what broad-reaching effects interspecies mutualisms can have on organism evolution! 14/n

We wanted to take things one step further and see whether the strength of these processes was enough to drive sensory convergence among co-mimics. Evolutionary modelling (+a bunch of other approaches) confirmed that indeed it is! 13/n

Low and behold, we see striking light environmental convergence in a suite of visual traits, including facet diameter and the relative investment in visual brain structures, shown here. Simply put, species in brighter habitats have convergently evolved bigger visual systems 12/n

We examined the eye physiology, eye anatomy, and brain anatomy of ~750 wild-caught ithomiines (RIP) from Yasuni and correlated variation in these traits with light microhabitat, controlling for differences in flight-related morphology (see the ms for deets) 11/n

But could this light variation be a potent enough selective force to drive adaptive (and predictable?) visual system evolution in the butterflies? It was time to get the dissection kit out. 10/n.

This shows that mutualistic interactions between Mullerian co-mimics can drive convergence in light preference and therefore strengthen niche partioning within diverse tropical community assemblages. 9/n