We have just returned from a research retreat joint with the Swedish-Finnish group of our close collaborator and friend, prof. Tomas Roslin. Four busy days filled with presentations, workshops, and spectacular nature!

In our latest publication, we explore genetic diversity and microbial associations in a genus of spittlebugs - Philaenus - while demonstrating some of the new insights provided by the lab's innovative methods.

We have just published an important methodological resources, describing in detail the comprehensive protocols for insect biodiversity characterization that we have co-implemented as a parent of the Insect Biome Atlas collaboration. Ela Iwaszkiewicz-Eggebrecht has led the preparation of the manuscript now published in PLoS ONE, and an accompanying protocol at protocols.io.

This year, our Arctic fieldwork was the most extensive in the lab's history! Two teams from the lab have sampled insects in different portions of Greenland, and have just returned successfully, bringing in exciting stories and lots of material!

On 21st June, Veronika Andriienko has successfully defended her thesis, "High-throughput insect barcoding in microbiome studies: impact of non-destructive DNA extraction on microbiome composition", and obtained her M.Sc. degree! Congratulations!