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Dominik Melville

@ecoevodom

Wildlife microbiology, disease ecology, immunology πŸ¦‡πŸ¦  wannabe chef πŸ₯¨ queer 🌈

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26.11.2024
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Latest posts by Dominik Melville @ecoevodom

Join @berasymbionts.bsky.social , @tatsuyanobori.bsky.social and us for a postdoc on the remarkable developmental biology of symbiosis!

Applications are due March 25th πŸͺ²πŸ¦ 

@johninnescentre.bsky.social @thesainsburylab.bsky.social

04.03.2026 11:08 πŸ‘ 30 πŸ” 42 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 2
This Brazilian frog might be the first pollinating amphibian known to science
Nectar-loving tree frog likely moves pollen from flower to flower

This Brazilian frog might be the first pollinating amphibian known to science Nectar-loving tree frog likely moves pollen from flower to flower

It’s the first time a frogβ€”or any amphibianβ€”has been observed pollinating a plant, researchers reported in 2023.

Learn more on #WorldWildlifeDay: https://scim.ag/4riUU1G

04.03.2026 00:11 πŸ‘ 371 πŸ” 133 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 17
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My David Attenborough moment … #science #meerkat

02.03.2026 19:25 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Fieldwork in the Kalahari following #meerkats and yellow #mongooses (if you can spot them) - total bliss

01.03.2026 12:52 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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When pets devour biodiversity. My new article on the European edition of @uk.theconversation.com about the impacts of pet-wildlife interactions and the opportunities for their legal regulation in the EU. theconversation.com/our-pets-are.... Related paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

27.02.2026 14:33 πŸ‘ 26 πŸ” 19 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Great work which I was looking forward to reading the final print since the preprint dropped! Well done to everyone involved

28.02.2026 14:37 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Heading to the Kalahari Research Centre to spend time in the field with yellow mongooses and meerkats, catch up with collaborators, and carve out space to #think about the bigger picture.

#Fieldwork, #ideas, and moonshoot #science β€” exactly where I need to be.

Photo Credit: Sofia Forss

24.02.2026 13:53 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Hiring for 3 positions: Research Assistant, Field Research Coordinator, and Postdoc I am looking to hire 3 people into my lab this year. I am still doing the paperwork to get the jobs officially posted but I want to send the word out and screen potential applications right away. R…

I am hiring a research assistant (vampire bats), a Panama fieldwork coordinator (vampire bats), and also considering postdoc apps (social behavior, any species): socialbat.org/2026/02/19/h...

19.02.2026 21:30 πŸ‘ 69 πŸ” 92 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 7

Super happy that the AllTheBacteria hypothetical proteins are now in AFDB - hopefully we can start to understand the function of some of them at least 😁

18.02.2026 04:46 πŸ‘ 39 πŸ” 7 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Seth Bordenstein: Darwin's Blindspot: The Symbiotic Basis of Speciation
Seth Bordenstein: Darwin's Blindspot: The Symbiotic Basis of Speciation YouTube video by Dr. Seth Bordenstein

#DarwinDay The "Origin of Species" is deeply enriched with a symbiotic lens. Here's a 15 minute seminar from @BIRS_Math on 25 yesrs of peeling back two layers of speciation to show reproductive and gut microbes have agency in the formation of new host species. youtu.be/DBlkt8UXc_8?...

12.02.2026 13:15 πŸ‘ 8 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Transmission of MPXV from fire-footed rope squirrels to sooty mangabeys - Nature An outbreak of MPXV in sooty mangabeys in CΓ΄te d’Ivoire was linked to MPXV-infected fire-footed rope squirrels, providing direct evidence of interspecies transmission and indicating risk for zoonotic ...

Finding the natural reservoir for a pathogen and its transmission chain to humans is a great feat- well done @helmholtz-hioh.bsky.social and colleagues www.nature.com/articles/s41...

12.02.2026 09:07 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

This system is incredibly cool and provided another outstanding example of rigorous epidemiological science - congrats to all authors

06.02.2026 17:02 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Jacket design for Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life: A History of Sex and Science by Ross Brooks. It features a historic, drawn image of a gynandromorph gypsy moth, with distinctive female patterning on its left side and male on its right. Against a black background, the image and text (title and author's name) are brightly rendered in a spectrum of colours resonant of the Progress Pride Flag.

Jacket design for Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life: A History of Sex and Science by Ross Brooks. It features a historic, drawn image of a gynandromorph gypsy moth, with distinctive female patterning on its left side and male on its right. Against a black background, the image and text (title and author's name) are brightly rendered in a spectrum of colours resonant of the Progress Pride Flag.

My first book, Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life, will be published by Yale University Press on 11 August (UK) and 8 September (US). Please help spread the word! πŸ™

UK: yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300... @yalebooks.bsky.social πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆπŸ“šπŸ΅

US: yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300... @yalepress.bsky.social πŸ³οΈβ€βš§οΈ πŸ—ƒοΈπŸ¦‹

30.01.2026 10:20 πŸ‘ 343 πŸ” 125 πŸ’¬ 29 πŸ“Œ 12
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🚨Podcast launch🚨

We are happy to announce: the #MVIFconversations podcast episode 1 will be available for listening on Monday via

▢️Spotify:
open.spotify.com/show/1f4lBWv...

