Ricardo J Pereira
biodiversitysmns.bsky.social
Ricardo J Pereira
@biodiversitysmns.bsky.social
Head of Biodiversity Monitoring | SMNS & Univ. of Hohenheim 🌿🪲🔬🧬
Passionate about species formation & persistence in a changing world. 🏃🏻‍♂️🌍
Committed to mentoring future scientists & engaged citizens. 🎓💡

https://biodiversitysmns.wixsite.com/rpereiralab
Pinned
Hello, BlueSky! 🦋 Excited to reconnect, exchange ideas, and build a collaborative space driven by curiosity and innovation.

We’re launching the Dept. of Biodiversity Monitoring at SMNS!🚀 Using museum & monitoring collections, we study genomic diversity 🧬 and species persistence in a changing world.
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
Interested in the evolution of human language? Check out our new paper in @science.org where we synthesize latest findings and outline a multifaceted, bio-cultural approach for studying how language evolved. Super proud of this work, and hoping it leads to exciting new research! tinyurl.com/ykacvanp
November 21, 2025 at 9:47 AM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
The emergence and diversification of dog morphology 🏺🧪
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

This study looked at more than 640 canid crania over the past 50,000 years (see the Perspective by Fillios) and found that by the beginning of the Holocene, dogs already displayed extensive variation.
November 21, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
We have a proper picture! Thanks @stephanspiekman.bsky.social and the rest that doesn’t have a BlueSky handle
November 14, 2025 at 9:56 PM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
As human groups migrated and settled across Holocene Eurasia, dogs often traveled with them and were sometimes traded among populations, researchers report in Science. The results reveal the integral role these animals played in culture and exchange. https://scim.ag/4peI4kl
Genomic evidence for the Holocene codispersal of dogs and humans across Eastern Eurasia
As the first domestic species, dogs likely dispersed with different cultural groups during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed 73 ancient dog genomes, including 17 ...
scim.ag
November 13, 2025 at 9:58 PM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
Interesting paper by Andra Meneganzin and Chris
Stringer about whether you and I are different species (n.b. I am a neanderthal). doi.org/10.1093/evol...
November 14, 2025 at 12:08 AM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
They are now published: the results of a study I contributed to when I was recently employed as an antiquarian at Lund University’s Historical Museum!
The emergence and diversification of #dog #morphology | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
The emergence and diversification of dog morphology
Dogs exhibit an exceptional range of morphological diversity as a result of their long-term association with humans. Attempts to identify when dog morphological variation began to expand have been con...
www.science.org
November 14, 2025 at 5:46 AM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
My department at UT Austin is looking to hire an Assistant Professor in Evolutionary Biology, broadly defined. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions you may have.
apply.interfolio.com/177547
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
apply.interfolio.com
November 13, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
Congratulations to Joe Felsenstein on being awarded the 2026 Mendel Medal!
November 14, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
Three German universities offering post-docs for researchers "who cannot conduct or continue their work in the USA appropriately because of actual political pressure. "
www.uni-konstanz.de/zukunftskoll...
Early Career Rescue Fellowship
www.uni-konstanz.de
November 11, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
PhD position available in evolutionary genomics/bioinformatics (hoehnalab.github.io/job_adverts/...). Topic: analyzing gene expression evolution across several firefly species and linking expression changes to genomic architecture. The position is jointly supervised with @anaevolcatalan.bsky.social
hoehnalab.github.io
November 11, 2025 at 9:00 AM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
Please drop me a line is you are interested to work in my lab and are eligible for the CSC funding!
We are looking for candidates interested in (and eligible for) CSC-funded PhD positions, for the project " AI-powered system to monitor biodiversity and study behaviour of key wild pollinators"
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Please contact Lena by email for informal enquiries.
November 11, 2025 at 9:03 PM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
Common and Oriental cuckoos sneak their eggs into other birds’ nests.

