Alec Downie
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aedownie.bsky.social
Alec Downie
@aedownie.bsky.social
130 followers 170 following 16 posts
Postdoc studying evolutionary ecology, trait evolution, and immunity at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social‬; he/him
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Reposted by Alec Downie
animal-sounds.bsky.social
🚨Who wants to work with Kalahari meerkats? A MSc project with @mathildemartin.bsky.social at the University of Zurich.
#bioacoustics 🧪
November 10, 2025 at 3:41 PM
Reposted by Alec Downie
danielbolnick.bsky.social
Happy to share this AREES paper on Evolutionary Immunology
www.annualreviews.org/docserver/fu...
Now "officially" published OA. Hope its useful... it was a joy working w great colleagues on this one. @nataliesteinel.bsky.social @grahammunology.bsky.social @laurenfuess.bsky.social
www.annualreviews.org
November 7, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Reposted by Alec Downie
fidydvm.bsky.social
The Department of Biology at @eastcarolinauniv.bsky.social seeks to fill a tenure-track faculty at the Assistant Professor level with expertise in evolutionary Biology! Come join us!

ecu.peopleadmin.com/postings/89839
Assistant Professor
The Department of Biology at East Carolina University (http://www.ecu.edu) seeks to fill a tenure-track faculty position (9-month appointment) at the Assistant Professor rank with expertise in evoluti...
ecu.peopleadmin.com
November 3, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Reposted by Alec Downie
domcram.bsky.social
🚨Fully-funded PhD opportunity in my group🚨

🧬How does parental ageing shape the next generation?🐾

Find out by studying meerkats!

🧪Epigenetic clocks
✨Bioinformatics
📊Long-term data
🌍Kalahari fieldwork
💡Big evolutionary questions

Get in touch or APPLY NOW
Please share!
www.uea.ac.uk/course/phd-d...
A collage featuring some laboratory analyses, a schematic of the structure of DNA, a pocket watch in an elderly person's hand, and a family of wild meerkats.
October 17, 2025 at 9:12 AM
Reposted by Alec Downie
yukihaba.bsky.social
How does life evolve to adapt to modern cities?

Out now in Science, my PhD work with @lindymcbr.bsky.social uncovers the ancient origin of the “London Underground mosquito” – one of the most iconic examples of urban adaptation.

🧵(1/n)
@science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady4515
Ancient origin of an urban underground mosquito
Understanding how life is adapting to urban environments represents an important challenge in evolutionary biology. In this work, we investigate a widely cited example of urban adaptation, Culex pipie...
www.science.org
October 25, 2025 at 4:46 AM
Reposted by Alec Downie
gcbias.bsky.social
We're excited to be recruiting an NIH funded postdoc to work in the Coop lab at UC Davis. We're specifically interested in candidates who are want to work at the intersection of human genetics, GWAS, and population genetics modeling. Please RT
October 15, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Reposted by Alec Downie
jamescdownie.bsky.social
In 1948, the GOP-controlled Congress spent 109 days in session, a post-WW2 low. They lost both chambers that fall.

