The Asellus research community

On November 26th 2021, the 2nd Asellus Symposium was held online and there were some 40+ registered participants from institutions in 14 countries. Asellus isopods are studied for various reasons - e.g., to investigate selective forces and determinants of pigmentation, intraspecific variation in innovativeness and behavioural responses to predator cues, foraging ecology and life-history variation, and species interactions (host-parasite, host-microbiome, predator-prey) to phylogeography and microevolution.

Ways to connect

We have set up a google group that works as a mailing list to send or receive the latest Asellus related news: https://groups.google.com/g/asellus-mail After signing up you can adjust your subscription settings - everything except “No email” will work. Now you can send messages to everyone by sending an email to the group address (asellus-mail@googlegroups.com) or by posting something online.

There is also a facebook group and a twitter account.

If you have data or materials to contribute, if have questions about this initiative, or would like to contribute by joining the consortium, please contact us: asellus.consortium@gmail.com. We organize ourselves via a slack-channel and through monthly virtual meetings - everyone is welcome to join!

Community topology

The current landscape of Asellus aquaticus research, based on data from Lafuente et al. (2021), where a literature survey was conducted on ~ 1600 papers on or including A. aquaticus up until 2021. All corresponding authors and the clusters of research groups and interactions they form are visualized here using VOSviewer:

Lafuente, E., Lürig, M. D., Rövekamp, M., Matthews, B., Buser, C., Vorburger, C., & Räsänen, K. (2021). Building on 150 Years of Knowledge: The Freshwater Isopod Asellus aquaticus as an Integrative Eco-Evolutionary Model System. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2021.748212