Ben Longdon

PhD being advertised soon @uniexecec.bsky.social to work on viruses and bacteria in >300 species of UK moths, to understand the relative importance of ecology, evolution and environment in determining sharing of the microbiome between host species. @xavh.bsky.social @darrenobbard.bsky.social

With a nice commentary piece by @grahammunology.bsky.social and @davidchvo.bsky.social "Dynamism under the hood: Coevolutionary maintenance of variation in hosts and parasites" doi.org/10.1371/jour... on our recent paper on GxG host-virus interactions

Been a long time coming - lots of hard work from Aleksei Belyi together with @ali--wilson.bsky.social and Frank Jiggins

Comparative analysis of photo-period clock plasticity in 52 Drosophila species www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Pleased that the second paper from my PhD is now out at ISME Comms @isme-microbes.bsky.social 🦠🧫 We looked at how bacteria-phage interactions are obscured by the host environment by injecting 4,608 Galleria mellonella larvae with 64 diverse Staphylococcaceae isolates +/- the phage ISP... 🧵 1/4

Fantastic time at the first @ukvf.bsky.social with the moth-virome team. Thanks to Matt and Laura for organising a great meeting.

Monash University is offering a fully-funded PhD scholarship to an outstanding student in animal behaviour/evolutionary ecology. Choose from eight project areas. For information about what project I'm offering, please DM me or see application form: forms.gle/ia9t4KPD3FKT.... Deadline: 15 Nov.

Ceramic moth making - a Cocoon Residency event by Jasmine Saunders, as part of our NERC moth virome project out @uniexecec.bsky.social with @savebutterflies.bsky.social , run by @thentrythis.social.thentrythis.org.ap.brid.gy Come along Fri 16th/Sat 24th October, 11am-2pm (its free, all welcome).

a short history of me, in crayon. 400 million years of insects, a rocket in 1947, a white-eyed fly in a milk bottle, and now every one of my neurons, mapped and running in a jar. #SciArt #SciComm #drosophila

flies love your trash, right? wrong fly. that's my cousin, the house fly. i'm a fruit fly: the smell of dung reaches my brain and 92 ms later my moonwalker neurons fire. i back away. #SciComm #neuroskyence #drosophila

the first animals in space were fruit flies: 20 feb 1947, a V-2 from White Sands, 109 km up, back alive. in 2017, 4,000 of us flew on the first Dragon to fly twice. next: mars? #SciComm #SpaceSky #drosophila

Excited to see our work out in @pnas.org! We asked how mobile genetic elements generate functional diversity in symbionts and found a plasmid that protects aphids from lethal pathogens, helping to explain variation in defence across natural aphid populations. See @ben-parker.bsky.social thread👇

baltic v1.0.0 is live! Get it via pip or clone from Github repo. Now with documentation (baltic.readthedocs.io) & a gallery of tutorials & examples (phylo-baltic.github.io/baltic-gallery, still WIP). Huge thanks to @barney-potter.bsky.social for all the initiative & help along the way. #ViroSky

Lots of pizza and quite a lot of moths as part of the Cocoon artist residencies on our moth virome project with @thentrythis.social.thentrythis.org.ap.brid.gy

Yikes. I wonder even if images are not manipulated, if the conditions comparing different reagents are (eg company A's special taq has a nice bright band compared to leading competitors B and C which they sneezed in repeatedly then only added 1/1000th of the amount of template).

New paper by @sarahkwalsh.bsky.social looking at phage-bacteria interactions across a diverse panel of 64 Staph isolates in an insect host model - "Detectable effects of bacterial phylogeny on virulence but not phage efficacy in an in vivo Galleria mellonella model" doi.org/10.1093/isme...

This looks v neat: "Species-specific barriers restrict virus spillover potential across the Caenorhabditis genus" Herek @sfelena.bsky.social et al doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Very cool pair of papers demonstrating little link between amount of additive genetic variation and amount of nucleotide variation within species: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

My #ExE2026 conference post is now live! It was great chatting with attendees about their research and learning more about the field. Thanks again to the organisers @erikpostma.bsky.social, @btschirren.bsky.social, @blongdon.bsky.social, @ali--wilson.bsky.social, and @hansonmark.bsky.social!

Just came across these two cool papers that I'd missed - dilution effects dependent on phylogenetic relatedness of hosts journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... (25k plots of >1.1m trees!) and some models on same ideas besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... (both from Jonathan Davies group).

The evolutionary ecology conference #Exe2026 in #Cornwall was a fantastic meeting. Phenomenal plenaries, outstanding contributed talks, inspiring discussions, and fun social programs. Pictured is the final conference dinner in an unforgettable setting. Bonus photo below. 👇

At the #ExE2026 conference in Cornwall UK, considering the intersection of evolution and ecology on a field trip to Lizard Point.

#ExE2026 goodbye! What an excellent conference: great science, super well organized ( definitely not short of food!), beautiful venue, incl dinner. Now treveling back to @uniofjyvaskyla.bsky.social with a new ideas and a new book to read 🙂 see you in Edinburgh next year!

Please share 🚨 We have a postdoc position open on avian influenza virus tracking and genomics across natural to develop an early-warning system to protect human and animal health hrwebapp.qub.ac.uk/tlive_webrec...

