German Lagunas-Robles
@g-lagunasrobles.bsky.social
postdoc @ IU Bloomington (Bracewell Lab) genome evolution, sex chromosomes, beetles, ants 🧬🪲🐜
Job alert! Post-doc position available in the Tsutsui lab at UC Berkeley. I'm specifically looking for someone optimize and scale RNA interference for invasive ant control and eradication. Happy to take questions at ntsutsui@berkeley.edu. Spread the word! aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05325
Postdoctoral Scholar – Insect Molecular Biology – ESPM (Organisms & the Environment) - Tsutsui Lab
University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!
aprecruit.berkeley.edu
Our paper is out in @Science! The Atlantic silverside spans Earth's steepest latitudinal gradient in coastal sea-surface temperature. Despite high gene flow, populations show clinal genetic variation in multiple locally adapted traits. doi.org/10.1126/scie...
Thomas et al. reveal that positively selected and differentially expressed hippocampal genes cluster near breakpoints in shrews, tying chromosomal rearrangements and accessible chromatin to adaptation and brain size plasticity. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msag006 📷 Christian Ziegler #evobio #molbio
Check out our paper on the neo-sex chromosomes in mountain pine beetle! We assembled THREE neo-Ys that are quite distinct and their corresponding neo-Xs .
bioRxiv Genomics@biorxiv-genomic.bsky.social · 7mo agoThe tortured past of young polymorphic sex chromosomes revealed through multiple de novo genome assemblies of the mountain pine beetle https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.27.702068v1
Lethal epistasis maintains strong linkage disequilibrium between unlinked supergenes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.08.698410v1
New work from @miyapan.bsky.social and our team, bringing ant, bee, and wasp labs together. @chuanxinyu.bsky.social shows that the ANTSR locus we discovered in ants has determined sex for 150+ My across bees and stinging wasps 🐜🐝, despite virtually no sequence conservation 😮 doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
ANTSR seems to be the ancient master sex determining gene in Hymenoptera (as suggested by Pan et al. 2024)! So rad that a lncRNA is doing this! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Evidence for an ancient master sex determination gene in Hymenoptera
The vast majority of Hymenopterans determine sex by haplodiploidy, in which males and females develop from haploid unfertilized and diploid fertilized eggs, respectively. At the molecular level, the m...
biorxiv.org
New in @currentbiology.bsky.social "Genomic evidence of a complex supergene system linking dispersal to social polymorphism" #Myrmecina_graminicola Mona,S., Gay,E.J., Ducancel,J., Laso-Jadart,R., Chifflet-Belle, P., Doums,C. @isyeb.mnhn.fr @ephe-psl.bsky.social et al. 🐜 www.cell.com/current-biol...
Genomic evidence of a complex supergene system linking dispersal to social polymorphism
Mona et al. report a complex supergene system in the ant Myrmecina graminicola characterized by three alleles determining both the number of queens in a colony (monogyne vs. polygyne) and the presence...
cell.com
🧬🧬 A human supergene 🧬🧬 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
A human supergene: BRCA1, CCDC200, and U2 snRNAs
BRCA1 occurs on one of two major haplotypes in populations of European and Asian ancestry that show signs of selection and functional differences. Near-maximal linkage disequilibrium associated with t...
biorxiv.org
#Haplodiploid inheritance is found in all species of #Hymenoptera. @mwbstr.bsky.social &co map the #sex determining #gene of the red mason #bee to the ANTSR gene region, suggesting a shared, ancient origin of #SexDetermination in bees & ants >150 Mya ago @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/47COEtH
2 year postdoc position in evolutionary genomics at University of California, Riverside in the Purcell Lab! 🧬🐜
How many chromosomes can an animal have? In our paper out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social we show that the Atlas blue butterfly has 229 chromosome pairs- the highest in diploid Metazoa! These arose by rapid autosome fragmentation while sex chromosomes stayed intact. www.cell.com/current-biol...
Constraints on chromosome evolution revealed by the 229 chromosome pairs of the Atlas blue butterfly
The genome of the Atlas blue butterfly contains ten times more chromosomes than most butterflies, and more than any other known diploid animal. Wright et al. show that this extraordinary karyotype is ...
tinyurl.com
ggplot2 ethusiasts, new update just dropped! 🔥🔥🔥
Thomas Lin Pedersen@thomasp85.com · 12mo agoI am beyond excited to announce that ggplot2 4.0.0 has just landed on CRAN. It's not every day we have a new major #ggplot2 release but it is a fitting 18 year birthday present for the package. Get an overview of the release in this blog post and be on the lookout for more in-depth posts #rstats
I am beyond excited to announce that ggplot2 4.0.0 has just landed on CRAN. It's not every day we have a new major #ggplot2 release but it is a fitting 18 year birthday present for the package. Get an overview of the release in this blog post and be on the lookout for more in-depth posts #rstats
ggplot2 4.0.0
A new major version of ggplot2 has been released on CRAN. Find out what is new here.
tidyverse.org
A common type of ant in Europe breaks a fundamental rule in biology: its queens can produce male offspring that are a whole different species go.nature.com/4mOb5T9
‘Almost unimaginable’: these ants are different species but share a mother
Ant queens of one species clone ants of another to create hybrid workers that do their bidding.
