Dear All,
With this email, we would like to invite you to attend March’s Wageningen Evolution & Ecology Seminar (WEES) and Workshop!
The seminar will take place on Thursday, 12 March 2026, 16:00–17:00 in Orion, C1040. This will be followed by drinks at The Spot and an opportunity to meet and have dinner with the Speaker (dinner is at your own cost, but sign up with Beatriz Taboada - b.taboada@nioo.knaw.nl).
The associated workshop will be from 14.00-15.30 in B8045, Orion. The workshop gives attendees the opportunity to meet the seminar’s speaker and have a discussion about a hot topic in science. Furthermore, BSc and MSc students can get 1 ECTS for attending 2 workshops. Registration is required for this workshop and you can sign up by emailing Beatriz Taboada (b.taboada@nioo.knaw.nl).
Please forward this information to anyone who could be interested!
Seminar: Molecular evolution in a defensive symbiosis (12 March 2026, 16:00–17:00, Orion C1040)
Dr. Aileen Berasategui | Group Leader, The Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich, UK
Many insects rely on microbial protection early in development, yet the role of microbes in safeguarding pupae remains understudied. Here, we describe a mutualistic relationship between the fungus Fusarium oxysporum and the leaf beetle Chelymorpha alternans. The symbiont rapidly proliferates during pupation, forming a conspicuous coating that protects the beetle against predation. Eliminating the fungus reduces pupal survival, highlighting its defensive role. In return, emerging beetles disperse Fusarium to host plants, where it retains its phytopathogenic traits, causing wilt disease. Despite harboring a reduced genome, Fusarium maintains key metabolic pathways for both plant colonization and insect defense, including virulence factors and mycotoxins. Comparative genomics of nine symbiont strains from Cassidinae beetles revealed high functional conservation relative to non-insect-associated Fusarium lineages. Defensive symbionts evolved smaller genomes with fewer protein-coding and tRNA genes, as well as fewer repeats, underscoring the link between genome reduction and symbiosis. Our findings shed light on a mutualism predicated on pupal protection of an herbivorous beetle in exchange for symbiont dissemination.
Workshop: Cross-kingdom symbionts (12 March 2026, 14:00–15:30, Orion B8045)
In this interactive masterclass, Dr. Berasategui will briefly share her scientific journey, how she arrived at her research questions, how they have evolved over time, and how unexpected results, conceptual challenges, and practical constraints have shaped the direction of her work. She will also share what questions now drive her research. The session will not be a formal lecture, but a discussion. Using a few open and unresolved questions in the field as starting points, we will explore broader conceptual and methodological challenges together. Participants are encouraged to actively engage, question assumptions, and connect the themes to their own research interests. Registration is required for the Masterclass as the SPOTS ARE LIMITED, and you can sign up by emailing Beatriz Taboada (b.taboada@nioo.knaw.nl).
About WEES
WEES is an initiative of PhD students and postdocs at Wageningen University to organize a continuing series of stimulating seminars on contemporary topics in evolution and ecology. For this series, we invite researchers from all over the world who have leading roles in their field. We aim to bring together different groups at Wageningen University using a variety of systems, but with a common interest in evolutionary and ecological questions. WEES is funded by graduate schools PE&RC, EPS, VLAG and WIAS.
Want to organise seminars yourself? Join WEES!
WEES is looking for new members! We aim for a broad and diverse range of topics and would like to welcome new members to help and include topics not represented yet. If you are curious, send an email to weeswageningen@gmail.com and join one of our meetings.
For more information, please visit www.tumblr.com/weeswageningen and follow us on X @weeswageningen linkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/wees-wageningen
Kind Regards,
Beatriz Taboada