Our latest contribution on #regulatoryevolution in which we show that the shape of fitness functions and the distribution of mutational effect sizes jointly limit adaptation by regulatory mutations. Led by @simonaube.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The shape of fitness functions and the distribution of mutational effect sizes jointly limit adaptation by regulatory mutations - Nature Ecology & Evolution

Saturation mutagenesis of the FCY1 promoter in budding yeast shows that adaptation to 5-fluorocytosine is not accessible through single cis-regulatory mutations, despite large mutational effects on pr...

nature.com

@jigisha1.bsky.social @fmenardo.bsky.social et al. highlight the role of ecological isolation in preventing gene flow between triticale powdery mildew and its parental lineages. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evag172 #societyjournal #PlantSky

Tracking the Evolutionary Trajectory of a Young Hybrid Plant Pathogen

Abstract. A common mechanism by which emerging plant pathogens gain the ability to infect new hosts is hybridization. Despite its widespread occurrence, th

doi.org

Avocados come in 2 varieties - A-types start each day female and switch to male midday. B-types do the reverse. In work just published from the last chapter of my PhD, we show this system evolved 40+million yrs ago and is regulated by alleles of 1 transcription factor www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Balanced polymorphism in a floral transcription factor underlies the ancient rhythm of daily sex alternation in avocado | PNAS

In avocado and certain wild relatives in Lauraceae, a highly synchronized daily rhythm of floral sex timing promotes cross-pollination between two ...

pnas.org

Happy to share this 'capstone' project from my time as a postdoc @umich.edu, where we show that hierarchically nested bursts of body-shape evolution may underlie much of perching-bird diversification over ~50 million years. Free access link here: rdcu.be/fuxB1

Rates of passerine body plan evolution in time and space

Nature Ecology & Evolution - A reconstruction of the evolutionary history of passerine body plans over the past ~50 Myr shows rare bursts of phenotypic innovation near the origin of major...

rdcu.be

that was... it was significantly more unpleasant an experience than any of the serious dental work i've had recently.

Preprint alert! 🧪 🐟 If you are interested in #LongTermStudies #BalancingSelection #KinCompetition check out our new MS. Mini thread below 🧵:

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology@biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 3w ago

Competition among kin generates balancing selection in a wild population https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.11.737918v1

Evidence for the 1/e-law predicting optimal timing of reproduction across taxa https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.30.733937v1

the game is undefeated

Our paper is out! 📣 we find that molecular measures of genetic variation do not predict heritable genetic variation across species - important implications for the application of genomic data for conservation! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Nucleotide diversity is a poor predictor of short-term adaptive potential | PNAS

The capacity to adapt is essential for a population to avoid extinction in a changing world and is recognized as a global conservation priority. Ad...

pnas.org

Lots of interest (understandably so) in balancing selection/graph based methods in popgen (S07) #SMBE2026

Interactive schedule (2.0) for SMBE2026! Enjoy the conference #SMBE2026 moicoll.github.io/SMBE2026_sch...

#SMBE #SMBE2026 Public Service announcement: If you want people to be able to find you in the app: (1) Click on the 'menu' lines (top right), (2) then click on "Privacy & Settings" and (3) *then* scroll to the bottom and click 'update'. This was not obvious to me.

Looking forward to #SMBE2026, my first SMBE meeting! I will present a poster on the range expansion of an annual plant and its consequences, in Session A (no.218 in Arkaden 8). Come by if you want to chat about species ranges and adaptation! Also a welcome escape from the heat here in Lausanne!🥵🌡️

Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution@official-smbe.bsky.social · last mo.

It's less than one week to go to #SMBE2026! All you need to know before you go 👉 smbe2026.org/general-information ❓ Unsure how to use Copenhagen's public transportation system? Or your dining and meal options? Visit our website for the necessary information to support your stay in Copenhagen.

How do species differ in their ability to #adapt to environmental change? This study by Lillith Zijmers, Adam Eyre-Walker &co estimates #evolvability from over 170 multicellular species, revealing that #plants exhibit greater adaptive potential than animals. 🧪#AcademicSky plos.io/4vk2TON

New preprint from the last portion of my PhD! Despite low masked load, we found evidence for strong inbreeding depression in Devils Hole pupfish. The reason? A recessive lethal haplotype that causes a heart defect among developing embryos. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Long-term small effective population size, inbreeding, and a recessive lethal haplotype drive premature death in the endangered Devils Hole pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis)

As anthropogenic habitat fragmentation and population decline accelerate globally, growing numbers of species face compounding demographic and genetic threats to long-term survival. Many populations a...

biorxiv.org

It was fun to work on this meta-analysis of resurrection studies involving plants with Lillie Pennington, Steven Franks, Jill Anderson, and @elenahamann.bsky.social! doi.org/10.1002/ajb2...

