What looked like a hearing organ on a tiny stinkbug’s leg turned out to be something far stranger: a fungal nursery that mother bugs use to coat their newly laid eggs in protective symbiotic hyphae, shielding their offspring from parasitic wasps.

Learn more in Science: https://scim.ag/4nDrDNm

📰Published📰Meta-analysis reveals strong evidence for adaptive host and vector manipulation by plant viruses🦠

buff.ly/AFJMkhs

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If you work on insect symbionts this call for papers might be of interest: symbionts as mediators of ecological interactions.

Particular topics of interest:
-Ecological & environmental factors that influence insect-symbiont relationships
-How symbionts mediate interactions
-Symbiont phenotypes

New study from my lab and former grad Dr. Kwak shows Liberibacter psyllaurous, a dual insect symbiont and plant pathogen, boosts psyllid fitness by providing essential nutrients like arginine. A rare case of nutritional benefits from non-obligate symbionts #symbiosis journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Science distraction? #Zika virus interactions with the microbiome in Aedes aegypti. The microbiomes in different mosquito lines respond distinctly to viral exposure and infection. @laurabrettell.bsky.social @alexwild.bsky.social @evaheinz7.bsky.social and others.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

How do animals compensate for trait loss?

In beetles, symbiosis is a consistent strategy. Where the repeated loss of endogenous digestive enzymes is offset by functionally convergent symbioses: www.cell.com/current-biol...
Excited to share our latest, out today in @currentbiology.bsky.social!

Latin America is a leader in nonprofit open-access, with pioneering platforms like Scielo and Redalyc. But it still struggles to have their journals valued at home, as researchers’ perfomances often depend on them publishing on mainstream commercial journals.

www.science.org/content/arti...

Science takes time - a lot of time. Time that is more and more difficult to make available because of increased workloads. Time that exceeds the temporary contracts of postdocs and PhDs.

I'll illustrate this using our paper published in Nature yesterday. 🧵 (1/x)
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Throwback to this amazing research from my colleagues at Biocomm—with much more to look forward to! 🐝

We’re excited to consider applicants for scholarships for our 2025 Biology of Vector-borne Diseases course! See our advert below. Please re-skeet to trainees and colleagues, as graduate students to faculty and practitioners across plant, animal and human health can apply.