More good news from the Evolution in Action project. We received EUR 96,000 of funding from Tieteen Tiedotus Ry (i.e. the Finnish Science Information Bureau)! We will use this money make our workshop materials available for everyone and work with artists Tiina Hirvonen and Michaela Casková to develop new tools and methods to teach evolution in primary and secondary schools.
For more details in Finnish see here.
What do you get when you combine seven early career researchers, an excellent workshop, one too many beers and far too many skype meetings? A review paper 2 years in the making!
Diversity in warning coloration: selective paradox or the norm? is now out in Biological Reviews. In it we discuss the causes of variation in warning signals, and get carried away with our literature review…
The first paper from my time as an Endeavour fellow in Australia is out! Learn about warning signal plasticity in hibiscus harlequin bugs over at Evolutionary Ecology
New paper out now (well it doesn’t feel that new to me but such is the peer review system). De novo synthesis of chemical defenses in an aposematic moth.
I’m currently in Australia(!) and will be here for the next 4 months on an Endeavour Fellowship, working on the ecological and genetic basis of colour variation in Hibiscus Harlequin Bugs (Tectocoris diophthalmus). I’m based at Macquarie University in Sydney, working with Mariella Herberstein and Kate Umbers.
Hibiscus Harlequin Bugs have contrasting pattern made up of orange colouration and iridescent blue patches that vary considerably in size between individuals and populations. Northern populations have far less blue colouration, and may even be completely orange. Furthermore this variation has been shown to influence survival against different types of predators. My work will focus on the causes of this variation, both within and between populations.
My first moth paper is now out! Check out Proc B to learn about the target-specific chemical defences of the wood tiger moth.
You can also read about the research over at Inside Science.
Winter is finally over in Finland (although you wouldn’t always guess it from the weather) so the bird population in Konnevesi can once again relax and get on with the important things, like having babies.
Last year I posted a rather morose description of our struggles to catch enough birds following two bad breeding seasons. I’m happy to report that we did in fact get a decent season in 2016, in fact midsummer was actually sunny! As a result catching was much easier this winter.
But the joy is somewhat short-lived as this May has been one of the coldest on record. I won’t actually be working with the birds this coming winter (I’m off to warmer climes) but I hope this cold weather hasn’t hit them too hard…
This September I was lucky enough to go to Hamburg for a couple of weeks to run some predation experiments with spiders. The experiments were part of a collaboration with Prof. Susanne Dobler and Prof. Jutta Schneider to test the effects of the wood tiger moth’s defence fluids on model spider predators (in this case Nephila senegalensis and Larinioides sclopetarius). Stay tuned for the results!
Since I didn’t have the time to post any fieldwork news this summer I will instead pack it all into a single post. Efficiency!
As always summer is moth collection time, and this year I was in two countries: Estonia and Scotland.
Estonia was first. We went as a team of four, planning to stay a week and catch around 30 moths. In the end, thanks to some very warm weather, we got that number in the first 3 days and were able to return early.
I went to Scotland on my own as most of the lab were off catching in Georgia (the country, not the state). I had a bit of a worrying start, catching a grand total of one moth in the first two days. Scotland is always a bit tricky, unlike in Finland and Estonia, where the moths can generally be found on the edge of woods, in Scotland we generally find them on coastal meadows. This makes for some very scenic fieldwork, but also greatly increases the amount of climbing involved, and the risk of running off the edge of a cliff while chasing them. In the end, despite some less-than-ideal weather, I manged to get 15 moths to inject some much-needed genetic diversity into our lab population.
So once again I missed out on the beauty and excitement of Georgia (where the moths live at the top of mountains!) Still I was able to stock up on Scotch whisky in duty free, and there is always next year…
Winter has come to Finland in all its snowy glory and that can mean only one thing. Back to Konnevesi!
I already did one experiment with the Great Tits before Christmas, but now I am back to working with the Blue Tits, and all the joys and frustrations that entails. To celebrate the arrival of WiFi in the bird house I decided to live-tweet one full day of bird fun.
I started by introducing my participants for the day…
(Getting photos of them proved tricky)
We were all set to go, but problems began almost immediately.
Still there was some good news.
and soon we had our first success of the day!
By this time is was already midday and B48 still hadn’t eaten.
But even that was not enough.
So with not much happening it was time for some random facts!
As well as a discussion of the relative merits of Blue vs Great Tits.
All the while the Blue Tits continued to be uncooperative.
I started to consider bring out another bird. B42.
And the troubles continued.
Frustrations started to show.
But finally…
And we had our second success of the day.
But with the afternoon almost gone would that be the last?
It was time for a new addition.
But would B6 come through for us?
With one final success it was time to finish for the day. I normally aim to do 4 birds a day so 3 isn’t so bad.
Insect Chemical and Evolutionary Ecology 