Under Mike Johnson, the House has been in session just 20 days of the last 103. And staying home isn't working any better for him. My latest for MSNBC: www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...
Concerns about Congress’ shrinking role in running the country long predate Johnson and the rest of this generation of congressional leaders, on both sides. But just 20 days in session in more than three months is an astonishingly small number — a rate of less than 80 days in session in a calendar year. The lowest since World War II, for comparison, was the 80th Congress, which had 109 days in session in 1948. But unlike this 119th Congress, the “Do Nothing” Congress (as President Harry Truman famously deemed it) had two excuses. First, it was in opposition to the sitting president, limiting the chances for legislation. Second, 1948 was an election year, and Congress typically spends less time in session when its members are campaigning. Just as the White House has been sending mixed messages — alternating between blaming Democrats for the shutdown and using it to fire thousands of federal employees — Johnson’s “stay home” approach has undercut his talking points. It’s difficult to argue that he is serious about swiftly reopening the government when his caucus is spread out around the country. Instead, Democrats seem to be winning the messaging war. The Washington Post reports, “The White House and a growing number of congressional Republicans are worried that Democrats’ demand to boost Obamacare as part of any bill to reopen the government is proving salient with voters — including their own.” Speaking of Obamacare, by keeping the House away, Johnson has hurt efforts to deal with expiring subsidies for plans on the Affordable Care Act marketplace. “That’s a Dec. 31 issue,” Johnson insisted last week. But that timeline is misleading. “While the enhanced premium tax credits are set to expire at the end of 2025, the start of open enrollment is around the corner on Nov. 1,” says Miranda Yaver of the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health. If lawmakers don’t agree on a fix before the end of the year, it will be weeks after “marketplace insurers have submitted their initial premium rate proposals, suggesting dramatic premium increases faced by marketplace enrollees.” Without a fix to the subsidies soon, millions of people will be deciding in November whether to pay more next year or forgo coverage altogether. For them, a Dec. 31 deal would come far too late. As for the Epstein files, Johnson’s effort here seems especially futile. Clearly, neither the White House nor Republicans in Congress want a vote on releasing the files (though even if the bill passes the House, it will certainly die in the Senate). But efforts to derail the discharge petition seem to have failed, and at some point — whether for the ACA subsidies or some other legislation — the House will have to come back. By delaying Grijalva’s swearing-in, Johnson only deepens suspicions that the White House is hiding something.
October 14, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Reposted by Alec Downie
jamescdownie.bsky.social
We don't know where Trump sees images of "bombed-out" Portland. Even Fox and far-right influencers don't make those claims.

Which leaves a disturbing question: "If Trump can be fooled by a fake video with his own face and voice, what else is fooling him?"

My latest: www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...
Opinion | We don't know why Trump thinks Portland 'on fire.' That's frightening.
If Trump can be fooled by a fake video with his own face and voice, what else is fooling him?
www.msnbc.com
October 13, 2025 at 1:46 PM
Reposted by Alec Downie
taurvil.bsky.social
🚨🧪 Interested in primate genomics and GxE interactions?

My lab is recruiting graduate students and postdocs to help start projects on primate gene regulation and immune evolution. Reach out if you would like to learn more, and please spread widely!

#ScienceJobs
October 9, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Reposted by Alec Downie
fidydvm.bsky.social
🚨🚨 New Paper alert! 🚨🚨 :

Evolutionary history, longevity and terrestriality predict Toxoplasma gondii seroprevalence in primates 🌳🐈‍⬛️🦠🐒. #zoonosis #conservation #primates #wildlife #Madagascar #lemur #parasites

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Evolutionary history, longevity and terrestriality predict Toxoplasma gondii seroprevalence in free-ranging non-human primates
Evidence from captive populations indicates that lemurs are particularly vulnerable to toxoplasmosis, a parasitic disease caused by Toxoplasma gondii.…
www.sciencedirect.com
October 3, 2025 at 10:27 PM
Reposted by Alec Downie
mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social
Why women live longer than men. A new study #ScienceAdvances by an intl. research team led by Johanna Stärk and Fernando Colchero @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social traces the evolutionary roots of the #lifespan gap between women and men. tinyurl.com/yrt4ju9u & www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Why women live longer than men
Study traces the evolutionary roots of the lifespan gap between women and men
tinyurl.com
October 2, 2025 at 9:00 AM
Reposted by Alec Downie
hasikadam.bsky.social
New paper alert! In my second first-author paper from my work on the Isle of Rum Red Deer Project @rumdeerresearch.bsky.social we show, for only the second time in a wild population, that parasites mediate inbreeding depression.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Parasite-mediated inbreeding depression in wild red deer
Heredity - Parasite-mediated inbreeding depression in wild red deer
www.nature.com
October 2, 2025 at 9:26 AM
aedownie.bsky.social
Once again a fascinating stickleback paper! I can't wait to dig in properly.
danielbolnick.bsky.social Daniel Bolnick @danielbolnick.bsky.social · Aug 29
In the earliest stages of adaptive introgression, beneficial immigration can drive genome-wide changes. In a new preprint www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... colleagues & I document exceptionally rapid genomic introgression in a lake population of stickleback.
September 1, 2025 at 6:12 PM
Reposted by Alec Downie
jamescdownie.bsky.social
Trump says the DC occupation is about crime. Some pundits say the fed presence isn't noticeable, and life hasn't really changed.

I was born in DC, I've lived almost my whole life here, and I can tell you: all those claims are crap.

