@evokait

scientist, writer, rider, swordfighter. studying microbial eco-evo, experimental evolution, and microbial community interactions. she/her. 🏳️‍🌈.

 Liverpool, England
kaitlinschaal.com/
Joined March 2015
  • Tweets223
  • Following177
  • Followers147
40Media
now on bsky.app/profile/evokait.bsk…
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Excited to announce our lovely new website showcasing the experimental evolution work with Myxococcus xanthus, a social and predatory soil bacterium. It's a great resource for anyone interested in microbial ecology/evolution or social evolution: myxoee.org

MyxoEE

Evolution experiments with myxobacteria – MyxoEEs – have been used to address many evolutionary questions and are showcased at myxoee.org

myxoee.org
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Kaitlin Schaal retweeted
Alan Kelly@akellyucc12 Mar 2024
This is fascinating- same paper sent out to huge pool of reviewers under different names. 23% recommended “reject” when a prominent researcher was the only author shown, 48% when the paper was anonymized, and 65% when a little-known author was the only author shown – at Cork, Ireland
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Why is microbial ecology the worst of all scales? Microbiologists don't have to ask how trophic chains influence community structure. Ecologists don't have to ask how sensory signal cascades influence single-cell gene regulatory changes. (And why do I still love it so much?)
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Enjoying the first day of talks @MEEhubs 24 virtual! So grateful I don't have to travel 🙏
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Check out my new preprint on how resource history impacts cheating and facultative exploitation in Myxococcus xanthus! Ecological histories determine the success of social exploitation biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/… with an AI summary: sciencecast.org/casts/paevzn…

Ecological histories determine the success of social exploitation

Ecological context often modifies biotic interactions, yet effects of ecological history are poorly understood. In experiments with the bacterium Myxococcus xanthus , resource-level histories of...

biorxiv.org
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Registration is now open for the 2024 Predator-Prey Interactions Gordon Research Conference and Seminar! If you are an early-career researcher, make sure to apply for both meetings (GRC + GRS, which is specifically for ECRs). Links in the following tweet:
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What I see vs what my bacteria see 🧫
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Lovely trip to Nohoval Cove after #MENI2023 I will definitely be coming back to Ireland!
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Great micro eco-evo meeting in Cork! #MENI2023 @Siderophile @PaulineDScanlan
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I hate it so much. What are "tweets" supposed to be called now? Please help.
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Now @evokait
Will Ratcliff
@wc_ratcliff12 Nov 2021
Replying to @wc_ratcliff
Chapter 6, authored by Greg Velicer, @lafortma and @SBCswordwoman is entitled “Group transformation: On the evolution of aggregative multicellularity”. This chapter focuses on the selective drivers of multicellularity in aggregative organisms. 15/32
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Verifying myself: I am kaschaal on Keybase.io. lnXS-A9iUdxF1c82MZgQDocabOfqBlCY_ZFt / keybase.io/kaschaal/sigs/lnX…
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Kaitlin Schaal retweeted
Zampieri Lab@ZampieriLab9 Jan 2023
We are looking for a motivated PostDoc to study with us how the metabolic and physiological states of bacteria influence their susceptibility to chemical compounds jobs.unibas.ch/offene-stelle…
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Kaitlin Schaal retweeted
Jamie Hall@jpjhall3 Oct 2022
🆕 I’m recruiting a postdoc! This is for a new @The_MRC project with @UKHSA and @jymaillard, looking at Pseudomonas evolution, ecology, and horizontal gene transfer in the hospital sink drain microbiome. Deadline 28th October. 🧵 my.corehr.com/pls/ulivrecrui…
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Check out our new preprint about how antagonistic pleiotropy isn't the only type of pleiotropy relevant for microbial cheaters! Antagonistic, synergistic, and social pleiotropy in microbial cheaters biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…

Antagonistic, synergistic, and social pleiotropy in microbial cheaters

Cooperation is widespread among microbes. One mechanism proposed to constrain cheating is antagonistic pleiotropy, wherein mutations that cause defection from cooperation, while potentially under...

biorxiv.org
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Successfully defended my thesis on "Ecology and Evolution in Microbial Food Webs" 🥳🥳
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Successfully defended my PhD! 🥳 In the same week, learned that my last round of fellowship applications all failed 😅 If you know of any cool funded postdocs in microbial eco-eco, predator-prey, adaptation to changing env, please send them my way 🤗
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I'm happy for feedback on my first solo review! Microbes can be useful tools for predator-prey biologists; this is meant to be an intro primer on the major system.
Preprints.org@Preprints_org13 May 2022
Microbial Models for the Evolution of Predator-Prey Interactions preprints.org/manuscript/202… #BioPreprints #PreprintsOrg @evokait

Microbial Models for the Evolution of Predator-Prey Interactions

Predation is a driving force of organismal ecology and evolution. Predator-prey interactions, constrained by other environmental factors and historical contingency, shape physical and behavioral...

preprints.org
Kaitlin Schaal retweeted
Horace Zeng@horacezhl14 Mar 2022
Another remarkable example of tool use in ants: fire ants “paving” sticky surfaces. I’ve seen signs of this behavior, but I didn’t expect it to be so robust until my friend told me about it (Wang et al., 2021 Insect Science).
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