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

Looking forward to Botany next week! One of my post-baccalaureate mentees, Quix Malpass, will be presenting two posters on Sarracenia conservation genetics at the Monday evening poster session (P196 & Recent Topics). Come say hi!

Popped down to Karl Fetter's lab at the USDA Fruit and Nut Tree Research Station this week for HMW DNA extractions and came home with some of the best peaches I've had this year (and good quality DNA). I think the variety is July Prince. All around 10/10 trip.

Preprints don’t change much after peer review — and are rarely retracted. go.nature.com/4pebHmM

Think preprints are unreliable? Analysis of 70,000 studies might change your mind

Preprints don’t change much after peer review — and are rarely retracted.

go.nature.com

Hey 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!

I am not at #Evol2026, but @conjustover.bsky.social is! Go check out his talk on collaborative work we have been doing with John Wakeley on simulating autotetraploids tomorrow at 4:15pm.

Excited to share that I will be joining Florida State University as an Assistant Professor starting in January 2027! I’m thrilled to build my lab at FSU in the Ecology & Evolution Division within the Department of Biological Science — stay tuned! A huge thank you to my village for all the support!

Thrilled to announce that I have started at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. We are working to conserve rare and imperiled plants of the Southeastern US. I am leading the Conservation Genetics Laboratory and serve as curator of our DNA Biorepository (containing almost 1,300 species!).

I’m headed to #PAG33 in San Diego, CA this week! Very excited to present a poster on some LTR TE family clustering titled “Full Sequence Clustering Reveals Hidden Structural Diversity and Evolutionary Dynamics in LTR Retrotransposon Families”. I’ve attached the abstract if you’d like to read more.

The registration deadline is fast approaching for probgen 2026! Abstracts due by January 15, registration by January 31 probgen2026.github.io

Has your EEB/Biology department updated its minimum PhD pay for 2025-2026? Let us know here: rhettrautsaw.app/shiny/Biolog...

New paper just posted with @rschley.bsky.social et al: doi.org/10.1111/nph.... (1/n)

The frequency and importance of polyploidy in tropical rainforest tree radiations

The presence of two or more copies of the genome in an organism, termed ‘polyploidy’, is a crucial force in plant evolution, generating genetic, phenotypic and ecological diversity. The Amazonian tr...

doi.org

Big bluestem has been a lovely and complex system to work with for the majority of my PhD and will always have a piece of my heart! Very excited to share this work with the community.

Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra@jrossibarra.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Super proud of @alyssa-phillips.bsky.social 's paper, now out on biorxiv! She resolves the origin(s) of polyploid big blue-stem, a dominant species in the midwest tall-grass prairie. Her common garden analysis also informs on environmental adaptation and hints at the impacts of polyploidy.

In honor of @alyssa-phillips.bsky.social new preprint, here's me standing in her common garden taking a photo op to troll her with all the grass species in the plot that are *not* big blue stem.

Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra@jrossibarra.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Super proud of @alyssa-phillips.bsky.social 's paper, now out on biorxiv! She resolves the origin(s) of polyploid big blue-stem, a dominant species in the midwest tall-grass prairie. Her common garden analysis also informs on environmental adaptation and hints at the impacts of polyploidy.

If you are affiliated with a UC institution of live in a community that benefits from UC institutions, please consider signing this letter calling on UC Leadership to stand up to the Trump Administration. sites.google.com/view/ucstand...

Dr. David Miller 🏳️‍🌈@davidimiller.bsky.social · last yr.

Absolutely the fuck not. Any senior administrator who even entertains the possibility of a $1 BILLION DOLLAR SETTLEMENT has no legitimate place overseeing researchers.

My first first author manuscript has posted! I’m very excited to share SWIF-TE with yall. It is a fast, memory efficient tool to identify novel TE insertions from short-read data. 🧬 #TEworldwide #transposons

bioRxiv Bioinfo@biorxiv-bioinfo.bsky.social · last yr.

SWIF-TE: identifying novel transposable element insertions from short read data https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.30.667279v1

Check out our new preprint on aspen adaptive variation and phylogeographic history 🌳🧬 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Elucidating continental-wide phylogeographic and adaptive processes shaping the genome-wide diversity of North America's most widely distributed tree

Past population dynamics during the Pleistocene ice age and the Holocene era have profoundly influenced the genetic structure and diversity of species. Environmental heterogeneity has further shaped l...

biorxiv.org

A focus on the futures we will lose if the WH continues to dismantle research across agencies spanning the EPA, DHS, NIH, NSF, USAID, and DoD (via NASA Watch). When: Tuesday, July 8, 2025, 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. ET Where: Rayburn Foyer, Rayburn House Office Building nasawatch.com/congress/con...

Congressional Event: A Science Fair of Canceled Grants

The Things We’ll Never Know: A Science Fair of Canceled Grants.

nasawatch.com

Here's the phylogeny for Day 2 and Days 1 & 2 from #Evol2025! Again, made in Time Tree. Is your organism represented??

Pleased to share that my first, first-author publication was published yesterday in @pnas.org ! We (me + @jrossibarra.bsky.social) did a little bit of detective work to better understand the age and origin of a mutation that played a key role in maize domestication. doi.org/10.1073/pnas... (1/n)

Looking forward to seeing folks at #Evol2025! I'll be sharing some of our preliminary work on the 2,000 Aspen Genomes Project in Poster Session 2 on June 23 at poster A4. "Evolutionary and ploidy-informed tools for quaking aspen management"

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 🧵👇

Thread with an email being sent to @asn-amnat.bsky.social @sse-evolution.bsky.social @systbiol.bsky.social members today calling for a Tri-society week of action for NSF: Dear members: The tri-societies (ASN, SSE,SSB) are running a ‘Week of Action for NSF’. Your engagement is crucial.

TLDR: the administration wants to remove habitat loss from the definition of "harm" for endangered species, which will effectively gut the ESA. I just commented. If you're in any way interested in ecology, nature, and the protection of endangered species, you should, too. Free daily action!

Dana El Kurd@danaelkurd.bsky.social · last yr.

My friend's student asks me to share: The administration is trying to destroy the Endangered Species Act from within. Public commenting is basically the only way to thwart this rule before getting to court. If you have a few minutes to comment: www.regulations.gov/commenton/FW...

It's here and ahead-of-print at @asn-amnat.bsky.social ! 🎉 Our 22-page polyploid coexistence model is now available: doi.org/10.1086/734411 This work wouldn’t be possible without NSF support—including funding from an NSF GRFP, an NSF PRFB, and NSF DMS & DBI grants. @soltislab.bsky.social l

Shelly Gaynor@shellygaynor.bsky.social · 2y ago

If you happen to be interested in the coexistence of diploids and tetraploids given modern coexistence theory and stochastic population dynamics - Check out our #JustAccepted paper at @asn-amnat.bsky.social doi.org/10.1086/734411

Someone on our team found this one: new.nsf.gov/events/propo...

Proposal Review Panels

new.nsf.gov

The consequences of polyploidy are... well, complicated. A deep dive into polyploidy in a massively successful tribe of grasses. A masterpiece led by Michelle Stitzer, representing the work of a lot of folks on the PanAnd project over last 7 years. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Extensive genome evolution distinguishes maize within a stable tribe of grasses

Over the last 20 million years, the Andropogoneae tribe of grasses has evolved to dominate 17% of global land area. Domestication of these grasses in the last 10,000 years has yielded our most product...

biorxiv.org