Elena Francesca Nika

Shades of blue and red in a slice through an immuno stained brain showing some deliciously lovely looking mushroom body lobes - ripe for investigation during a funded PhD - and the central complex. Image credit: Dr Max Farnworth

🚨RA/PhD position available in evolutionary neurobiology 🚨

Working on a deep dive into circuit changes during mushroom body expansion in Heliconius butterflies @camzoology.bsky.social

- employment benefits
- 4 years funding
- 1000% fun

Deadline: 14/1/2026

Details:
www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/researc...

Join us Opportunities Below are the positions currently open in our lab. Fully-funded PhD position The project aims to understand rapid evolution and adaptation in white butterflies flying at high elevatio…

New PhD position: Butterfly Evolution at High Elevations 🦋⛰️
The project aims to understand the rapid evolution and adaptation of white butterflies at high elevations.
DEADLINE: January 11, 2025
More info: pavelmatos.wordpress.com/join-us/

GBE | The Genomic Basis of the Svalbard Reindeer's Adaptation to an Extreme Arctic Environment

@nicolasdussex.bsky.social et al. investigate the genomic basis of adaptation in the Svalbard reindeer, an endemic subspecies that colonized the High Arctic ~7,000 years ago, adapting to extreme cold, day length changes, and resource scarcity.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf160

#genome #evolution

My MSc. thesis is published on DiVa in case anyone is interested in some butterfly research!🦋

www.diva-portal.org/smash/record...

Wood tiger moth on leaf. Photo: Juhani Maamela.

Funded PhD position available 🎉 Come and work with me in Helsinki to uncover the pathways producing colourful tiger moth wings. Lots of options for genomics, CRISPR, fieldwork, behaviour experiments… Email with questions! jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...

New paper in @pnas.org — and this is my favourite one out of my PhD thesis! Field transplants of wall brown butterflies show life history evolution during climate change-driven range expansion, BUT non-evolving winter tolerance still sets the range limit.🧵1/12. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

(3) Also hoping to gain even more bioinformatic experience (mainly genomics/transcriptomics) through seminars/courses/self-study, so any tips would be highly appreciated!
And of course, keeping an eye on available & suitable PhDs!
#phd #research #evolutionarybiology #ecology #evobio #academia

(2) I'm also super excited to start my first after-graduate job as a research assistant at @stockholmuni.bsky.social, studying thermal sensitivity in reproduction in butterflies. It's a great start to help me gain more experience and new qualifications to find my dream PhD (hopefully) soon!🔬

(1) Happy to report that a few weeks ago I successfully defended my MSc thesis about parallel evolution of adaptation in butterflies at @uu.se, and it went extremely well! I now finalized my manuscript and it will be out in DiVA portal soon for anyone interested in reading my research!🦋

Great PhD position on gull foraging behaviour ecology at sea!
#ornithology
Apply before 20-7-2025 or spread the word!

University of Chicago campus

University of Chicago campus

Our lab is moving! I’m thrilled to be joining the Department of Ecology & Evolution at the University of Chicago this fall. I’ll be recruiting PhD students so please spread the word and reach out if interested!

Simons Graduate Fellowships in Ecology and Evolution The purpose of these awards is to provide support for students entering U.S.-based Ph.D. programs with a plan to perform research in ecology and evolution. While we will consider all projects in ecolo...

PhD student grants for research in ecology and evolution: www.simonsfoundation.org/grant/simons...

