Peter Mulhair
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petermulhair.bsky.social
Peter Mulhair
@petermulhair.bsky.social
520 followers 550 following 40 posts
BBSRC fellow at Liverpool Uni - insect adaptation to freshwater environments, comparative genomics and gene evolution.
I enjoy genomes, bioinformatics, and moths.
Treasurer for Systematics Association systass.org
He/Him 🇮🇪
🔗 http://petermulhair.com
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petermulhair.bsky.social
Peter Mulhair @petermulhair.bsky.social · Oct 17
Latest work out today in @currentbiology.bsky.social

We find the fly development gene bicoid is much older than previously thought (~20 million yrs older!) 🪰🧬

To pinpoint its origins we tackled the Diptera phylogeny, providing some resolution (many open questions remain).

🔗 tinyurl.com/2vyuevpy
Revised evolutionary relationships within Brachycera and the early origin of bicoid in flies
Mulhair et al. uncover a functional bicoid in non-cyclorrhaphan flies, pushing the gene's origin back by ∼20 million years. Reassessing the Diptera phylogeny using the largest dataset to date permits ...
www.cell.com
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
projectpsyche.bsky.social
(1/5)Thrilled to announce our paper on #ProjectPsyche is out! 🦋We describe how we’ve generated 1000+ high-quality genomes for European Lepidoptera, providing an unprecedented resource for biodiversity, conservation, and evolutionary research.
#Genomics #Biodiversity
www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...
Project Psyche: reference genomes for all Lepidoptera in Europe
Project Psyche is a transnational initiative to generate and study chromosome-level reference genomes of all ~11 000 species of Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) found in Europe. Here, we describe t...
www.cell.com
November 27, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
charlottewright.bsky.social
I'm very excited that our paper on Project Psyche is now published! 🦋🧬

Over the last two years we've built an incredible community & already made huge progress. Read about this & how @projectpsyche.bsky.social will drive exciting and collaborative science here:

www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...
Project Psyche: reference genomes for all Lepidoptera in Europe
Project Psyche is a transnational initiative to generate and study chromosome-level reference genomes of all ~11 000 species of Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) found in Europe. Here, we describe t...
www.cell.com
November 27, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
lepphylo.bsky.social
One of the most exciting projects I have ever been involved in: Project Psyche! Read all about our ambitions and aims. It's ground breaking stuff, just mind blowing and even surreal (27 years ago we did single genes for lep phylogenetics)! @projectpsyche.bsky.social
www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...
Project Psyche: reference genomes for all Lepidoptera in Europe
Project Psyche is a transnational initiative to generate and study chromosome-level reference genomes of all ~11 000 species of Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) found in Europe. Here, we describe t...
www.cell.com
November 27, 2025 at 8:46 AM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
helsenjana.bsky.social
How do new centromeres evolve while staying compatible with the division machinery?

Discover it in our new Nature paper! We show centromeres transition gradually via a mix of drift, selection, and sex, reaching new states that still work with the kinetochore.

👉 doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09779-1
November 26, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
ebablab.bsky.social
🚨RA/PhD position available in evolutionary neurobiology 🚨

Working on a deep dive into circuit changes during mushroom body expansion in Heliconius butterflies @camzoology.bsky.social

- employment benefits
- 4 years funding
- 1000% fun

Deadline: 14/1/2026

Details:
www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/researc...
Shades of blue and red in a slice through an immuno stained brain showing some deliciously lovely looking mushroom body lobes - ripe for investigation during a funded PhD - and the central complex. Image credit: Dr Max Farnworth
November 21, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
systassn.bsky.social
Our website is back!!! 🎉🎉🎉

Also, if you have yet to register for this Wednesday's Joy of Discovery lecture (online at 3PM GMT+0), do so here: tinyurl.com/bdu5xans

Prof. Mike Benton, University of Bristol, will be giving a talk on the origin of feathers.
November 24, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
sinamajidian.bsky.social
Our trilogy of orthology publications is online!
Review on Hierarchical Orthologous Groups doi.org/10.1007/s00239-025-10277-1