I've been to a lot of meetings where the timekeeping signals are bird calls, but it's special when the meeting's outing goes to that place where you can see & hear the birds! The scenery was OK too. #ExE2026

I compiled a list of 350 #funding opportunities for #postdoctoral research #fellowships: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1J2M_tQgoqV4ivpfEClh9qs9f2KQN2O1G3Jpda2aoHfQ/edit?usp=sharing I realized I should share this again after mentioning it to some folks at the #EFP2026

Enjoying the scenery while at #ExE2026 this week! Maybe all conferences should be by the sea?

Evolution and Ecology meet in talks of the #ExE2026 conference from the microbiome to behaviour. Great contributions to the understanding to the ability of wild species to adapt by using quantitative genetics. Looking forward to 2027 edition

Thank you for all the #ExE2026 organizers for one of the best conferences I ever been!! From the talks to the whole setup, was an unique experience! Looking forward for #ExE2027 in Edinburgh! :)

After one and a half days of amazing talks at #ExE2026, it was time to show off some of the best coastline #Cornwall has on offer ☀️🌊⛰️ Lizard Point to Kynance Cove, with seals, choughs and ice cream. What a day!

@erikpostma.bsky.social opening the #ExE2026 conference, having explained it’s the “Goldilocks Conference”, with the winning recipe combining ecology and ecologyl

The sun is setting on another day of #ExE2026. Thanks to the organisers @erikpostma.bsky.social @btschirren.bsky.social @blongdon.bsky.social @ali--wilson.bsky.social and @hansonmark.bsky.social for a fantastic meeting!

Spread the word! 📢 Funded by @aria-research.bsky.social, @uniexecec.bsky.social in beautiful #Cornwall is creating a cohort of 20 (!) MbyRes students that will tackle some of the biggest questions in order to bring about a step-change for ecosystem resilience. For more information, see 👇!

Masters by Research at @uniexecec.bsky.social in beautiful Cornwall ecologyconservation.exeter.ac.uk/masteer-coho... these are *funded* - covering home tuition fees, a research/training support grant and a prog of cohort activities. Lots of projects available (including one w/ me!) - pls share!

We are now recruiting for a 3 year NERC-funded postdoc to study the transmission dynamics of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in migratory birds. Based in the Wild Microbiome Lab @uniexecec.bsky.social in beautiful Cornwall.

Sexier in the city? Urban male great bowerbirds decorate bowers with human-made objects, creating brighter and more varied displays than rural males. Males strongly prefer human-made objects over natural ones, possibly boosting their appeal to females! shorturl.at/lcNY2 @royalsocietypublishing.org

Next up in the S. pistillata saga: thermal tolerance differs among cryptic coral species and associated symbionts during a heatwave. Now out in @royalsocietypublishing.org 🧵 royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Our Associate Editor @sarahjose.bsky.social will be attending the Evolution x Ecology 2026 conference hosted by @uniexecec.bsky.social. She'd love to hear more about your research or have a chat about publishing in @plosone.org, @plosbiology.org, or our exciting new journal PLOS Ecosystems! #ExE2026

Someones done a good job of commercialising vinegar funnel traps (or Super Ninja 🥷 🪰 fruit fly traps) for Drosophila! superninja.eco/en/fruit-fly...

Don't miss the opportunity to connect with peers, share insights, build collaborations, and shape the future of virome research in the UK Stay tuned for registration details!

📍 Where: Advanced Research Centre (ARC), University of Glasgow 🗓️ When: 5-6 October 2026 🦠 Focus: Animal, human and environmental viromics

Big news for the virome research community!  We are thrilled to announce the first-ever UK Virome Forum (UKVF) in-person event! Whether you're a PhD student, an ECR, or a PI working in virome-related research, this is your space to connect and collaborate.

Last couple of days to apply for this postdoctoral research position in my group working on the population genomics of serotine bats in the UK and Lyssavirus transmission at the University of Exeter. Job reference: Q13679 🦇🧬🧪🌍🌐 eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

📣 EvolDir is now managed by @eseb.bsky.social! We are delighted to be taking the reins and express our gratitude to both Brian Golding who began this service to the community in the mid-1980s and to @rdmpage.bsky.social who ran this account until now 👏 You can now find evoldir here: evoldir.net

We found a viral Trojan Horse: a virus can hide inside another virus.This one surprised us: deltaviruses don’t just borrow a helper virus. They can travel inside it. A literal Trojan Horse “virus-in-a-virus” route into cells. 🤯 Kudos to 1st author @viroscope.bsky.social and co-authors !

Asymmetric biparental and inefficient horizontal transmission of paralysis-causing sigmavirus in Queensland fruit fly www.nature.com/articles/s41...

PLEASE SHARE. PhD Opportunity with me, Ben Raymond and Jan Engelstaedter and Andrew Letten at University of Queensland. Experimentally testing mechanisms of how temperature may change selection and spread of AMR in E. coli. Coupled with some advanced modelling and sequencing. 🧪🦠 #microsky

Becoming a parent is much more detrimental to women’s academic careers than it is to men’s Read the full story: go.nature.com/4v4rxmQ