Join the Programming for Evolutionary Biology course in Berlin from Feb 17 - Mar 6, 2026. Apply by May 13, 2025. Learn Python, R, and data analysis for evolutionary research. More info: http://evop.bioinf.uni-leipzig.de/ #course

Logo of Science School of Quantitative Ecology

1/4🧵 Are you a Master's or #PhD student in #ecology based in #Europe? 🌍 Join us at the Science School of Quantitative Ecology 2025 (SSoQE2025)! 🧑‍💻🌿📈
📝 Registration is open until 6 May—don’t miss your chance!
🔗 bit.ly/SSoQE
#SSoQE #SSoQE2025 #Science #School

Cover: Northern brown argus (Aricia artaxerxes) mating in the wild in Uppland, Sweden. These individuals (female-left, male-right) and forty of their offspring were later whole-genome resequenced to make a linkage map. Boman J., Nolan, Z.J. And Backström, N. On the origin of an insular hybrid butterfly lineage. Evolution 79 (4)

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)

Let’s introduce Art in Science!

This is my favourite illustration piece, and a short, fast forward video of its process. I’m currently experimenting on my study species, the Wall Brown butterfly, hopefully to include it at the cover of my thesis project.

PS. Looks even better with colour!

In this paper, we present the Sarah from a 3-year common garden experiment, including a food manipulation experiment during hand rearing. Tons of work by many people.

Gray Wolf Numbers Are On The Rise In Europe The population is increasing over the course of the last 10 years, growing by 58%

European wolves are reclaiming their old hunting grounds!

"After previously being targeted in a negative light, pushed to the brink of extinction due to hunting practices, wolves are up 58% as of 2022 in Europe."

Gray Wolf Numbers Are On The Rise In Europe www.thetravel.com/gray-wolf-nu...

I’m extremely grateful to announce that I won the best poster competition of the Swedish @nordicoikos.bsky.social conference! I couldn’t have imagined that my first scientific poster ever would be so good to win the first place in a competition among so many wonderful other projects!
Thank you 🧡🦋

🚨 Call for abstracts 🚨

Abstract submission for 17th Ecology & Behaviour annual meeting is now open until March 28th!

To submit:
➡️ ecobhvr2025.sciencesconf.org?forward-acti...
➡️ Create an account
➡️ "New submission"
➡️ Fill in the requested information
➡️ Submit

My first scientific poster presentation from my MSc thesis at the Swedish Nordic Society Oikos conference!!
Come and check it out tomorrow and on Wednesday (4-5th February) at the Natural History museum in Stockholm!
So excited 🦋

This 👇.
Specifically, for people in the quantitative sciences, I recommend:
- Have a well-tended ORCID
- GitHub/GitLab repository with some of your research outputs
- Personal webpage (e.g. quarto) on a static hosting service such as GitHub/GitLab Pages, Netlify, Posit Connect, ...

🚨 New paper published in... Nature 😱

I never thought that I would write these words, but here is a Nature-paper that I contributed to. We found global loss in genetic diversity. But conservation strategies may maintain or increase genetic diversity.

Full paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Wide range of Earth’s species are showing a decline in diversity The loss of genetic variation means species may be less resilient to climate change and other stressors

Our long term project has finally been published - genetic diversity is lost worldwide, but we can also make a difference and conservation actions matters.
Find out more in the Science news here
www.science.org/content/arti...
#Consgen

Estimating future heat-related and cold-related mortality under climate change, demographic and adaptation scenarios in 854 European cities - Nature Medicine Modeled analyses of 854 European cities show that net temperature-related mortality will increase because of an increase in heat-related mortality exceeding future reductions in cold-related mortality...

🌍🌡️ Dangerous temperatures could kill 50% more Europeans by 2100

A new study projects a net increase of 80,000 deaths annually in the hottest scenario, with milder winters failing to redress the balance.

🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#ClimateCrisis #PublicHealth 🧪 #SciComm

Pretty much my entire job is funded by federal grants. My projects relate to the effects of climate change on birds, multiple long-term demographics studies that show which birds are declining and which are doing well, & now a newer project on under-studied endangered tropical island avifauna 🧪🪶👩‍🔬

locuszoomr: an R package for visualising publication-ready regional gene locus plots https://academic.oup.com/bioinformaticsadvances/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bioadv/vbaf006/7958574 🧬🖥️🧪 #Rstats https://github.com/myles-lewis/locuszoomr