We attended the CNIE 2025 in Siena, where Marta presented her work on the biology of the apricot aphid, Yuanjie spoke about the genomics of olive fly symbionts, Erika discussed her upcoming research on psyllid symbionts, Lapo presented on the genomics of the hawthorn psyllid, and Hannes talked about friends and foes of the bark beetle. 

We had many great conversations with colleagues and enjoyed our time in Siena.

We celebrated the start of the summer with our traditional lab Barbecue.

Anna Michalik from Jagiellonian University in Poland visited us funded by a Erasmus+ project. It was great to discuss with Anna our projects and we are looking forward to continue our fruitful collaboration.

We are looking for a new postdoc to join our team. The position aims to study symbionts of bark beetles and psyllids

All documents for the application procedure can be found here:

https://www.unibz.it/en/home/position-calls/positions-for-academic-staff/7744-pflanzenpathologie-und-entomologie-prof-schuler-hannes?group=74

For informal inquiries, and for questions about the hiring process, please contact Hannes 

Project 1 aims to investigate the impact and adaptation of non-native stinkbug parasitoids with a focus on molecular characterization of the parsitoid-host interaction. 

Project 2 aims to investigate factors influencing the current outbreak of wooly apple aphids with a strong focus on multifactorial analyses of plant-insect interactions. 

Both positions are funded for three years and will start in November 2025.

Deadline for applications is 11.06.2025 (noon).

All documents for the application procedure can be found here:

https://www.unibz.it/en/faculties/agricultural-environmental-food-sciences/phd-mountain-environment-agriculture/

For informal inquiries, and for questions about the hiring process, please contact Hannes 

Maja defended her PhD where she assessed the gut microbiome and the feeding host plants of the brown marmorated stink bug Halyomorpha halys. Maja joint the lab as Master student in 2021 and was a valuable member of the group for almost four years. In this time she acted as our master of ceremony, where she organized all our lab activities. Therefore, in this period she not only became a talented scientist, but also improved her skills on event management.

Juan defended his PhD on the microbiome and phylogeny of Scaphoideus titianus. Juan joint the lab in 2022 and enriched the lab with his South American charm. 

Congratulations Maja and Juan, we will miss you a lot!

We have opened two new postdoc positions in our lab:

Position 1 aims to unravel the co-evolutionary dynamics between psyllids and their symbionts in collaboration with Michael Gerth, Martin Kaltenpoth and Liliya Serbina. 

All documents for the application procedure can be found here:

https://www.unibz.it/en/home/position-calls/positions-for-academic-staff/7503-allgemeine-und-angewandte-entomologie-prof-schuler-hannes-pos-2?group=18

Position 2 aims to investigate factors affecting transmission efficiency of Phytoplasma mali by the two main vectors Cacopsylla picta and Cacopsylla melanoneura by performing population genetic analyses of the insects and the phytoplasma. 

The project is funded by a joint project of the Province of Bolzano and the Fonds National de la Recherche FNR, Luxembourg and is in close collaboration with Michael Eickermann and Wolfgang Jarausch.

All documents for the application procedure can be found here:

https://www.unibz.it/de/home/position-calls/positions-for-academic-staff/7504-allgemeine-und-angewandte-entomologie-prof-schuler-hannes-pos-1?group=18

Last days before the Christmas break. Our lab members circadian clock is preparing for the Christmas break (a 2-week diapause), with some mulled wine, punsh  and our traditional lab Christmas dinner.

Merry Christmas from the Schuler-Lab!

Giulia Calia successfully defended her PhD on "Bioinformatics and Machine learning approaches to study the characteristics of biotic and abiotic stress factor responses on plants". Gilia was co-supervised by Alessandro Cestaro (CNR) and Mirko Moser (Fondazione Edmund Mach San Michele), Katrin Janik (Research Centre Laimburg) and Silvia Bottini (INRAE France). 

Congratulations, Giulia! And big thanks to all co-supevisors and the PhD committee members for the support. Giulia will soon start a postdoc position in INRAE France.

We are looking for a PhD student to joint our lab in fall 2024. The project is funded by the European social fund (ESF) and will focus on the endosymbiont Wolbachia in fruit flys and psyllids. We will perform comparative genome sequencing of Wolbachia as well as ecological experiments to investigate the effect of this symbiont on the host.

All informations can be found here and here.

For further information, just contact me.

We are said to announce that Liliya left the group and joint the Naturmuseum Berlin where she will work as a curator on her beloved psyllids. Liliya, we will miss you but are happy to continue our fruitful collaboration.

We are happy to announce that Veronika Rau, Yuanjie Li and Luciano Palmieri joint the group as postdocs. They will work on various projects on our bark beetle and fruit fly projects.

Marta Chignola and Filippo Rey are joining the group as PhD students. Marta will study the invasive apricot aphid Myzus mumecola, Filippo will investigate the microbial composition of the sooty blotch of apples. Both positions are in collaborations with colleagues at the Research Centre Laimburg.

We just got selected by the Reference genome atlas to sequence the genome of one of our study systems. Yeah! Lapo Ragionieri joined to group as new postdoc. He will lead the whole genome sequencing project of Scaphoideus titanus. 

We welcomed our new members with a typical South Tyrolean Törgellen.

Our lab attended the European Conference of Entomology ECE2023 in Crete. Maja presented a talk about the feeding behaviour of her bugs, Juan presented his data on the haplotype diversity of Scaphoideus titanus, Erika presented her outcome on the dual symbionts in Cacopsylla spp. and Hannes had a keynote talk about the infection dynamics of Wolbachia in cherry fruit flies. We had a great time in Crete. Lots of great discussions, good food and several Ouzos. 

Marta Chignola just defended her master thesis on the feeding behaviour of the Brown marmorated stink bug Halyomorpha halys. She did an excellent job applying a molecular gut analysis to assess the feeding behaviour of this polyhagous pest. I'm happy to announce that Marta will soon start as a PhD student in my lab.