Common cuckoos parasitize over 100 host species, fueling an evolutionary arms race: hosts are under pressure to detect foreign eggs, while cuckoos refine their mimicry to escape detection. 2/6
October 30, 2025 at 7:15 PM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
What do you think has been on Earth longer - sharks or trees?

You might think trees have been around for a long time, but sharks have been here even longer!

See how sharks have survived and thrived through all five of Earth’s mass extinction events in this week’s Surprising Science.
November 9, 2025 at 10:39 AM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
How time, climate, and storage shape DNA survival in herbarium specimens - and why plants from the tropics face tougher odds 🌿🧬
#AncientDNA
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
November 4, 2025 at 8:32 PM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
Radar technology has been around for decades, used to track & predict weather. Now scientists have made a breakthrough using it to monitor insects - paving the way for cost effective biodiversity tracking across huge areas @katatrepsis.bsky.social @ncas-uk.bsky.social www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article...
Trillions of insects fly above us - weather radar reveals alarming declines
Scientists have made a breakthrough in monitoring insect populations across the UK using an unexpected tool: weather radar.
www.leeds.ac.uk
November 3, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
My awesome grad student Shashank and I wrote this paper trying to look at broader patterns of HT in TEs. HT is happening everywhere! DNA transposons jump further than other classes! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Recent horizontal transfer of transposable elements in Drosophila
Transposable elements (TEs) are genetic elements also known as "jumping genes" that increase their copy numbers within a host through various mechanisms of transposition. TEs can also move between spe...
www.biorxiv.org
October 31, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
Gelechioidea, that superdiverse superfamily of Lepidoptera that has been a super mess taxonomically, finally gets some structure at the family level with phylogenomics! Read all about it in our article led by PhD student @etkayapar.bsky.social !
resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Integrating Sanger and next‐generation sequencing data sheds light on phylogenetic relationships among gelechioid moths (Lepidoptera: Gelechioidea)
The maximum-likelihood analysis of a phylogenomic dataset of 1767 protein-coding genes from 57 ingroup taxa yields a robust family-level topology for Gelechioidea, revealing novel among-family relat...
resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
October 30, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
New study funded in part by our Rosemary Grant Advanced Award - congratulations @yukihaba.bsky.social !!
October 30, 2025 at 8:06 PM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
The deadline is fast approaching!
We are looking for an Assistant Professor in Plant #Biodiversity and #Conservation
universityvacancies.com/trinity-coll...
Deadline: November 14th.
October 30, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
We have an open PhD position (application deadline 9 January 2026) in "Theory of fitness landscapes" at @unibe.ch 🤓⛰️📊👩‍💻🎓: banklab.github.io/positions/

Please share widely!

#QueerInSTEM #DisabledInSTEM #BlackInSTEM #WomenInSTEM #CarersInSTEM #AcademicSky #HigherED
October 28, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
Nice to see this great write-up about our recent paper in Molecular Ecology. "Chromosomal Rearrangements Might Play a Central Role in Adaptation" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
October 27, 2025 at 11:29 AM
Join us tomorrow either at the @smnstuttgart.bsky.social or online to learn what 20,000 years old bones of crows 🐦‍⬛ can tell us about the evolution of color pattern! @kombiota.bsky.social
Tomorrow, October 28 | 4:00 p.m.

Research Colloquium: The use of ancient DNA and museum collections to understand speciation and introgression in crows

with Chyi Yin Gwee, @lmumuenchen.bsky.social

Join in person (Museum am Löwentor, #Stuttgart) or via zoom: t1p.de/d3y6j
October 27, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Reposted by Ricardo J Pereira
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 Ricardo J Pereira
Do you want to do a Masters in Evolutionary Biology? The call for applying to the MEME program is now open! MEME is a fantastic 2-year MSc between four European Universities on all areas of Evolutionary Biology. Apply and study in Sweden/France/the Netherlands/Germany/USA/Switzerland! www.evobio.eu
October 24, 2025 at 9:04 AM