Matt Kustra

Screenshot of the registration page of the Gordon Research Seminar in Speciation 2027 at Lucca, Italy

Applications to the Gordon Research Seminar in Speciation are now open! We encourage PhD students & postdocs from all geographies, backgrounds, disciplines to APPLY!

This 2d seminar in beautiful Lucca 🇮🇹 will be followed by a 5d conference open to the broader community.

www.grc.org/speciation-g...

Looking forward to #Dros26 this week. My lab is recruiting and I would be delighted to chat with anyone interested in grad school/postdoc positions in evolutionary cell biology and developmental genetics. Please reach out if interested!

Hi friends! Please check Dr. Rosa Navarro’s interview: she is a Professor and PI at #UNAM and the current President of the Mexican Society for Developmental Biology 🪱 🧬 🧫

#LatinaxinDevBio #DevBio #DevelopmentalBiology @lasdb.bsky.social

Stay tuned as we highlight more #latinx scientists! 🫶

Julia is quickly becoming the successor to Fortran, once the standard for high-performance computing in science, mathematics, and engineering. It’s powerful and fun to use. Get a solid foundation with a good book:

lee-phillips.org/amazonJuliaB...

#julialang #physics #programming #mathematics

Warm waters undermine cryptic female choice Matthew C. Kustra, Louise M. Alissa, Michaela M. Rogers, Megan M. Molinari, Kelly A. Stiver, Susan Marsh-Rollo, Jennifer K. Hellmann, Suzanne H. Alonzo This is a plain language summary of a Functio…

Wouldn't be possible without my fellow co-authors. Here's the plain language summary! (3/3)

This results in nesting males having lower expected paternity at warmer temperatures. Our results highlight that considering the thermal sensitivity of female-sperm interactions will be essential for understanding how climate change will influence fertility, reproduction, and sexual selection. (2/3)

Warm waters undermine cryptic female choice Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

New paper out in @funecology.bsky.social y.social: Warm waters undermine cryptic female choice! We find ovarian fluid only has a positive effect on sperm function at colder temperatures and that sneaker males have faster sperm than dominant nesting males at warmer temperatures. (1/3)

UNC Charlotte seeks a postdoc in Cnidarian genomics and immunity for an NSF-funded project. Requirements include a relevant PhD and expertise in sequence data analysis. More details: https://jobs.charlotte.edu/postings/66089. #postdoc

Balanced polymorphism in a floral transcription factor underlies an ancient rhythm of daily sex alternation in avocado In avocado and certain wild relatives in Lauraceae, pollination occurs via a synchronized rhythm of floral sex timing between two hermaphroditic flowering types. A-type plants present female-phase flo...

Did you know there are 2 types of avocado varieties? A-types switch from female to male, B-types male to female, within a single day. This reciprocal sex alternation promotes cross-pollination and has a simple genetic basis. Read more in this recent preprint from the final chapter of my PhD thesis 🥑

Super excited that the bulk of my PhD work is now preprinted! Here we used whole-community competition, or coalescence, experiments to quantify selection acting on genetically diverged strains within larger communities. (1/n)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

My lab at Indiana University is searching for a *postdoc* and *technician* to contribute to our work studying the evolution of social behavior using fruit flies as a model system. Details below, feel free to email me with any questions! More info on our research: saltzlab.com

Conspecific sperm precedence evolves through reinforcement, primarily via sexual selection acting on sons. Our results highlight the importance of cryptic female choice in speciation and the need for future theoretical and empirical investigations into this process. (3/3)

We use simulation models to explore the circumstances under which conspecific sperm precedence can evolve and maintain reproductive isolation. We found that cryptic female choice can maintain reproductive isolation under many conditions, and population size can play an interesting role. (2/3)

Cryptic female choice can maintain reproductive isolation Abstract. Sexual selection has long been considered an important mechanism of speciation. Despite growing empirical evidence that postmating sexual selecti

My latest paper, Cryptic female choice can maintain reproductive isolation, with @servedio.bsky.social and Suzanne Alonzo is now out in the October issue of @journal-evo.bsky.social ! (1/3)
academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...

Colored pencil drawing of a devil’s hole pupfish, which is a cute little dark blue guy with gray/black fins

For bounded, the devil’s hole pupfish #SciArtSeptember

Had a great time writing this quick guide on male alternative reproductive tactics (ARTs) with Suzanne Alonzo! Was a fun challenge to try and summarize everything that is so fascinating about male ARTs in ~1000 words.

summary of reproductive manipulation types

Male-killing! feminization! parthenogenesis induction! cytoplasmic incompatibility! etc.Wolbachia & its friends do all sorts of reproductive manipulations. F Brenninger,
@romanzug.bsky.social
& I ploughed through existing equations for their spread...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/brv.70024

Text: Virtual Evolution 2025. Society for the Study of Evolution Hamilton Award Symposium. Thursday, May 29, 1:30 PM - 7:30 PM Eastern (GMT-4). 2025 Finalists: Meaghan Clark, Dylan DeBaun, Devon DeRaad, Simon Innes, Josh Knecht, Kip Lacy, Gina Lamka, Prothama Manna, Gemma Martinez-Redondo, David Peede, Gabriel Preising, Jeremy Summers, David Tian, Matthew Treaster, and Amanda Vieira da Silva.

Congratulations to this year's Hamilton Award finalists! 🎉 Join us Thursday, May 29 to hear these outstanding student talks. See the full schedule on the meeting website: www.evolutionmeetings.org/program-over... @evolmtg.bsky.social

Check my article contribution for @qb3-berkeley.bsky.social about the Chichancanab pupfish radiation! 🐟😍

Warm waters undermine cryptic female choice Reproduction is often more thermally sensitive than survival. Thus, understanding the thermal sensitivity of reproductive interactions is crucial given global warming. However, it is unknown how tempe...

Excited to share the preprint of my last PhD chapter, "Warm waters undermine cryptic female choice." We find that warm temperatures relevant to climate change reduce female influence on sperm velocity and expected paternity of preferred, dominant males in the ocellated wrasse.

I'm hiring a postdoc! Searching for a candidate interested in the process of speciation to come join me at Georgia Tech in Atlanta -- an exciting place with a growing core of eco-evolutionary researchers. Various skill sets will be applicable. Please share!

So cool!

Microbes as manipulators of developmental life-history bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution

My first ever preprint!
@tylercarrier.bsky.social
and I hypothesized that reproductive manipulating microbes could shape the evolution of marine invertebrate developmental life-history. Using models, we provide insight into the conditions on when it is possible! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Microbes as manipulators of developmental life-history bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution

New preprint on how microbial manipulators—the aquatic relatives of Wolbachia—can serve as a mechanism to induce marine invertebrates to undergo transitions in developmental life-history.

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

A new chapter of the CSH perspectives in biology special volume on #Speciation is out!

"Genetics and the Evolution of Prezygotic Isolation"

🧪

I am an evolutionary ecologist that uses marine invertebrates—especially sea urchins and their echinoderm relatives—to study how microbial symbioses are essential to reproduction and development.

I'm finally getting around to doing my intro post. I'm a postdoc interested in the molecular interactions between the ejaculate and the female postmating, and their potential to contribute to reproductive isolation and speciation. 🧪👩‍🔬#HiSciSky #AcademicSky