Insect Chemical and Evolutionary Ecology

AYA Roundtable

This week the Amsterdam Young Academy had our general assembly, followed by a round table on Recognition and Rewards.

Amsterdam 27-6-22 Jaarvergadering Aya in de Verbroederij in Amsterdam Noord. Copyright: Sander Nieuwenhuys

Teaching Qualification Celebration

On Tuesday I received the physical copy of my University Teaching Qualification (BKO). I’ve had the digital copy for a while but it was nice that we could all finally celebrate!

Last week I was lucky enough to be invited to give a Plenary at the ASAB easter meeting. It was great fun to talk about colourful moths and our new work looking at the impact of urbanisation on predator-prey signalling.

Fabulous plenary talk by @MothProf at @asab_conference @asab_tweets 🤓 #AcademicOffspring pic.twitter.com/zmj0wPqm5U

— David Shuker 💙 (@DavidMShuker) April 8, 2022

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The final plenary of @asab_conference Easter 2022 from @MothProf discussing aposematism 🦋 pic.twitter.com/hyMwHXxCVl

— Dr Helen Gray (@Helen_Gray_) April 8, 2022

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The birds are also now in full breeding mode, with lots of eggs. Stay tuned for the inevitable chick pics!

New Nest Boxes

In collaboration with Wouter Halfwerk and Barbara Tomotani we put up another 50 nest boxes around Amsterdam this friday. Bringing our total up to 80 boxes!

We will use these to study the effects of urbanisation on great tit and blue tit behaviour and breeding. Let’s hope the birds like them!

NVG meeting 2021

Just before the latest lock down the Netherlands Society for Behavioural Biology managed to sneak in it’s annual meeting. I was happy to represent insects with my keynote talk on Chemicals and colours: uncovering the chemical signals maintaining a colour polymorphism, and to get a lovely walk on the beach!

Moths on the cover

Chiara’s review also made the cover of TREE with this beautiful photo by Bibiana Rojas!

Wood tiger moths celebrating successful pheromone communication

Pokémon and a love of evolution

I was recently interviewed for the Annual review Faculty of Science 2020 here at the UvA. You can read the article online by following the link below. In it I talk about my ongoing research as well as Pokemon and the joys of outreach.

https://ibed.uva.nl/shared/faculteiten/en/faculteit-der-natuurwetenschappen-wiskunde-en-informatica/news/2021/06/emily-burdfield-steel-jaaroverzicht-2020.html

Photo credit: Liesbeth Dingemans (www.liesbethdingemans.nl)

Cool new Review from Chiara

Chiara’s hard work has paid off and her review on the “Evolutionary importance of intraspecific variation in sex pheromones” is now out in Trends in Ecology and Evolution! In it we argue that intraspecific variation in sex pheromone communication channels may have been underestimated, hampering our understanding of how such channels evolve. Check it out here.

Figure 2 from the paper. Some possible routes to speciation through variation in pheromone production and perception inherbivorous insects.

New paper – shiny bugs show negative intersexual genetic correlation in colour

I couldn’t use this image on the journal cover so I will use it here. New paper just out looking at the heritability of iridescent colour in hibiscus harlequin bugs. The seeds of this were sown back when I was in Australia and it’s really nice to see it out. Find it at the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.

Joining the Amsterdam Young Academy

I’m happy to announce I’m joining the Amsterdam Young Academy! Amsterdam Young Academy (AYA) is an independent platform where talented young scientists from different disciplines meet to develop views on science, scientific policy and how to build bridges between science and society in Amsterdam. I’m looking forward to working with them in the future.

https://amsterdamyoungacademy.nl/aya_news/aya-welcomes-10-new-members