Jesper Givskov Sørensen Research Group
News from the lab
March 2024
Congratz Laura Skrubbeltrang Hansen and the rest of the house fly team for a nice paper in Genetics Selection Evolution – see ‘Publications’.
Kick-off of the new GUDP funded ‘HiGa’ project (Green-Era Hub: Hermetic illucens for a Green agriculture). Exciting work ahead with Anton Gligorescu and the EntoPrime company.
New paper accepted based on the bachelor project of Anders Lander Mogensen & Laurits Bundgaard Andersen feeding ants morphine: Manipulated ants: Inducing loyalty to sugar feeders with an alkaloid (in Pest Management Science). Thanks for an interesting collaboration Joachim Offenberg.
December 2023
Paper by Wiil out in Parasite – check “Publications”.
November 2023
Welcome to academy researcher Anni Hamalainen from Turku, who is visiting for the month to learn all about Drosophila. Also, the MSc work by Jakob Wiil was recently accepted in Parasite – huge congratz and thanks to Jakob and Herve Colinet for a nice collaboration.
Welcome to Laura Skrubbeltang Hansen who start her 1 year post doc with Goutam Sahana and myself, within the FTP project led by Torsten N Kristensen.
October 2023
Huge congratz to Anton for his first PhD paper being published in Insects. See more about diet adaptation in the publication tab.
September 2023
Welcome to MSc students Smilla (with Joachim Offenberg) and Caroline (with Doug Speed); and BSc students Emma (with Paul Vinu Salachan), Marie (with Joachim Offenberg). Congratulation to Jakob Wiil for completing his IMABEE double degree MSc in Rennes with Herve Colinet.
August 2023
Nice to return from summer vacation to find the first CHRONIC ITN-project paper published. Congratulations Jian.
June 2023
Paper out in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. Work led by Mitzy Porras on heat tolerance and host-pathogen interaction. Nice read.
January 2023
Welcome to new MSc student Lise (with Joachim Offenberg) and bachelor students (Marie and Maja with Jakob Thyrring), project students Caroline and Lærke.
December 2022
Congratulations to marius for defending their master thesis project on GWAS and phenotypic effects of thermal acclimation (paper to come) and to Astrid for their master project paper on the role of Turandot genes for heat tolerance in Drosophila.
September 2022
Welcome to a new term to all continuing and new students. Congratulations to Nete for successfully defending their master thesis on generational effects of drugs in flies. Now a paper needs writing. Also welcome to MSc students Antoine and Nathan, who will do projects in collaboration with Jakob Thyrring and Toke Thomas Høye, respectively.
April 2022
Former PhD student Paul Salachan had accepted and published his final PhD paper in Molecular Ecology – well done! See more in “Publications”.
March 2022
New paper out in J Comp Phys B on thermal tolerance in Enchytraeus albidus – see more under publications
February 2022
See the recent LinkedIn post on teaching high school students genetics using mutant Drosophila here.
New paper out on the automatization of tolerances (at last). See more under publications.
January 2022
Podcast from the DR P1 “Vildt Naturligt” (danish radio) here.
Congratz to Freja for successfully finishing her BSc and Maja Lermark Schøn for successfully finishing her MSc.
Happy to see a collaborative (BAS, Cambridge, British Columbia and AU) study on molecular responses to thermal and osmotic challenges in Mytilus edulis published. See “publications” for more information.
November 2021
The Marie Curie ITN ‘CHRONIC’ has selected a cool logo. See more about the project here.
Happy to see a collaborative project on Black Soldier Flies funded by Green Transition thematic funds from DFF (see Here and Here).
Also happy to see that Penelope’s master project finally made it to a published state (thanks mainly to Johannes Overgaard). See more under publications.
October 2021
Happy to see our collaboration with PennState, University of São Paulo and Aarhus University led to a nice publication just accepted in Scientific Reports. Well done guys – see more in “Publications”.
September 2021
Great to see papers by Chen et el and Tregenza et al published over the summer.
August 2021
Field work in Narsursuag, Greenland, working with Aalborg University on thermal biology of insects from Greenland. Looking forward to doing lab work out of the lab.
June 2021
Congratulations to Astrid and Camilla for finishing their master work and receiving their degrees. Also congratz to numerous bachelor students finishing their degrees.
March 2021
Martin and Trine’s master thesis work on stress in mussels from Greenland just published in Journal of Animal Ecology – well done!
