Ramya Ganesan

@chaintist.bsky.social

638 Followers 580 Following

Postdoc @gimminstitute.bsky.social | insect - microbe symbioses, microbial ecology and evolution | Also enjoys cartooning | 🪲& 🐝 | She/her Art portfolio: https://chaintist.wordpress.com/ Shop: https://www.redbubble.com/people/Chaiintist/explore?asc=u

Digital art of a bumblebee mimic hoverfly which does an impressive job of looking just like a furry bumblebee. I imagine it must've once contemplated whether to "bee" or not to "bee"
Inspired by Van Gogh's famous painting, "starry night", this digital artwork shows microbes swimming in the "night sky" just like stars above rolling hills and a town.
A cartoon/ digital drawing summarising the findings of the paper "Defensive fungal symbiosis on insect hindlegs" by T. Nishino et al published in 2025. On the top left, a female Megymenum gracilicorne bug shows off symbiotic organs on the hind legs where she carries Ascomycota fungi. These were previously assumed to be Tympanal organs in these bugs but only females had them?; that didnt make a whole lot of sense to the authors...To the right of the bug is a row of eggs lying side by side. The paper shows that the bugs deposit the symbiotic fungi on the egg surface after egg-laying. Next on the image, fungal conidia grow on the egg surface. The eggs are pinkish in colour. A few fungi wear sunglasses like they are body guards. The paper shows that they protect the eggs from Trissolcus brevinotaulus, a parasitoid wasp, that likes to lay its eggs inside the developing bug's eggs. There are two wasps in this cartoon "eyeing" the fungi and looking frustrated. Eggs turn from whitish to pinkish within 10-days because they are reflecting the body colour of the nymph within the eggs.
A cartoon with six panels. Lagria beetle eggs are protected from fungal pathogens by Burkholderia symbionts that produce antibiotics. The mother beetle smears then onto the surface during egg-laying. The symbionts are taken up by the larvae into dorsal surface "crypts" once they hatch.