The 15th DrosEU Workshop was held on February 11-12, 2025 at the Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa. Members from across Europe and beyond convened for two days of intensive scientific exchange, focusing on recent advances in Drosophila population genomics and evolutionary biology. The meeting brought together more than 35+ participants from several countries, including researchers, educators, and citizen scientists.
Special Focus
A recurring theme in the presentations is the role of genetic admixture and polygenic adaptation in shaping population resilience. The integration of historical samples provides additional context for ongoing evolutionary processes. Moreover the urban genomics session offers new perspectives on adaptation to anthropogenic environments. See the schedule below…
Programme Overview
February 11 (Day 1):
10:00–10:10: Welcome (Élio Sucena, Josefa González, Thomas Flatt)
10:10–11:00: Working group updates on phenotyping MS (Thomas Flatt) and sequencing of phenotype strains (Siddhart Murali & Nico Posnien)
11:00–11:30: Coffee break
11:30–13:00: Short talks
Topics ranged from local adaptation loci in European Drosophila populations, functional genomics of heat tolerance, to non-additive evolutionary responses and historical perspectives on selfish DNA.
- Siddharth Murali – Loci underlying local adaptation in European Drosophila populations
- Joaquin Nunez – A putative regulatory locus contains both a seasonal and clinal SNP that determines embryonic heat tolerance in Drosophila melanogaster
- Vincent Montbel – Evolution in complex environments: Non-additive evolutionary responses in Drosophila melanogaster
- Robert Kofler – Sequencing historical Drosophila specimens to unravel the history of genomic conquest by selfish DNA
- Christian Schloetterer – Recent admixture in natural populations has profound influence on the selection signature of polygenic adaptation during experimental evolution
- R. Axel W. Wiberg – Testing genomic predictions of sexually antagonistic coevolution: Natural variation in the sex-peptide network in Drosophila melanogaster
13:00–14:30: Lunch
14:30–15:30: Working group updates: DEST (Marta Coronado-Zamora, Joaquin Nuñez & Mathieu Gautier)and D. suzukii (Mathieu Gautier & Joaquin Nuñez)
15:30–17:00: Short talks
- Mathieu Gautier – Revisiting inference of the invasion routes of Drosophila suzukii in the Americas
- Khalid Khfif – Population Dynamic of Drosophila suzukii for an IPM Control in Morocco
- Khalid Khfif – Population genomics of the Wolbachia endosymbiont in Drosophila suzukii
- O. Maistrenko, S. Serga, P. Kovalenko, and Iryna Kozeretska – Wolbachia infection of invertebrates in polar regions: unrealized opportunities
- Svitlana Serga – Can Wolbachia titers explain the levels of cytoplasmic incompatibility?
17:00–17:30: Coffee break
17:30–18:30: Short talks
- Venera Tyukmaeva – Flies & parasites: Why to study them?
- Oleksandra Protsenko – Endosymbiotic bacteria reproductive parasites of subantarctic springtails
- Nico Posnien – Something different, but similar? A beetle model system for eco-evo research.
February 12 (Day 2):
09:30–10:30: Working group updates: Transposable elements (Cristina Vieira & Josefa González)and PopGen and Bioinformatics (Mathieu Gautier & Martin Kapun)
10:30-11:00: short talks
- Alan Bergland – The phenotypic effects of In(2L)t
- Hannah Augustijnen & Harshavardhan Thyagarajan – Investigating adaptive inversion polymorphisms in the ancestral range of Drosophila melanogaster
11:00- 11:30: Coffee break
11:30- 12:00: short talks:
- Nicky Faber – The heritability of gene drive efficiency
- Kasia Siudeja – A case of a polymorphic endogenous retrovirus co-opting its upstream genomic sequence for somatic expression and mobility – one of a kind or one of many?
- Marta Coronado-Zamora – Transposable elements contribute to Anopheles coluzzii and An. gambiae adaptation to urban environments
12:00-13:00: Invited talk
13:00-15:00: Lunch
15:00–15:45: short talks:
- Paul Schmidt – Biotic and abiotic drivers of rapid adaptation in a seasonal environment
- Sonja Steindl, Elisabeth Haring, and Martin Kapun – “Seq in the city” – the ecology and genetic variation in urban Drosophila
- Sarah Kaakai and Michael Rera – Assessing ageing in the wild, getting help from Smurfs
- 15:45–16:30: Open talk: Andrea Betancourt – Leaving Academia: Insights from Evolutionary Biologists on Their Career Transitions and Job Satisfaction
- 16:30–17:00: Coffee break
- 17:00–18:00: DrosEU business meeting & closing
- 20:00–02:00: Dinner/Party at “A COMUNA”