February 2021
Grant for a field expedition awarded from the Carlsberg foundation. Now only corona is in the way of spending the summer collecting and assaying arthropods in the Greenlandic summer – go vaccine.
Welcome to Master Student Thomas Jespersgaard (main supervisor Trine Bilde) who will do work related to the Eco-genetics Novo Center on functional performance of arthropods. See more about the Center here.
Welcome to bachelor- and project students (some old fiend of the lab and some new): Jakob, Jeppe and Marius (the poor souls all involved in thermal biology of Drosophilids). We cross all available appendages that we will be allowed into the labs again soon. Also welcome to Sarah (homing in bees), Anders and Laurits (addiction in ants) – who will work based in Silkeborg with Marianne Bruus (bees) or Joachim Offenberg (ants).
January 2021
Long has a paper from his master thesis work accepted in Insects. Check out the publication tab. Well done Long.
December 2020
Check out our recently published ‘Aktuel Naturvidenskab’ paper (in Danish) on optimizing biological control agents using temperature.
October 2020
New publication put in Frontiers in Genetics on the molecular background of responses to fluctuating temperatures.
Sarah Fogh Thormose defended her thesis on temperature effects on insect (Tenebrio) production – co-supervised with the Danish Technological Institute. Gz Sarah.
September 2020
Still affected by corona, but despite this Camilla, Astrid and Kresten (shared with Tove Hedegaard Jørgensen) have started their master thesis work.
Long Chen will defend his master thesis on tenperature effects on ‘biological control efficiency in Trichogramma’ on the 23rd September (co-supervised by Annie Enkegaard, Agrobiology, Flakkebjerg).
Despite corona and child birth (congratz Heidi), we managed to finish and have accepted a paper – co-authored by Paul, Heidi and myself, in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society – on ‘What can physiological capacity and behavioral choice tell us about thermal adaptation?’ – well done guys!
Corona 2020
Easter coming up – and the university and labs are still closed due to the corona crisis. We hope to return to our offices and labs soon. Take care of each other out there.
January 2020
The year is off to a great start with Rebecca, Isabella and Rasmus submitting their bachelor reports and new papers coming out. Check the publication tab. Also, check the Radio show ‘Kraniebrud’ on Radio4 (in Danish).
December 2019
Check out the news story in ScienceNews about multiple heat shock protein gene copies in the Devil worm (maybe as adaptation to extreme environments). Might also apply to other organisms (e.g. intertidal mollusks).
November 2019
Well done Catrine and Jonas. After a strong finish sprint, their master theses have been submitted. Final exam (thesis defense) on Friday 29th November.
October 2019
Happy to welcome Katie Marshall in the lab as part of her European tour. Looking forward to the seminar :).
Congratz to Heidi Maclean (and a number of co-authors) on a paper of acclimation and thermal preference in three life-stages of four Drosophila species, published in Journal of Thermal Biology. Check it out under the Publications tab.
September 2019
Congratz to Paul Vinu Salachan on his second Drosophila paper, published in Journal of Insect Physiology. Check it out under the Publications tab.
August 2019
Welcome to Master students Andreas (stress tolerance in spiders), Long (biological control efficiency) and Sarah (stress markers in domestic insect production), Trine & Martin (stress responses in Greenlandic mussels). Also welcome to bachelor students Rasmus, Isabella and Rebecca.
June 2019
Welcome back from maternity leave to Heidi and Welcome back from London, Ontario, to Paul. Congratz to Kresten, Astrid, Karina and Marius for succesful bachelor projects.
January 2019
Welcome to master thesis students Jonas Hjort Hansen and Catrine Lyster. And bachelor students Karina, Rebecca, Marius and Astrid.
National biology olympiad competition as AU. We were proud to host the semifinals for the 30 excellent high school students that qualified. Well done all – and congratulations to the 15 that went on to the finals. See more here (in Danish)
Congratz to Heidi Maclean on the baby :).
November 2018
Check out the updated ‘Publications’ for some cool new papers out on…….mostly temperature (big surprise, I know).
September 2018
Congratulations to Paul for his excellent performance at his mid-term ‘Qualification exam’. A few papers was published during the summer, including a paper on a plant (I know!).
June 2018
I am now a fish biologist (although only on stickleback, which is basically an aquatic Drosophila). Small gene expresison paper with Michael Møller Hansen published in Journal of Thermal Biology.