▢️Podcasts: apple.co/3NBLjonAmazon

▢️Music: music.amazon.com/podcasts/81c...

▢️Podcasts: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

23.01.2026 10:51 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I genuinely think boycotting the World Cup is some of the strongest leverage the Europeans have.

24.01.2026 00:39 πŸ‘ 19360 πŸ” 3592 πŸ’¬ 919 πŸ“Œ 280
Gut microbial composition changes in an Astrovirus-infected Neotropical frugivorous bat – a one health perspective Astroviruses are becoming a growing concern in public and veterinary health. In humans, astrovirus infections can cause severe diarrhea and may lead to neuropathological encephalitis, whereas in wildl...

New preprint out - using a cosmopolitan neotropical #bat, we asked whether Astrovirus infections affected its gut #microbiome and whether land use change amplified infection effects #OneHealth doi.org/10.21203/rs....

23.01.2026 13:17 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Naja, ... also da fliegen halt dauern Großwale ind die Propeller und außerden bekommt man davon bestimmt auch Gehirnkrebs.
Oder?

Spoiler: NEIN!
Ich hatte die dΓ€mlich Walstory mal fΓΌr Volksverpetzer debunkt:
www.volksverpetzer.de/faktencheck/...

22.01.2026 12:52 πŸ‘ 9 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
CAS - Central Authentication Service NetID Single Sign On

Published today in PNAS:
www-pnas-org.ezproxy.lib.uconn.edu/doi/10.1073/...
Mark Urban, Chris Elphick, and I argue that conservation programs should pay more attention to heritable within population variation, enabling rapid evolutionary response to environmental changes.

20.01.2026 19:36 πŸ‘ 16 πŸ” 7 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0

Gosh! That would be the best way to swim if it works. Curious about your review

17.01.2026 19:33 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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(1/8) 🚨Thrilled to share our new research, now published on the cover of @science.org ! 🌳🦠
We discovered that tree #Bark β€” largely regarded as inert β€” hosts vast #Microbial communities that actively interact with the atmosphere. πŸ§΅πŸ‘‡ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

13.01.2026 23:50 πŸ‘ 23 πŸ” 10 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0
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The Research Ireland Pathway Programme is now open. Supporting postdoctoral researchers across all disciplines to build their track record and become independent research leaders. Hear from awardee Dr Jonathan Briody @rcsi.bsky.social below. Learn more: www.researchireland.ie/funding/pathway/

12.11.2025 11:43 πŸ‘ 12 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
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Postdoc - Microbiome - Innovative Genomics Institute University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!

🚨 Our Lab is HIRING! If you are interested in characterizing model microbiomes using genome-resolved methods, statistical/metabolic modeling, and/or machine learning please submit an application here: aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05234

#postdoc #sciencejobs #biology #microbiome

05.01.2026 18:19 πŸ‘ 12 πŸ” 9 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Their messaging is so fucking incoherent. Maduro was an illegitimate leader who lost in 2024, which is why we're replacing him with his VP instead of the person who won in 2024. We did this to stop fentanyl, which is why he's indicted for cocaine.

We're also occupying Venezuela via Zoom call.

03.01.2026 21:18 πŸ‘ 10568 πŸ” 2631 πŸ’¬ 135 πŸ“Œ 94

β€œAll evolutionary biologists know that variation itself is life’s only irreducible essence”—Gould

Evolutionary biology is the study of how complicated and diverse life can be; the field has its jerks, but a good evolutionary biologist learns pretty fast that life doesn’t like boundaries or binaries

22.12.2025 17:32 πŸ‘ 119 πŸ” 34 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 2

I feel like I haven’t even been properly lied to about the purposes of this war

03.01.2026 09:13 πŸ‘ 22437 πŸ” 4727 πŸ’¬ 202 πŸ“Œ 180

Anyone has a complete and up to date list of #MetaCyc pathways, descriptions, classes and subclasses? I seem to be too stupid to find that anywhere… #microbiome #picrust dm me, please

10.12.2025 15:30 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Very impressed with my husband for crafting this elaborate #bat themed birthday cake for me #nerd #science #academichatter #cake

05.12.2025 10:14 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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A unified catalog of 14,062 microbial species reference genomes provides new insight into the gut microbiota in high-altitude mammals - Microbiome Background The gut microbiota is essential for host health and survival. The understanding of the diversity, stability, and functional traits of mammalian gut microbiota, as well as the evolutionary p...

New wildlife metagenomics study link.springer.com/article/10.1...

23.11.2025 14:54 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

How do we make sense of scientific literature that is growing explosively to the point where no-one could read all the relevant papers, and is contaminated with fraudulent and LLM-generated papers? I think that science isn't currently equipped to deal with this, and we need to. #science #metascience

20.11.2025 17:01 πŸ‘ 64 πŸ” 17 πŸ’¬ 7 πŸ“Œ 2

The topic of this years ethics in science MSc class @uniulm.bsky.social was the #deextinction of the #direwolf! A key take home was that choosing a grey wolf genome as template was a matter of convenience. Convenience breeds bad #science

19.11.2025 12:02 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0