Two decades of resurrection studies: What have we learned about contemporary evolution of plant species?

Premise Global climate change has altered the eco-evolutionary trajectories of plant species, leading to observed shifts in phenotypes, such as earlier flowering. However, disentangling the contribu...

doi.org

Why do species' ranges stop where they do? New theory shows that matching habitat choice can sharpen range boundaries and reinforce limits imposed by competition academic.oup.com/evlett/advan... By Shirani and @benjaminfreeman.bsky.social

Coevolution of species’ range borders: Interactions between interspecific competition, gene flow, and matching habitat choice

Abstract. Existing theory examining the coevolutionary dynamics of species’ range borders assumes random dispersal, which causes maladaptive gene flow from

academic.oup.com

📣 New paper out in ProcB📣 ... and we're on the cover! (Perks of having a beautiful study species) Find it here: royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Inbreeding depression in morphological and growth traits of wild barn owls (Tyto alba)

Abstract. Despite its detrimental effects, inbreeding depression in wild populations is relatively under-explored. Here, we use whole-genome sequence data

royalsocietypublishing.org

Excited to share our new paper in which we test how competition alters adaptation at a warming range edge @science.org We find that competition can increase adaptation to warming when there is a shared evolutionary response to both biotic and abiotic drivers of selection: tinyurl.com/3j8s9t8b

Competition enables rapid adaptation to a warming range edge in a model plant community

Most predictions of whether populations will adapt to warming range edges ignore species interactions. We experimentally tested whether range-edge populations can adapt to warming within a competitive...

science.org

This is awful to hear, describing how Sean Eddy (HMMER, infernal, pfam, rfam) has been defunded. The letter said his work "had been determined to be of absolutely no value to the US taxpayer, and therefore it was being specifically terminated," www.npr.org/2026/05/21/n...

Researchers say the Trump administration is finding new ways to punish science

Even with federal grants largely restored, scientists say the Trump administration is still preventing those funds from reaching them. The consequences, they say, are already becoming clear.

npr.org

One of my dream projects, ever since joining here in Basel, out now in @nature.com : single-cells 🤝 eco-morphological proxies rdcu.be/fiyso How cells and tissues adapt to dietary niches... Thanks and congrats to Antoine, Walter, and all the other co-authors for this great collaboration!! 🙏🥳

Adaptive cellular evolution in the intestine of hyperdiverse cichlid fishes

Nature - Single-cell transcriptomics combined with morphological and ecological data show that the rapid evolutionary radiation of cichlid fishes in Lake Tanganyika was accompanied by dietary...

rdcu.be

Two Book Reviews this issue: "The long and difficult history of the path between Darwinism and Lamarckism" by Günter P Wagner academic.oup.com/evolut/artic... "Evolution of adaptation’s evil Doppelgänger" by Erik I Svensson academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...

The long and difficult history of the path between Darwinism and Lamarckism

Ever since the articulation of a coherent theory of evolution, alternatives to the Darwinian narrative have been proposed. The most widely known, perhaps,

academic.oup.com

First real post on the new blog! If you follow human genetics, you've likely of "missing heritability". If you look at twins to estimate heritability, you get values much larger than what molecular genomic methods produce. IQ, for example, goes from 50-80% heritability to 10-15%. Which is right?

Excited to share our global collaborative project: “Ontogenetic Thermal Fertility Limits” 🌍🔥🦋🪰🪲🪳🐞 We’re bringing together researchers to understand how temperature affects fertility across life stages in a warming world. Explore the project & get involved: www.thermalecologyalliance.org/projects

"Sexually antagonistic selection: a review of the theory and its implications" doi.org/10.32942/X28M22

New paper out in Evolution Letters! @evolletters.bsky.social We explore the legacy of past warming at the rear edge of Campanula americana. Spoiler alert: we did not find higher drift load as often expected at the rear edge, but strong local adaptation! doi.org/10.1093/evle...

Botanical parasitism of an insect by a parasitic plant: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...

Botanical parasitism of an insect by a parasitic plant

Egan et al. report the discovery of a new trophic interaction in nature whereby a parasitic plant attacks multiple species of insects that manipulate plant tissue when the two co-occur on a shared pri...

cell.com

Excited that this has officially come out! Smith et al. (including @joannamasel.bsky.social ): "Why are there so many definitions of fitness in models?" academic.oup.com/genetics/adv...

Why there are so many definitions of fitness in models

Abstract. Evolutionary “fitness” is operationalized in many different ways in models. Its role is to quantify that which is favored by natural selection. G

academic.oup.com

New Phytologist next generation scientists is coming to India! 📅 1–4 December 2026 📍 IISER Pune, India This event is exclusively for early career researchers in #PlantScience. Apply to attend by 20 May 👉 www.newphytologist.org/events/2026-...