May 2018
February 2018
Papers updated in the Publication-tab – please check this out.
Welcome to bachelor students Cornelia Buus, Niels Christian Andersen and Sarah Thormose who will do various nice things with flies.
January 2018
Welcome to Heidi Maclean who will serve one year as post doc in the lab.
October 2017
Paul’s first PhD paper on thermal acclimation in response to thermal fluctuations was recently accepted in Journal of Experimental Biology and is available (to those with a subscription!) as early online. Congratz to Paul.
August 2017
Look out for the up-coming publication of the book “Insects as Food and Feed: From Production to Consumption” edited by Arnold van Huis and Jeffery K. Tomberlin. Especially chapter 9 on “Breeding and maintaining high-quality insects” authored by Jensen, Kristensen, Heckmann and Sørensen should be worth a read.
Paper in Physiological Entomology on “Acclimation responses to short-term temperature treatments during early life stages causes long lasting changes in spontaneous activity of adult Drosophila melanogaster” led by Heidi is now Early Online.
Søren Emil Larsen starts master project and Tina Ravn starts her bachelor project in the group.
July 2017
31th July – 4th August. ISEPEP 7 conference in Tartu, Estonia. Very nice meeting, and happy to catch up with old and new friends.
June 2017
Sørine, Ida and Jonas all have handed in their bachelor project reports – exciting!
A few papers have come out – please consult the ‘Publication’ link 🙂
April 2017
Ida Bæk starts her bachelor project on “Molecular tolerance mechanisms induced by short-term and persistent stress exposures” – in flies of course – in collaboration with Volker and myself. Welcome Ida!
March 2017
A proteomic study on stress tolerance selection lines co-authored by Mads Schou and Volker Loeschcke just accepted in Evolution. See more on this complex data set as it becomes available through the ‘Publications’ link.
Welcome (back) to Paul Vinu Salachan who is starting his PhD programme work.
February 2017
Tommaso’s paper on the evolution of environmentally induced plasticity in three species of Drosophilids from Italy and Denmark has been accepted in Ecology and Evolution. Spoiler alert – not much variation in plasticity within species is found (quite a bit among species, though).
Welcome to Jonas and Sørine, who have started their bachelor project work. Also a formal welcome to Linnea (an old friend of the flies) who is doing a small (5 ECTS) ‘biological project’.
January 2017
Catrine Lyster and Anja Plauborg both finished their nice work on their bachelor thesis projects – very well done!
December 2016
Christmas and New Year is approaching fast – good wished from all of us to all of you!
November 2016
Genetics using Drosophila in Danish high school. Course for high school teachers (in Danish): http://bios.au.dk/uddannelse/efteruddannelse/
Our new paper led by Mads F Schou is out in Functional Ecology. The paper was based on the excellent master thesis work of Marie B Mouridsen. The paper showed linear reaction norms for developmental temperatures (across the entire permissible range) on thermal limits in 13 species of Drosophila. We found predictable plasticity for cold, but not for heat tolerance across all species. Check the paper out under “Publications”.
October 2016
A fully funded Phd position on ‘Adaptation to environmental stress in invertebrates’ is available with application deadline 1st November.
Please see the call here!
September 2016
Our new paper led by Leigh Boardman is out in Scientific Reports – well done Leigh. The paper reports on our understanding of mechanisms of low temperature tolerance and altered gas conditions of insects.
On November 10th, Trudy Mackay (NC State University, USA) will give a talk in Aarhus: “Charting the Genotype-Phenotype Map: Lessons from Drosophila“.
Welcome to Paul Vinu Salachan, who is visiting 3 month on a graduate screening grant.
Our ‘current opinion’ on thermal plasticity in drosophilids can now be viewed in the just published Current Opinion in Insect Science special issue paper.
Stine Slotsbo‘s paper on reversibility of developmental phenotypic plasticity is out in Journal of Experimental Biology. The paper show long lasting and asymmetric effects of developmental thermal conditions on heat and cold tolerance (and ageing) in adults.
July/August 2016
– On 30th August teaching in Experimental Population Biology starts and will bring extra life to the fly lab.
– Congratulations to Kathrine Villadsen on her MSc on “The role of the phototransduction pathway for thermal adaptation” (in flies).
Aarhus Insect Adaptation Lab 