Are you interested in domestication selection and conservation physiology? Newest paper @evolappjournal.bsky.social: Highly and Lowly Domesticated Endangered Fish From a Conservation Hatchery Diverge in Their Thermal Physiology, Transcriptome, and Methylome onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Andrew Whitehead
@andrewwhitehead.bsky.social
UC Davis faculty, research in evolutionary & ecological genomics, ecotoxicology, climate change, phenotypic plasticity. whiteheadresearch.wordpress.com
Confused writing is usually a symptom of confused thinking. As we struggle to clarify writing, we clarify our thoughts. AI writing aids rob us of that struggle, leaving clean-looking text and thoughts still confused for lack of inspection. Writing is not just a product; it is a diagnostic tool.
Research on the tenacious little killifish sheds light on how exposure to crude oil and flame retardants impacts later generations. From @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social @ucdavis.bsky.social
2 new papers now out in #ES&T on the persistent and multi-generational impacts of flame retardants on behavior and brain biology Press release from @ucdavis.bsky.social @ucdaviscaes.bsky.social that ties this with our work on multi-gen impacts of oil spills www.ucdavis.edu/climate/news...
2 new papers now out in #ES&T on the persistent and multi-generational impacts of flame retardants on behavior and brain biology Press release from @ucdavis.bsky.social @ucdaviscaes.bsky.social that ties this with our work on multi-gen impacts of oil spills www.ucdavis.edu/climate/news...
Maternal Exposure to Crude Oil, Flame Retardants Can Affect Later Generations
A tiny fish with transparent embryos is helping University of California, Davis, researchers shed light on how exposure to crude oil and flame retardants can affect behavior, skeletal growth, cardiac ...
ucdavis.edu
🚨Research alert 🚨 A tiny fish with transparent embryos is helping #UCDavis researchers shed new light on how maternal exposure to crude oil and flame retardants can affect later generations. #DeepwaterHorizon #PBTE caes.ucdavis.edu/news/materna...
Maternal Exposure to Crude Oil, Flame Retardants Can Affect Later Generations
A tiny fish with transparent embryos is helping University of California, Davis, researchers shed light on how exposure to crude oil and flame retardants can affect behavior, skeletal growth, cardiac ...
caes.ucdavis.edu
Our collaborative study shows that hatchery domestication in Delta smelt elevates thermal tolerance but reduces plasticity, with transcriptome and methylome shifts influencing adaptation. Read the preprint here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Highly and lowly domesticated endangered fish from a conservation hatchery diverge in their thermal physiology, transcriptome, and methylome
Conservation hatcheries aim to produce fish for supplementation of wild populations, but hatchery environments may drive phenotypic divergence from wild fish. These diverged traits may have reduced fi...
biorxiv.org
New paper out in #ES&T where we show that killifish exposure to crude oil has impacts (on embryo/larval development and transcriptome) that propagate to their offspring and to their grand-offspring. pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.... @acs.org
I am thrilled to announce that in January 2026 I will be starting my own lab at NYU Biology! Soon enough I will be recruiting postdocs and students! Please reach out if you are interested with a CV and description of your research interests, or if you know of people who could be interested! 🧬🗽 🦊
Wish I could be at #Evol2025 this year! I’ll be starting a new lab at NYU this fall, and will be recruiting at all levels. Please spread the word if you know anyone who wants to work on evo. genomics, phylogenies, and comparative development of inverts (like Hawaiian Drosophila!) shchurch.github.io
🚨Postdoc opportunity🚨: LepEU postdoc: comparative population genomics of European scale adaptation in butterflies 2 year, full-time PD in my group, Stockholm Univ. Applications assed on rolling basis, deadline: 23 August 2025. Planned start 1 Oct. Details: christopherwheatlab.wordpress.com
Anya Brown - @dranyabrown.bsky.social, marine scientist at @ucdavis.bsky.social & Nat Geo Explorer, studies how coral microbes shape reef resilience. “It’s the kind of thing that unites so much of life on Earth,” she says. 🌊🪸🐠 Read more in Nat Geo: www.nationalgeographic.com/impact/artic...
Anya Brown is investigating microbes’ critical role in coral reefs
Her research team’s contributions could hold promise for coral adaptation and conservation.
nationalgeographic.com
This is a great thread, with some really nice talking points for your letters to your reps, your protest signs, your zines and flyers, and your conversations with neighbors.
The President's Budget request as released yesterday will gut scientific research. Why should you care? 1) Science is fundamentally a jobs program. Many 100,000s are employed to do science and work for you, the US taxpayer.
