News


New PhD position available! 8 November 2023


Join our team on ERC grant! Check the advert for the PhD position and feel free to get in touch if you want to know more.


Jan gets ERC Consolidator grant! 31 January 2023


Exciting news as Jan gets a major grant to investigate relationships between maintenance of species diversity and genetic variation in nature! Official results and press release in Czech.


Blog about our research (in Czech) 23 August 2022


A blog post at Czech Science Foundation (GAÈR) website describes resuls of our distinction rated Junior CSF grant (in Czech only).


New postdoc position opened! 26 July 2022


A postdoc position on eco-evolutionary dynamics is available in our team. Feel free to get in touch if you want to know more.


Our new paper out in Global Change Biology! 3 May 2022


In the paper we show that community context, especially in the form of alternative host species, prevents key interactions in nature from deteriorating due to climate change.


Mélanie's paper is out in Proceedings B 16 March 2022


Mélanie's paper addresses multiple predator effect under warming, emphasizing the importance of combined impact of biotic and abiotic factors on species interactions.


We joined the DrosEU consortium 11 March 2022


We are looking forward to collaborating on Drosophila melanogaster population genomics across the EU and beyond.


Miguel wins run-up price in Famelab Czech final! 14 October 2021


Watch Miguel explain that "Aliens are not that far" - check from 1:00:25.


Mélanie succesfully defended her PhD! 16 September 2021


Yes, third PhD student finished in close succession! Mélanie tirelessly focused on the PhD and managed to have all chapters submitted to a journal before defense - that's quite an achievement! Huge Congratulations and fingers crossed for fellowships!
  


Martin succesfully defended his PhD! 7 July 2021


Martin did a great job with revealing large scale patterns of caterpillar parasitoid diversity. Best wishes Martin for a postdoc!


Joel succesfully defended his PhD! 18 June 2021


...and is leaving to join Courtney Murdock's lab at Cornell. Thanks Joel for the great four years and the very best wishes for the future!   


Parasitoid identification database published 19 May 2021


We are proud of a collective effort organized by our lab to allow reliable identification of parasitoids of Drosophila for fundamental and applied science.


Visiting postdoc 15 September 2020


Wenda Cheng from the University of Hong Kong is currently working with us on how temperature affects on host-parasitoid interactions. He's interested in habitat and climate changes effects on herbivore-parasitoid interactions, and how behaviour and phenotypical plasticity would help species escape those impacts.


Visiting PhD student 15 September 2020


Minoo Heidari Latibari from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran is characterizing symbiotic bacteria of Aphis craccivora and Therioaphis trifolii on alfalfa in Mashhad and Zabol regions.


ERC-CZ grant awarded and new positions opened! 27 April 2020


We have received a major five-year grant to uncover how maintenance of genetic variation and species diversity are connected! We are therefore opening a new PhD position and Postdoc position. Check the links for full adverts and feel free to get in touch if you want to know more.
There is also a technician post open [in Czech].


CSF grant awarded 26 November 2019


Our three year Czech Science Foundation grant on "Testing the link between the structure and resilience of ecological networks" was funded, starting in January 2020!


PhD review paper 25 November 2019


Congratulations to Joel for publishing his PhD review paper!


First PhD paper 21 May 2019


Congratulations to Mélanie for publishing her first PhD paper!


Student research grant 13 February 2019


Congratulations to Mélanie for getting a student research grant from the university worth 5000 EUR!


Evolution in Montpellier! 16 August 2018


Whole lab goes to Montpellier for Evolution conference.


Jan presents at Uppsala conference 13 September 2017


First preliminary results on Drosophila-parasitoid food webs from Australia presented at great food web conference.


Nick and Chia-hua join the lab! 3 September 2017


Nick and Chia-hua have arrived to start their postdocs. Welcome!


Jan gets Wichterle award 7 June 2017


Jan received Wichterle award for young promissing scientists in Czech Academy of Sciences.


Mélanie and Anna join the lab! 15 March 2017


Mélanie is starting her PhD and Anicka her quest to become one of the best Drosophila parasitoid breeders in the world! See what they have to say about this in our team section.


Junior CSF grant awarded 25 November 2016

Our three year Junior Czech Science Foundation grant "Impact of temperature on host-parasitoid food webs: role of immunity and symbiotic bacteria" was funded, starting in January 2017!


Jan gets Purkynì Fellowship 2 November 2016

Jan has received a competitive five year Purkynì Fellowship for scientists returning to Czech Academy of Sciences.


News archive






























We are interested in ecology and evolution of interactions between insects and their natural enemies, and in processes which govern dynamics of complex natural networks of these interactions.

We use wild Drosophila-parasitoid food webs as a model to experimentally disentangle the role of environmental and biotic factors on food web dynamics. We study how maintenance of genetic variation interacts with maintenance of species diversity in ecological networks. We are also interested in the role which microbial symbionts play in ecological networks.

Our lab is part of the Department of Ecology, a dynamic international centre for interaction network research. We are based at the Institute of Entomology, Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences.


Chris Terry from Oxford visiting (14 September 2023)


Christmas trip to Krumlov (14 December 2022)


Lab trip to Plesne jezero (6 October 2022)


Lab trip to Rimov reservoir (1 October 2020)


Lab outing to Pisek (12 September 2019)


Lab trip to Oxford to visit collaborators with some time for sightseeing (May 2019)


Finally together! - since our CSF grant started in January 2017 we never had everone from the lab together because of fieldwork
(7 September 2018)


Lab trip to Hluboka with Owen Lewis (23 March 2018)


Lab outing to Zvikov castle (15 August 2017)


Lab temporarily without lab leader! (13 September 2017)


Lab trip to Cesky Krumlov (21 June 2017)


Back in my PhD, I wrote a R script called 3Dforest for 2D and 3D visualization of forest plots. Details on the script are here.
Some of the macro photos of flies and parasitoids on this website were made by Phil Hoenle.