Habitat discontinuity and fidelity to migratory routes shape narwhal genetic structure and diversity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.12.737983v1
Also - I would love to have some wonderful LGBTQIA+ folx join the lab - I have ensured that I celebrate our fam throughout my career, and this is such a neat opportunity for me to work with one or more or you! So do contact me! ❤️🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
Dr. Arun Sethuraman@arunsethuraman.bsky.social · 4w agoHey team - it’s looking very likely that I’ll be hiring not one but two four year postdocs! We’re a fun lab with tons of theoretical and applied pop gen projects - broadly in polyploid, conservation, and human evo. Competitive salary, sunny San Diego! Do share with your about to defend grads!
🚨 MANUSCRIPT ALERT 🚨 The VGP Phase I manuscript pre-print is now live on bioRxiv! 🧬 doi.org/10.64898/202... Over 8 years, the VGP generated reference genomes for more than 800 vertebrate species, spanning ~95% of vertebrate orders and delivering some of the highest-quality genomes ever produced.
Come to my flash talk tomorrow at Vandsalen room, second session of “Evolutionary-informed management of vulnerable populations in a rapidly changing world “ #SMBE2026 to learn about Rice’s whales genetics, a unique species from the Gulf of Mexico with estimated population of 50 individuals.
Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution@official-smbe.bsky.social · 2mo agoPart 2 - 🗓️ Tue Jun 30, 1:20pm Talks by: Chris Barratt @paulinanunezv.bsky.social @henrylnorth.bsky.social @lauradbertola.bsky.social Nuno Filipe Gomes Martins @janawold.bsky.social @dianaguilr.bsky.social Olivier Brisset
Terrific resource, now on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social: The Vertebrate Genomes Project Phase I: A global reference genome resource 🧪🧬 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
The Vertebrate Genomes Project Phase I: A global reference genome resource
The Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP) aims to produce complete and near-error-free reference genomes for all ∼70,000 extant vertebrate species. Organized in four phases, it progressively targets all ve...
biorxiv.org
Happy to share that the new Cetacean Genomes Project website is up and running! www.cetaceangenomesproject.org @philmor1964.bsky.social @laninsky.bsky.social @andrewfoote.bsky.social @emma-carroll.bsky.social @rockyrockyrocky.bsky.social
CGP
cetaceangenomesproject.org
Whale Scientists@whalescientists.bsky.social · last mo.Calling cetacean researchers and collaborators! 🧬 We’re sharing on behalf of the Cetacean Genomes Project, a global initiative working to generate reference-quality genomes for cetaceans worldwide. They are looking for contributors/collaborators working with samples, genomic data, or collections.
Meanwhile the paper on the benefits of the COVID vaccine that Bhattacharya censored as Interim Director of the CDC is now out in JAMA Network Open. This is a paper he really didn't want people to view and download. You know what to do.
Interim Estimated Effectiveness of 2025-2026 COVID-19 Vaccines in Adults
This case-control study estimates vaccine effectiveness of 2025-2026 COVID-19 vaccines among adults with COVID-19–associated emergency department or urgent care encounters and COVID-19–associated hosp...
jamanetwork.com
A huge thanks to @philmor1964.bsky.social @tangeolsen.bsky.social @mick2474.bsky.social John Gatesy and Mark Springer for this collaboration and to Uko Gorter for fantastic cetacean illustrations.
If you want to learn more about beaked whales and our hypotheses of speciation you can read more here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Genomic Insights Into the Evolutionary History of Berardius Beaked Whales: Speciation Driven by Resource Specialization, Gigantism and Thermal Barriers?
Understanding the diversity of our oceans is fundamental now more than ever as climate change and human activities put increasing pressure on marine species and ecosystems. Beaked whales (family Ziph...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
We found that ~8% of the genomes of Baird’s and Sato’s beaked whales are introgressed (gene flow between species), and only 68% of the genome follows the species tree - indicating that Berardius speciation is more complex than a single bifurcating event.
