Nature, creature and action lover
Belgrade, Serbia
Joined May 2020
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Branka_Bajic retweeted
The deadlines for these 2 #PhDposition's has been extended to July 20th! As before, happy to answer any questions about the positions or the group :)
official advert here: uni-greifswald.de/en/univers…
Announcing 2 new #PhD positions in our 🦇lab!
Monitoring bat population trends is hard. In a new project, BatTrend, we will explore both new methods and optimize established ones to help improve monitoring guidelines.
Info about the 2 positions in the 🧵 below. RTs appreciated!
Branka_Bajic retweeted
We recently carried out fieldwork with colleagues in Serbia and Romania to develop a molecular assay to identify all 3 medium-sized horseshoe bats from droppings, thanks to @UNEP_EUROBATS funding. This will inform presence of elusive Mehely's horseshoe bat, which we didn't catch.
Branka_Bajic retweeted
And as a little teaser, in sister species Polychromophilus murinus, which infects vespertilionid bats, the pattern is very different! More on that soon, in another great collaboration with @SchaerJuliane
Branka_Bajic retweeted
When we look at how the observed genotypes fit into the known diversity of the species, they’re all over the haplotype network! This suggests there’s a lot of transmission of Polychromophilus across the range of miniopterids from Europe, Africa and Asia.
Branka_Bajic retweeted
We found high P. melanipherus prevalence in the flies collected off of Miniopterus, including many mixed infections with multiple genotypes, but nearly no spillover to the Rhinolophus (just 1 case), suggesting P. melanipherus is not persisting in this co-roosting bat.
AND…
Branka_Bajic retweeted
We screened flies collected off of two bat species roosting at the same sites, the common bent-wing 🦇 (Miniopterus schreibersii) and the greater horseshoe 🦇 (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum), for infection with Polychromophilus (a relative of Plasmodium), which is vectored by the 🪰s
Branka_Bajic retweeted
🚨 Presenting a new paper on ‘bat malaria’ (Polychromophilus) in Miniopterus 🦇s in Europe from a fantastic team, including @SchaerJuliane, @ivanabudinski and spearheaded by @BanSvih !
doi.org/10.1186/s13071-023-0…
Highlights in the 🧵 below
Branka_Bajic retweeted
Despite what you may occasionally see in the media, very few animal viruses cause ill health in humans & bats don’t appear to host any more zoonotic viruses than any other groups of animals. Evidence-based news piece here: bats.org.uk/news/2021/04/bat… Help fight misinformation and RT
Branka_Bajic retweeted
It is great to meet old friends and colleagues from neighbouring countries at regional #bat meeting in Sarajevo 🇧🇦. #Barbastelle 🦇 is a 'superstar' of this meeting supported by @UNEP_EUROBATS and @BMUV
Branka_Bajic retweeted
Recharging energy with an amazing weekend of bat hibernation monitoring in Eastern Serbia caves 🤩
Branka_Bajic retweeted
For the 1st time, bat researchers in Romania & Serbia are doing fieldwork synchronously.
Their common goal?
To improve the conservation status of #horseshoebats, which migrate between the two countries 🦇
The results are already encouraging:
conservationleadershipprogra…
#WeAreCLP
