Alexa Sadier
@aigverte.bsky.social
CNRS PI at Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier | Evo-devo - Bats - Teeth - Dev Constraints - Adaptation | Evolution on Earth and beyond | ERC NOVELTEETH | Co-host @podcastscience | Cham steepskier website: alexasadier.com
Officially recruiting postdocs at GW. If you are interested in genetic novelty, structural variation, or evo genetics please get in touch! We have data sets on mulitple organisms with large population sizes (Drosophila, Megalonaias nervosa) and species in decline (fireflies, mussels, elephants).
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
Sailing in @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social ready for summer, our study on the iconic Portuguese man o' war 🪼 is out: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6.... We use (epi)genomics to understand a critter that fascinates me since childhood. Massive team effort with @obog.bsky.social, Cummins and Neely groups. 🧵
Imagine a tool that lets you test-drive gene expression inside a living cell. EMBL researchers used a synthetic biology approach to test hundreds of DNA sequences for their effect on regulating gene expression in context. www.embl.org/news/science...
Pls share. Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences - Genetics/Genomics at Smith College. apply.interfolio.com/190342
Je ne me fais pas d'illusion : les vrais problèmes de simplification administrative de la recherche sont très techniques (par exemple la documentation) et/ou des questions d'attitude, pas le genre de choses où un ministre ou un député peut se faire valoir. blogs.mediapart.fr/david-monnia...
Manœuvres d’état-major dans la recherche scientifique
On annonce une nouvelle vague de réorganisations et fusions d’organismes de recherche, soi-disant pour plus d’efficacité et de simplification. Qu’en penser ?
blogs.mediapart.fr
Renowned Evolutionary biologists Peter & Rosemary Grant are back with new research on adaptive radiation in Geospiza finches on Daphne Major, looking at the long term impacts of hybridization on 3 species of ground finch! You can read the full paper below 👇 🧪 (1/2) doi.org/10.1093/evol...
Fission, fusion and the generation of novelty in Geospiza species on Daphne Major Island, Galápagos
Abstract. Early stages in the adaptive radiation of Darwin’s finches are characterized by divergence (fission) and convergence (fusion) caused by natural s
doi.org
Reproductive organs are under strong selective pressure during #evolution. In this Primer, Mugal and Sémon explore a new @plosbiology.org study showing that Drosophila testis cells exhibit rapid change, while ovarian cells are more conserved. Research Article plos.io/4hqIkMd Primer plos.io/4pJ033P
Book review 📚 A celebration of Ernst Haeckel’s sketches of life forms, from microscopic to majestic go.nature.com/3RB5Njh
A fever dream of jellies and slugs
A celebration of Ernst Haeckel’s sketches of life forms, from microscopic to majestic.
go.nature.com
New article from our research group 🦇. doi.org/10.25225/jvb... Wing morphology correlates and functional consequences of alternative reproductive tactics in Seba’s short-tailed bats, Carollia perspicillata
Organising a meeting, workshop or conference? Don't miss 31 July 2026 deadline to apply for a Scientific Meeting grant and/or a grant from our Fund for Innovations in Sustainable Conferencing. Find out more and apply at
About our grants
Our grants support and encourage the sharing of knowledge throughout the community by facilitating international collaboration, event attendance and the organisation of scientific meetings,…
biologists.com
Happy to announce that our latest study with @houssayecnrs.bsky.social is now published in the @anatrecord.bsky.social. 🐧🦆🪿 doi.org/10.1002/ar.7... How does the inner structure of the limb bones of aquatic birds relate to their locomotor abilities? 🦴
We have just launched our newest self-paced tutorial! Protein domains: structure, classification and evolution: www.ebi.ac.uk/training/onl... Learning time: 3 hours Free via EMBL-EBI Training on-demand. @pdbeurope.bsky.social @ebi.embl.org 🧬🖥️
Protein domains: structure, classification, and evolution - An introductory tutorial for protein domains
Protein domains: structure, classification, and evolution - An introductory tutorial for protein domains
ebi.ac.uk
New paper 🧵 What if the "landscape" that guides cell differentiation isn't fixed, but is sculpted, in real time, by the very cells moving through it? We call this a 'sandscape' : grains of sand that carve dunes as they move, while the dunes' shape simultaneously steers where the grains go next.