go.nature.com
Check out our latest preprint in Formica ants! We investigate how the sex ratio supergene evolved. We find that a colony-level sex ratio supergene evolved twice! This likely occurred as a result of recombination between the the ancestral queen number supergenes present in Formica. 🧬🐜🧬🐜🧬🐜
bioRxiv Genomics@biorxiv-genomic.bsky.social · last yr.Multiple origins of a sex ratio supergene in Formica ants https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.27.672632v1
Excited to share some of the latest work coming from the Formica ant supergene system 🐜🧬! This project represents many collection trips and years of work! doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Variation in social organization and supergene control along a latitudinal gradient
Widespread species often experience vastly different environmental conditions across their range. In species with polymorphic traits under strong genetic control, we can investigate how environmental ...
doi.org
Very pleased to see this officially out - Genome Architecture and Speciation in Plants and Animals. With @siluwang.bsky.social, @dortizba.bsky.social and Loren Rieseberg. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
The #EditorsChoice for this month from EIC @maxreuter.bsky.social is "Unexpected absence of a multiple-queen supergene haplotype from supercolonial populations of Formica ants" by @g-lagunasrobles.bsky.social et al academic.oup.com/jeb/article/...
Unexpected absence of a multiple-queen supergene haplotype from supercolonial populations of Formica ants
Abstract. Ants exhibit many complex social organization strategies. One particularly elaborate strategy is supercoloniality, in which a colony consists of
academic.oup.com
Is supercoloniality a simple extension of polygyny?Supercolonies, networks of interconnected nests with many queens, have been proposed as a natural extension of multi-queen nests. In many Formica ants, a supergene determines whether a colony has a single queen or many queens. (1/n)
Journal of Evolutionary Biology@jevbio.bsky.social · last yr.An ancient Formica supergene is associated with single queen vs many-queen nests; the many-queen haplotype is missing from a supercolonial population and similar patterns noted in other supercolonial species @g-lagunasrobles.bsky.social, Zul Alam and Alan Brelsford doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...
A novel supergene controls queen size and colony social organization in the ant Myrmica ruginodis https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.24.644106v1
Dynamics of a supergene. A study of the BC supergene in wing color morphs of the African monarch #butterfly by @rishidekayne.bsky.social &co reveals dynamic evolution of #supergene haplotypes, fueled by incomplete recombination suppression 🧪 @plosbiology.org plos.io/3DiFhnL
Centromere evolution isn't a sudden switch! Our study shows centromere transitions are a step-by-step process driven by a combination of drift and selection. Discover how the kinetochore interface shapes this gradual change in our new preprint 🥳 doi.org/10.1101/2025.01.16.633479 🧵(1/8)
🦉🧪 Questions about high latitude myrtle warblers have been "up in the air" (pun intended) since 1899! @stephszarmach.bsky.social used fancy new geolocators that track light AND barometric pressure to add an unexpected chapter to this tale ......
Steph Szarmach@stephszarmach.bsky.social · 2y agoExcited to share our preprint on the migration of high-latitude breeding myrtle warblers! Using barometric geolocators and stable isotopes we found most birds migrated >5,000km to the Gulf Coast rather than to the closer Pacific Coast wintering area. biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
Our preprint on the unexpected absence of a multiple-queen supergene haplotype in supercolonial populations is up on bioRxiv! We found that the P haplotype is not necessary for supercoloniality in the Formica rufa group, despite its longstanding association with non-supercolonial polygyny.
bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology@biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 2y agoUnexpected absence of a multiple-queen supergene haplotype from supercolonial populations of Formica ants https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.09.15.613148v1
Happy to release Stacks v2.67 today. This release updates process_radtags to make it easier to use SRA data and to filter poly-G (error) runs coming from Nextseq/Novaseq machines + bugfixes. We also added a genotype depth filter to populations #RADseq catchenlab.life.illinois.edu/stacks/
Stacks
catchenlab.life.illinois.edu
New article: 'The role of conflict in the formation and maintenance of variant sex chromosome systems in mammals' 🔬 From fusions to Y chromosome loss, sex chromosome karyotypes vary widely in mammalian genomes. 1/3
With a link that works 😊
The genetic architecture of recombination rates is sexually-dimorphic and polygenic in wild house sparrows (Passer domesticus).
bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution
biorxiv.org
Susan Johnston@susanjohnston.bsky.social · 2y agoNew lab preprint by John McAuley et al: the genetic architecture of recombination rates is sexually-dimorphic and polygenic in wild house sparrows. What have we found…? A 🧵👇https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.26.525019v2
Hey ya'll. Our paper on the phenotypic consequences of intraspecific variation in repeat content and genome size was published over the holidays. Check it out when you get back to work :) journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...
Quantifying the role of genome size and repeat content in adaptive variation and the architecture of...
Author summary The remarkable and seemingly inconsequential variation in genome size across species has long been an enigma in evolutionary biology. Calling this viewpoint into question, correlations ...
journals.plos.org