My latest for @msnbc.com www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...
Life under Trump’s D.C. takeover is not what you think
Pretty much anyone living in D.C. can see every day that the White House’s justification is a lie.
www.msnbc.com
August 31, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Reposted by Alec Downie
perrybaconjr.bsky.social
Great @meredithshiner.com piece. newrepublic.com/article/1996...
August 28, 2025 at 7:37 PM
Reposted by Alec Downie
msnbc.com
OPINION by @jamescdownie.bsky.social

"Whether it’s polls or jobs numbers, though, if Trump doesn’t like the numbers, he tries to change the rules."

READ MORE:
www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...
Opinion | Trump’s Indiana redistricting push shows his fear of midterm voters
The president and his allies say he's very popular. Their actions suggest otherwise.
www.msnbc.com
August 27, 2025 at 7:31 PM
Reposted by Alec Downie
jamescdownie.bsky.social
One of ICE's checkpoints is ~0.5 a mile south of my house, outside the church where I got married, and next to a playground where I take my child to play. I have never felt unsafe there, and for people who don't live here to give cover for snatching my brown neighbors off the street is despicable.
August 20, 2025 at 5:14 PM
Reposted by Alec Downie
jessmetcalf.bsky.social
New paper from Burcu - working towards describing 'immune education' journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
A model of early-life interactions between the gut microbiome and adaptive immunity provides insights into the ontogeny of immune tolerance
The developing immune system must learn which microbes to tolerate and which to resist, but how this process unfolds is unclear. This study develops a mechanistic mathematical model of early-life gut ...
journals.plos.org
August 17, 2025 at 11:57 AM
Reposted by Alec Downie
annttate.bsky.social
Pls RT: We are recruiting a postdoc (and potentially an RA or staff scientist) to work on the evolution of stage-structured immune systems! Experimental evolution, natural variation in immunity, and/or evo genomics in flour beetles (Tribolium). See ad here: my.vanderbilt.edu/tatelab/join...
Scale highlighting trade-offs between larval and adult beetles in response to infection A teaser of panels illustrating potential approaches to studying stage-structured immune systems, including transcriptomics, experimental evolution, and experiments in wild-derived populations
August 15, 2025 at 8:50 PM
Reposted by Alec Downie
sashagusevposts.bsky.social
Nice discussion here. A particularly good point about why we both do and do not care about heritability.
July 19, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Reposted by Alec Downie
bennyrice.bsky.social
Out today in Science: Our work on tropical cyclones and malaria in Madagascar. Work inspired by many and done in collaboration with many www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Vaccination to mitigate climate-driven disruptions to malaria control in Madagascar
Extreme weather is common in high malaria burden areas and is likely to increase in severity owing to climate change–related severe weather events. Yet, data on infection rates after these events and ...
www.science.org
July 17, 2025 at 10:10 PM
Reposted by Alec Downie
danielbolnick.bsky.social
New paper in Evolution Letters @evolletters.bsky.social by an undergrad in my lab!
academic.oup.com/evlett/advan...
We modeled eco-evo dynamics of infection & immunity and then analyzed 50 years of data from stickleback & tapeworms (thanks to museum samples!)
Dynamics of infection and immunity over 50 years as marine stickleback adapt to freshwater
Abstract. When a species colonizes a new environment, it may encounter new parasites to which its immune system is poorly adapted. After an initial spike i
academic.oup.com
July 8, 2025 at 6:10 PM
Reposted by Alec Downie
archielab.bsky.social
Daughters who have strong relationships with their fathers live longer in adulthood! Check out the latest paper from the Amboseli Baboon Project: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
Early-life paternal relationships predict adult female survival in wild baboons | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Parent–offspring relationships can have profound effects on offspring behaviour, health and fitness in adulthood. These effects are strong when parents make heavy investments in offspring care. Howeve...
royalsocietypublishing.org
June 18, 2025 at 12:52 PM
Reposted by Alec Downie
hakha.bsky.social
It was fun writing this short piece on the omnigenic model. Sharing it here, though it's a painful time as my family, along with millions of others, is at risk in Iran and the region.
June 17, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Reposted by Alec Downie
fyguo.bsky.social
1. Did you know that the Corn Belt in the Midwest USA is so vast you can see it from space? 🌽 How would this affect billions of migrating songbirds passing through each year? 🐦 Check out our new study in @conbiology.bsky.social
to find out! 🧵1/8 conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
May 30, 2025 at 3:58 PM