OrthoXML-Tools doi.org/10.1007/s00239-025-10271-7

A great community effort on Quest for Orthologs in the era of Data Deluge and AI doi.org/10.1007/s00239-025-10272-6
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00239-025-10277-1 Conceptual overview of hierarchical orthologous groups. An example of one HOG, or gene family. A Species tree with four taxa: plant (green), fish (blue), human (orange), and mouse (yellow), each with one or more genes. B The implied gene tree, dubbed “HOG tree,” and inferred nested HOG composition. Duplication nodes (red) can be deduced based on the species tree topology and clusters of homologous genes at each level. Ancestral genes from which the HOGs descended are shown in gray. C HOGs returned at different taxonomic levels. Consider a gene family that was present in the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA). At this level, a single HOG encompasses all genes descending from that ancestral gene. At the Vertebrata level, this gene underwent duplication, leading to two distinct copies, i.e., HOGs. At the Mammalia level, a second duplication further subdivides one of these HOGs, showing how deeper HOGs split into nested subHOGs at more recent levels. The HOG composition implies that a loss event occurred after the mammalian speciation https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00239-025-10272-6 Summary of the QfO8 meeting. a Hot topics and future directions in method development and applications within the QfO community, namely artificial intelligence, protein domains, protein structure, RNA and splicing isoforms. b Definition of orthology and paralogy, including various paralogous subtypes (e.g. in-paralogs and out-paralogs). c Duplications and functional divergence. d Applications of orthology https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00239-025-10271-7 Overview of the OrthoXML File Format (simplified). A schematic representation of an OrthoXML file, a standardized XML-based format for representing orthology data. OrthoXML follows a hierarchical structure where elements are enclosed within opening < tag > and closing </tag > tags. < orthoXML > is the root element enclosing other elements. The < species > element contains information about genes. An OrthoXML file can include a < taxonomy > element, which specifies the species tree used to generate the file. Additionally, the < groups > element encapsulates the orthology and paralogy relationships among genes
November 21, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
marakat.bsky.social
a life changing opportunity made possible by the Nobel Prize funds awarded to John Sulston -- the @sangerinstitute.bsky.social runs the Sanger Prize scheme, open to an undergrad from any LMIC to spend 3 months here learning all about genomics. more details here www.sanger.ac.uk/about/study/...
November 20, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
systassn.bsky.social
The online Joy of Discovery event is back! 🎉

This year the event is going to be a smidge different, with a single speaker. But what a speaker!

Prof. Mike Benton, University of Bristol, will be giving us a talk on the origin of feathers.

Join us NOV 26 AT 3PM GMT+0

REGISTER: tinyurl.com/bdu5xans
Poster with details about the Joy of Discovery event. Including title and abstract for Mike Benton's talk.
November 19, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
jpjhall.bsky.social
🚨#PhD studentship opportunity! Plasmids provide bacteria with antimicrobial resistance, but do they have more fundamental effects on behaviour? 🧫🦠💫🧟‍♂️

Apply for a 4y funded MRC DiMeN position with me and Jamie Wheeler @livuni-ives.bsky.social www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
MRC DiMeN Doctoral Training Partnership: Resistant zombies: how drug-resistance plasmids manipulate the behaviour of the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa at University of Liverpool on Fin...
PhD Project - MRC DiMeN Doctoral Training Partnership: Resistant zombies: how drug-resistance plasmids manipulate the behaviour of the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa at University of Li...
www.findaphd.com
November 18, 2025 at 9:38 AM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
currentbiology.bsky.social
Lophophorates get way too little publicity...

Latest issue is out!
www.cell.com/issue/S0960-...
On the cover: A phoronid (Phoronis australis) extending its crown-like feeding organ, the lophophore, from its tube on the seabed. These sedentary marine invertebrates belong to the spiralian branch of bilaterian animals. For over a century, their closest relatives have been debated, with competing hypotheses linking them to either brachiopods or bryozoans. In this issue, Lewin et al. present a chromosome-level genome of P. australis and reveal that it shares seven derived chromosome fusions with bryozoans. This provides rare, sequence-independent evidence supporting bryozoans as the closest relatives of phoronids and offers new insights into the evolution of genome structure and animal body plans. Photograph © Fred Bavendam; used with permission.
November 18, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
alexdemendoza.bsky.social
Out today, our take on 6-methyladenine #6mA evolution in Eukaryotes @natgenet.nature.com. We asked a simple question, is really DNA 6mA common across the eukaryotes? The answer is "yes" if you're a unicellular eukaryote 🦠, not so if you're multicellular 🐝🌱🍄. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/9
Adenine DNA methylation associated with transcriptionally permissive chromatin is widespread across eukaryotes - Nature Genetics
Long-read sequencing in 18 unicellular eukaryotes reveals that 6mA is widespread across eukaryotes and is enriched at transcriptionally permissive regions, which are also marked by H3K4me3.
www.nature.com
November 18, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
joanameier.bsky.social
If you work on genomics of Lepidoptera in Europe and would like to do a short-term research exchange, you can apply for a short term scientific mission through our COST Action. See details below.
10klepgenomes.bsky.social 10kLepGenomes @10klepgenomes.bsky.social · 10d
(1/4) 📣 Exciting news! 📣
The #10KLepGenomes COST Action has opened the second call for Short Term Scientific Missions #STSMs
Keep reading for all the details 👇
November 17, 2025 at 12:18 PM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
juliet-turner.bsky.social
POV: you are a young woman celebrating a recent academic success
November 17, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
10klepgenomes.bsky.social
(1/4) 📣 Exciting news! 📣
The #10KLepGenomes COST Action has opened the second call for Short Term Scientific Missions #STSMs
Keep reading for all the details 👇
November 17, 2025 at 12:09 PM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
alielw.bsky.social
Join us! 🧬🪰🎉🔬

