Jesper Boman
jesperboman.bsky.social
Jesper Boman
@jesperboman.bsky.social
Evolutionary biologist
Pinned
I feel honored that our work: "On the origin of an insular hybrid butterfly lineage" was picked as "Editor's choice" and that my picture of a mating couple (🧡🤎) covers the latest issue of Evolution @journal-evo.bsky.social. Link to paper: academic.oup.com/evolut/artic... (1/8)
Reposted by Jesper Boman
My first paper as a first author is officially out 🎉 @elife.bsky.social

We show that the iridescent colour of Morphos 🦋 tends to converge in sympatry while their chemical signals diverge, illustrating the constrasting effect natural and sexual selection on trait evolution.

doi.org/10.7554/eLif...
Convergent iridescence and divergent chemical signals in sympatric sister-species of Amazonian butterflies
Ecological interactions exert contrasting evolutionary pressures on sympatric Morpho butterflies, promoting convergence in iridescence but divergence in chemical cues, illustrating how ecological inte...
doi.org
November 6, 2025 at 8:55 AM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
What a remarkable discovery! In SW Turkey a new species of Lycaenid was discovered, Rapala suleymani sp.n., of a genus that was only known from the eastern palearctic & indomalayan realms, it's closest relative flies 7000km away! doi.org/10.31184/M00...
Rapala suleymani sp. n., (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) a new thecline...: Ingenta Connect
doi.org
November 5, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
Check out our new insect decline paper. By analysing 36 yrs of German ground beetle distribution data, we show:
- ~80% of species have declined, with significant declines for >50%.
- The decline was similar across species traits and threatened status.
doi.org/10.1111/ddi.... @consbiog.bsky.social
November 3, 2025 at 1:38 AM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
This paper blew me out of the water!
October 24, 2025 at 2:08 AM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
Despite decades of effort, scientists have still not discovered a foolproof way to evaluate colleagues’ work that doesn’t involve reading the paper
But what if there are two co-first authors and the first-first author is actually also co-corresponding author with the last author but the second-first author isn’t?
October 27, 2025 at 2:21 PM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
One species of vampire moth, Calyptra thalictri has been regularly found in southern Finland, and even north of Stockholm... 😅
Vampire moths might sound more horror film than natural world, but they’re 100% real! 😱