A mouse that lives higher than any other mammal has evolved unexpected adaptations that allow it to thrive from sea level to Andean summits, researchers report in a new Science study. Learn more: https://scim.ag/4bzjqWY
Adaptation across an extreme elevational gradient in Andean leaf-eared mice, the world’s highest-dwelling mammal
Andean leaf-eared mice (Phyllotis vaccarum) live at the highest elevations of any mammal, and they also have the broadest elevational range, from sea level to mountain summits of >6700 meters. Highlan...
scim.ag
Do spectacular feather colours always evolve through selection? In island kingfishers, genetic drift may have a bigger role to play! Zoha Sadaqat covers work from Jenna McCullough & team @unm.edu #preprint #zoology #preLight ⬇️ prelights.biologists.com/highlights/d...
Drift drives phenotypic evolution in a rapid island radiation - preLights
Do spectacular feather colors always evolve through selection? In island kingfishers, genetic drift may have a bigger role to play!
prelights.biologists.com
Peut-on terraformer Mars ? Vous voulez vous essayer à la terraformation martienne ? Essayez ce jeu interactif sur navigateur. À chaque étape, testez différentes stratégies, mais choisissez bien ! Toutes les options ne mènent pas à une Mars habitable. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...
How did octopuses evolve novel traits? Rishav Mitra, Richard Han, Trey Scott, et al serendipitously discover a unique ribosome adaptation that increases the accuracy of protein synthesis and evolved alongside their elaborate nervous systems vs deep sea relatives. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🦇 How do bats breathe, smell & echolocate thru the same nose? Using simulations of 12 bat sp., researchers found nasal anatomy—not echolocation strategy—shapes airflow. Unique nasal strands in horseshoe bats affect pressure & airflow Goodwin et al anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
There are many reasons to publish with JEB and one of them is the integrity at the core of the journal. Our strong ethical approach to publishing and fair and rigorous peer review means that every article meets the high standards expected by our readers tinyurl.com/yc8ah7zh
📣 GBE is launching a Methods section GBE is launching a new Methods section dedicated to theoretical advances, methodological innovation, and critical assessments of existing approaches. 🔗 academic.oup.com/gbe/pages/methods-articles #genome #evolution #societyjournal
Interesting new tool to extract phylogenies from images (Tremble). It is crazy that this is still something we have to do. doi.org/10.1093/bioi...
Treemble: a graphical tool to generate Newick strings from phylogenetic tree images
AbstractSummary. Phylogenetic trees are ubiquitous and central to biology, but most published trees are available only as visual diagrams and not in the ma
doi.org
Really excited to share that my first PhD chapter is now out in @currentbiology.bsky.social! 🕷️👀 We show that visually hunting spiders have repeatedly evolved forward-facing eyes, highlighting the remarkable evolutionary flexibility of their modular visual system. doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...
Hunting ecology predicts eye arrangements in the modular visual system of spiders
Pande et al. show that visually hunting spiders have convergently evolved forward-facing eyes. The positions and orientations of the eyes show the greatest morphological disparity and fastest evolutio...
cell.com
How mammals get their fur? New research from the Milinkovitch-Tzika lab, published in PNAS, shows that chemotaxis—cells moving toward chemical cues—drives hair follicle precursor self-organization during embryonic development, generating diverse fur patterns across mammals. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
Chemotactic self-organization captures the dynamics of mammalian hair follicle patterning | PNAS
The spatial patterning of mammalian hair follicle precursors in embryonic skin is most commonly studied in the laboratory mouse (Mus musculus), whe...
doi.org
Yea very few. The challenge is we lack frameworks of analyzing these emerging genomic data, integrating development, regulatory networks, and GP maps. Looking forward to seeing more conceptual development in pop gen
I think there is still a gap between pop gen and Evo-Devo. Some work overlaps, but very little yet.
NEW: Is there a 'crisis' of public trust in science? It can feel that way — with attacks on research in the US and growing rejection of vaccines. I investigated for @nature.com - and found some surprises. My feature article is out today and a short🧵here www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Have people stopped trusting science? The data tell a surprising story
Some say there’s a global crisis of trust — but research reveals where the real problems lie.
nature.com
#SMBE2026 day 2 is ongoing! The day started with a great talk by @emmateeling.bsky.social on why understanding bat evolution is crucial for human health. The symposia are now starting. We wish everyone a great first full day of the meeting!