We are currently advertising two #PhD projects to study the #evolution, #development and #genomics of sexual traits in stalk-eyed flies.

Deadline for applying is Wednesday, January 7, 2026. Get in touch for more info!
November 17, 2025 at 3:58 PM
petermulhair.bsky.social
Another year of the @systassn.bsky.social's YSF conference complete.
Another year of catching up with the talented early career systematists/taxonomists from across the globe, presenting thoughtful and exciting research on such a broad range of topics.

Thank you to everyone who contributed!
Logo of the 27th Young Systematists Forum, with black text and a rainbow coloured phylogenetic tree in the background. Text reads "27th Young Systematists Forum, Friday 14th November 2025"
November 14, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
drrebeccajhall.bsky.social
Absolutely delighted to have been awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship! I will be moving to the University of Manchester @mermanchester.bsky.social to research early endosymbiont evolution
#microsky #symbiosky
November 14, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
martaalvarez.bsky.social
Happy to share Jialin's first publication. She did a great job exploring the transition to land in animals. Co-supervised by the great Jordi Paps and me and in collaboration with Davide Pisani and @phil-donoghue.bsky.social
November 13, 2025 at 3:18 PM
petermulhair.bsky.social
A truly refreshing perspective on an age old debate. Big implications for animal evolution but also useful techniques to address many other remaining phylogenetic questions.
Congrats to you both on a wonderful piece of work!
jlsteenwyk.bsky.social 🧬Jacob L Steenwyk @jlsteenwyk.bsky.social · 14d
NEW pub in @science.org 🥳

Is it sponges (panels A & B) or comb jellies (C & D) that root the animal tree of life?

For over 15 years, #phylogenomic studies have been divided.

We provide new evidence suggesting that...

🔗: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
November 13, 2025 at 8:49 PM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
jlsteenwyk.bsky.social
NEW pub in @science.org 🥳

Is it sponges (panels A & B) or comb jellies (C & D) that root the animal tree of life?

For over 15 years, #phylogenomic studies have been divided.

We provide new evidence suggesting that...

🔗: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
November 13, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
jlsteenwyk.bsky.social
Just gonna put this here for now
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
bsky.app/profile/jlst...
November 13, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
systassn.bsky.social
We are experiencing some issues with our website. We will let you know as soon as it is back in working order.
November 13, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
szytynska.bsky.social
🌟 I’ve recently moved to The University of Manchester!
I'm advertising several PhD projects on plant–microbe interactions 🌱🦠🪲

🧪🖥️ Projects span experimental to computational. Diverse supervisory teams, collaborating across the UK Plant Microbiome community.

Details: www.findaphd.com/phds/?Keywor...
November 12, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Reposted by Peter Mulhair
lucalivraghi.bsky.social
Hey Lep researchers!

"Given the risks of transgene remobilization and instability associated with piggyBac transposases of lepidopteran origin,
we urge researchers interested in developing transgenesis in moths or butterflies to consider using Minos-based tools."
evolvwing.bsky.social Arnaud Martin @evolvwing.bsky.social · 15d
It's out, Minos transgenesis in the pantry moth by
@donyaniyaz.bsky.social
@lucalivraghi.bsky.social

High efficient, glowing eye and silk gland markers

peerj.com/articles/202...
@peerj.bsky.social
November 12, 2025 at 2:50 PM