"Our calculations suggest that the proposed budgetary cuts to the NIH will create a social cost that is 16 times greater than the savings that the administration is attempting to achieve." jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
Cutting the NIH—The $8 Trillion Health Care Catastrophe
This JAMA Forum discusses the recent budget cuts to National Institutes of Health (NIH), the effects of these cuts on scientific research and health of individuals in the US, and the prospects for cha...
jamanetwork.com
Super excited to release a huge evolution project on the works for many years: Evolution experiments synchronized across climates to understand rapid adaptation Preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2025... All data available: www.grene-net.org/data #MOILAB @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social @hhmi.org 🧵👇
🚨 A new rule would let career scientists like NSF/NIH program officers be replaced by political appointees Already 14,000+ public comments, deadline is Friday 📣 Comments can be short. Courts consider them—and scientists with NSF/NIH experience are especially impactful Speak up! shorturl.at/WKuBj
Interested in evolution in the Anthropocene? In a paper out today we use a mechanism-guided approach to predict & show that evolved resistance to urban pollutants offers cross-resistance to oil in killifish, via adaptive change in AHR signaling doi.org/10.1111/eva.... @evolappjournal.bsky.social
Multiple Stressors in the Anthropocene: Urban Evolutionary History Modifies Sensitivity to the Toxic Effects of Crude Oil Exposure in Killifish
Persistence of wild species in human-altered environments is difficult, in part because challenges to fitness are complex when multiple environmental changes occur simultaneously, which is common in ...
doi.org
New @science.org Exposomics. We're not doing nearly enough to understand and mitigate our toxic environmental exposures. A very insightful perspective www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
🙏 We need your help 🙏 The government continues to cancel grants at both NIH and NSF to censor science it doesn't like. We're tracking terminations to organize and advocate. Please report your terminated grants: NIH: forms.gle/J2znQ7y7YpeP... NSF: airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni... w/ @noamross.net
Hosted listening sessions with undergrad students in our program over the past 2 days. Their main concerns (perhaps unsurprisingly): - students from non-traditional identities worried if institute has their backs - worry about grad school prospects, job prospects, loss of educational opportunities
New preprint from the lab: Exposure to crude oil in adult killifish has effects (morphology, gene expression) that propagate at least two generations, but effects are different between first and second generation descendants www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Adult killifish exposure to crude oil perturbs embryonic gene expression and larval morphology in first- and second-generation offspring
Exposures to environmental toxicants can have both immediate and long-term impacts, including those that persist into the next generation. Using Gulf killifish ( Fundulus grandis ), we tested whether ...
biorxiv.org
New preprint from the lab, where we describe how evolved resistance to PCBs in urban populations of killifish affords protection from fitness impacts of crude oil - in adults and embryos - because of shared mechanisms of toxicity between PCBs and oil www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
For folks who are new to single-cell transcriptomics, does anyone have any recommendations for workshops?
If you missed it, here’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s, quite sincerely, historic speech. It’s for, and is galvanizing, Canadians but he also speaks very directly to our allies in the US. Please hear us out. I do find myself thinking how much I’d give up, and do, for this imperfect country.
Trudeau: Canada will retaliate with 25% tariffs on $155B of U.S. goods
YouTube video by CBC News
youtu.be
Love the term "Shitthropocene". I figure we'll use it in our next manuscript title. "Shitthropocene? Fish evolve the gene: The story of aryl hydrocarbon receptor" www.patagonia.com/quality/#shi...
Quality Clothing & Gear by Patagonia
Our new film The Shitthropocene explores how we got here and why it’s destroying us all. It’s also a little bit about how we might be able to overcome this.
patagonia.com
A fun conversation with Will Tingle on the Naked Genetics podcast about role of hybridization in conservation. We touched on some controversial topics. What do you think? www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/int...
Should we hybridise endangered species?
Is saving some genome better than saving none?
thenakedscientists.com
Guest blog from me on Dynamic Ecology, a guide for beginning grads on developing a reading habit and project ideas! Super grateful for reposts :)
Non-definitive guides on developing a reading habit & generating project ideas
Note from Meghan: This is a guest post by my colleague Gina Baucom on a topic that's sure to be of interest to lots of readers! *** I lead a graduate-level professional development seminar* where we r...
dynamicecology.wordpress.com
Wow! The complex genomic and epigenetic variation that builds the tasty diversity of Brassica oleracea (the single species that forms broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, Brussels sprouts) 🧪🥦🥬
Large-scale gene expression alterations introduced by structural variation drive morphotype diversification in Brassica oleracea - Nature Genetics
De novo genome assemblies of 22 Brassica oleracea accessions and pan-genome analyses highlight the effects of structural variations on gene expression and their contributions to morphotype diversifica...
nature.com
Are you interested in evolution in the Anthropocene?... in evolved resistance to pollution?... in the genetic architecture of rapidly evolving traits?... You are in luck! I have something for you to read... onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Reposting here with some edits for brevity... (from @prosanta.bsky.social in the other place): The Museum of Natural Science at LSU is hiring three collections managers!!! Apply at the following links: Mammals: bit.ly/3u5lmUT Birds: bit.ly/3u8x9BE Genetic Resources: bit.ly/3UivQL8
Maybe. Nice article about rapid adaptation in the Anthropocene by @scibri.bsky.social and featuring interviews with @ryanamartin.bsky.social, Sarah Diamond, Luciano Beheregaray hakaimagazine.com/news/can-ani... via @hakaimagazine.bsky.social