Although there was a deep divergence ~4 million years ago between Sato’s beaked whale and the clade leading to Baird’s and Arnoux’s beaked whales, gene flow persisted between long after speciation.
Minibwa is a hybrid of bwa-mem and minimap2 and the successor of bwa-mem for short-read mapping. ~4X/2.5X as fast as bwa-mem/bwa-mem2 for WGS reads at comparable accuracy. Native support of directional bisulfite-seq. Applicable to long reads. Preprint at arxiv.org/abs/2606.15357
If you are interested in collecting specimens for chromosomal genomes and/or generating chromosomal reference genomes from specimens that were not cold-chain preserved, please read on and share this thread.
An interesting article about the science and city planning politics of orca and salmon conservation. www.theurbanist.org/op-ed-the-or...
Op-Ed: The Orca Whales Didn’t Hire Toby Thaler
Seattle activists trying to block growth incorrectly blame new housing for the threat to orcas, instead of the biggest culprit: cars and the sea of pavement carrying them. Paul Beard lays out how they...
theurbanist.org
⚠️ Scam Alert ⚠️ An email account is impersonating the President of the Society for Marine Mammalogy (Jeremy Kiszka). Fraudulent address: "presidents00024@gmail.com" This is NOT affiliated with SMM. Do not engage or respond. If received, please forward to: admin@marinemammalscience.org
Here's a genome from the Vertebrate Genomes Project (vertebrategenomespro...): a chromosome-level assembly for the false killer whale (Pseudorca crassidens)! 🐋 This resource advances cetacean research and conservation. Photo: Stefan Thiesen Buntrabe 1/2
This is hilarious! 🤣 "Someone draft a statement calling this 'Biden's War'" 🤣
The “Fraud Squad” is a more accurate name. And this is horrible for Rice’s Whale and other endangered wildlife.
NPR@npr.org · 4mo agoThe “God Squad" voted unanimously to remove protections for Gulf animals, for "security." It's not the first time federal agencies cited the “energy emergency” to avoid rules meant to protect animals.
Point cloud local ancestry inference (PCLAI): continuous coordinate-based ancestry along the genome https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.23.713813v1
Our paper is on the cover of @currentbiology.bsky.social : a strawberry poison frog with the most common color morph, living up to its common name 🍓. In this issue, we uncover the genetic basis of color variation in frogs from Bocas del Toro, where blue, green, yellow, orange, and red morphs occur
Diana Aguilar-Gómez@dianaguilr.bsky.social · 6mo agoThe last chapter of my PhD is finally out !!!! In the same species, on neighboring islands, we see radically different warning colors emerge. Evolution in action: Selection-driven color variation in the aposematic strawberry poison frog, Oophaga pumilio: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...
Help vaquita porpoise come roaring back by casting your vote. Every vote helps endangered species advance to the next round and brings them closer to the $10,000 conservation prize. uproar.indianapoliszoo.com
First Event Announcement 📅 March 5th ⏰ 6 PM CET / 9 AM PST Dawn of Cetology: The Scientific Pursuit of Whales, from Antiquities to the Twentieth Century
One genome changed everything. The Human Genome Project showed us that: • reference genomes are scientific infrastructure • open data accelerates discovery • collaboration makes scale possible Those same principles now power a far bigger vision — understanding life across the entire Tree of Life. 🌳🧬
The last chapter of my PhD is finally out !!!! In the same species, on neighboring islands, we see radically different warning colors emerge. Evolution in action: Selection-driven color variation in the aposematic strawberry poison frog, Oophaga pumilio: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...
Selection-driven color variation in the aposematic strawberry poison frog, Oophaga pumilio
Aguilar-Gómez et al. use exome sequencing of 347 strawberry poison frogs to uncover the genetic basis of color variation. They identify that kit, ttc39b, and bco1 underlie blue-red, yellow-red, and gr...
cell.com