See why some moths pick human blood over fruit juice in this week’s Surprising Science. 🩸🦇
October 26, 2025 at 12:56 PM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
super cool - I am constantly wondering about the effects of recent TE invasions? lethal mutations seems to be one striking effect
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Transposable elements drive much of naturally occurring genetic lethality in Drosophila melanogaster
Recessive lethal mutations are widespread across studied species, with estimates suggesting that each individual carries at least one. Numerous lethal alleles persist in wild populations at higher fre...
www.biorxiv.org
October 22, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
Transposable elements drive much of naturally occurring genetic lethality in Drosophila melanogaster https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.16.682755v1
October 16, 2025 at 7:32 PM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
Next level ant mimicry: a moth walking backwards reveals how its colour pattern and movements combine to produce a fairly good ant impression
#Borneo #insects #rainforest
October 19, 2025 at 12:09 AM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
Very cool paper from @rogervilalab.bsky.social on the Canary islands Hipparchia butterflies just came out! Each island has its own species, seems like no gene flow between the islands!
academic.oup.com/isd/article/...
Colonization, diversification and speciation of the genus Hipparchia (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) in the Canary Islands
Abstract. The Canary Islands harbor numerous endemic species, showcasing a wide array of colonization and diversification patterns. Butterflies belonging t
academic.oup.com
October 17, 2025 at 6:42 AM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
1/3 Excited that my final PhD MS is online! Big thanks to Ullasa (PI) (vanasiri.in) & collaborators Freerk and Urszula. Turns out humidity, not just temperature, plays a major role in butterfly eyespot plasticity. doi.org/10.1101/2025...
October 16, 2025 at 7:26 AM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
New review out! With students in my lab, we explore how population size shapes speciation—from drift in small populations to selection in large ones. Do small or large populations speciate faster? The answer is more nuanced than you might think.
esj-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Speciation Through the Lens of Population Dynamics: A Theoretical Primer on How Small and Large Populations Diverge
Population size and dynamics fundamentally shape speciation by influencing genetic drift, founder events, and adaptive potential. Small populations may speciate rapidly due to stronger drift, whereas...
esj-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
October 14, 2025 at 11:25 PM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
Now available in Systematic Biology, a new paper (and R package) in which we outline an approach to account for non-independence in comparative analyses of lineage-pair traits academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...
The Comparative Analysis of Lineage-Pair Traits
Abstract. For many questions in ecology and evolution, the most relevant data to consider are attributes of lineage pairs. Comparative tests for causal rel
academic.oup.com
October 13, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
Tip rate estimates can predict future diversification, but are unreliable and context dependent https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.06.680809v1
October 7, 2025 at 10:33 PM
"An appealing metaphor is that the smaller population is on a drunkard’s walk, and the larger population, sober though tethered to the drunkard, must counterstep to keep the pair on target; in doing so, however, the sober member of the pair also looks drunk." www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Quantitative system drift
We consider a biological system composed of multiple genetically variable components, the combined result of which is a quantitative trait under stabilizing selection for an optimal value. We show mat...
www.biorxiv.org
October 4, 2025 at 9:00 PM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
Preprint Alert! 🦥
We produced complete genomes for 2 Xenarthra and placed them in a mammalian comparative framework. We found that Xenarthra harbour the largest number of retrocopies in mammals! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Retrocopy formation and domestication shape genome evolution in sloths and other xenarthrans
Xenarthrans, comprising sloths, anteaters, and armadillos, represent one of the most morphologically and physiologically specialised mammalian clades, yet the genomic basis of their adaptations remain...
www.biorxiv.org
October 2, 2025 at 9:16 PM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
#TEsky Satellite DNAs rising from the transposon graveyards
doi.org/10.1093/dnar...
Validate User
doi.org
October 1, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
Our 4yo wants to keep some of our kitchen’s fruit flies as pets. Feels like I’m already l losing him to popgen.
September 29, 2025 at 6:20 AM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
(1) So happy to share our recent work on Finish wood ants 🐜🧬🥳
"Evidence for climate-mediated range expansion of hybrid wood ants"
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
@helsinki.fi & @uvapress.bsky.social
This integrative project was funded by the Research Council Finland & #MSCA of the European Comission
Evidence for climate-mediated range expansion of hybrid wood ants
Climate change challenges many species. To persist, species can shift ranges, respond plastically, and adapt. Yet, these responses require variation - often limited in natural populations. While hybri...
www.biorxiv.org
September 28, 2025 at 1:11 PM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
Question for speciation researchers!
I'm looking for "the most classic mathematical models of speciation" to introduce in my class. What comes to mind when you hear this phrase?
Would love to hear what you consider the classical models in the field. I'll start first:
September 26, 2025 at 1:08 AM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
🦋 Butterflies are booming across England, thanks to nature friendly farming

New research shows that agri-environment schemes (AES) are significantly boosting biodiversity by paying farmers to adopt nature-friendly practices like wildflower strips and hedgerows.
September 25, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
I'm so proud of this work!!! It was an incredible amount of effort that started when I was trapped in a greenhouse during the pandemic and is only now seeing the light of day. Kudos to Megan, Hagar, & Pia!

We'd love to hear your thoughts!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Introgression and Parental Conflict Underlie Repeated Occurrences of Postzygotic Isolation
Postzygotic reproductive isolation is often thought to accumulate as a byproduct of neutral divergence. Yet, it frequently evolves rapidly, in line with non-neutral evolution. A major driver of intrin...
www.biorxiv.org
September 25, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Wouldn’t mind combining butterfly watching with asparagus season myself ;)
September 21, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
We have a new paper out in Molecular Ecology, led by @devinbendixsen.bsky.social ! Reproductive isolation due to divergent ecological selection is accompanied by vast genomic instability in experimentally evolved yeast populations onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
September 18, 2025 at 8:56 AM
Reposted by Jesper Boman
A single genotype of Kalanchoe ×houghtonii as the 1st reported clonal hybrid capable of worldwide colonization

"striking genetic uniformity, high phenotypic plasticity, and extremely high rates of vegetative reproduction ... a 'general-purpose genotype'"

From: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
The Winner Takes It All: a single genotype of Kalanchoe ×houghtonii is a global invader
Background and Aims Invasive alien plant species pose a global challenge, and their impact is amplified by globalisation and the accelerating pace of climate change. In mild-climate regions, drought-t...
www.biorxiv.org
September 14, 2025 at 3:59 PM