Many years ago, my lab helped to discover YUCCAs. Later, Jia-Wei Wang in the lab sussed out the role of miR156s in a range of developmental processes. And now YUCCA and miR156 reappear as partners in this beautiful paper from the Lenhard lab! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #plantscience

Some avocados are female in the morning and male in the afternoon, while others are on the opposite schedule. This helps them avoid self-pollination. How do they do it? A @ucdavis.bsky.social study explains. www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/st...

Study Reveals How Avocados Reverse Sexes Throughout the Day

Some avocados are female in the morning and male in the afternoon, while others are on the opposite schedule. How avocados do this has been unclear — until now, thanks to a UC Davis study.

ucdavis.edu

Y and W sex chroms are enigmatic. Compared to the rest of the genome, they show distinct structure and diversity, and are notoriously difficult to assemble. Work led by @mdalikova.bsky.social investigates these patterns for the W chromosome of silkworm, Bombyx mori www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Wrong but useful: Bombyx silkworm W chromosome assemblies are flawed but still capture strongly reduced diversity of repetitive DNA

Degenerate sex chromosomes ( e.g., the Y or W) remain among the most difficult regions of eukaryotic genomes to assemble because they are highly repetitive and structurally complex. While many recent ...

biorxiv.org

CRISPR-mediated centromere fission generates neochromosomes with distorted meiotic inheritance in Arabidopsis biorxiv.org/content/10.6... new preprint from us - includes changing the Arabidopsis karyotype from 5 -> 6 chromosomes using Cas9 & outcomes of 5/6 chromosome hybrid meiosis

Very happy to see this study out! The transition from outcrossing to selfing involve convergent patterns of flower trait covariation academic.oup.com/aob/article/...

The Schatz Center is recruiting a postdoctoral scholar with experience in whole-genome resequencing to study how demography, genetic variation, and selection interact to contribute to range expansion and adaptation. Come join us!! #evolutionarygenomics psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/PSU_Academic...

Postdoctoral Scholar - Adaptive Evolutionary Genomics

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS: CURRENT PENN STATE EMPLOYEE (faculty, staff, technical service, or student), please login to Workday to complete the internal application process. Please do not apply here, a...

psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com

PhD Position at Uppsala University. Sophie Karrenberg’s Lab. the project is about sex chromosome evolution in plants. Come join us! Deadline 22 July. www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

🚨Interested in #evolutionary #genomics and #popgen #theory? My lab just opened a 1+ year #postdoc position to work on sex chromosome dosage compensation. At #CEFE Montpellier 👉 bit.ly/4eMWDIh Informal enquiries welcome to me🙂 or Paul Saunders and Sylvain Glémin at #SMBE2026 Thanks for sharing!

Here is some weekend reading for you 👉 www.cell.com/current-biol... Our special green issue, chokeful of reviews and short-format introductory pieces on plant #evolution! 🌱🌿🌵🍃 #Plants

Darwin was fascinated by primrose flowers coming in two forms. We were fascinated by a different question: Wow does this system arise at genetically, and what happens when it evolves more than once? Our new paper in #ScienceAdvances @science.org has the answers! 🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Distinct genomic architectures but the same gene underlie the convergent evolution of a plant supergene

High-quality genome assemblies from multiple plant species reveal different paths of evolution in supergenes.

science.org

Honored to have been invited to speak at the retirement symposium of my PhD advisor, Elena Conti 🙏 A wonderful celebration of a remarkable scientific career, shared with incredible scientists!

A big preprint from my group! Muller Elements are considered to be conserved in flies. We tested it by reconstructing the ancestral dipteran karyotype using 340 chromosomal genomes and suprise suprise, they're not... Led by @juliagries.bsky.social and Sam Ebdon. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧵👇

Glad to see this collaborative work now published in #GenomeBiology, uncovering unexpected diversity in the fascinating and underexplored UV #sexChromosomes of liverworts! 🧬 #Genomics #PlantGenomics #Evolution #EvolutionaryGenomics

Peter Szovenyi@peterszovenyi.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Liverwort sex chromosomes are much more diverse than previously thought. Huge PAR, small SDR in Blasia pusilla, and some ideas about the ancestral/derived nature of homomorphic vs. heteromorphic UV sex chromosomes. link.springer.com/article/10.1... @gpotente.bsky.social @uzh-ch.bsky.social

Bryophytes: natural incubators of new gene evolution #plantscience

Bryophytes: natural incubators of new gene evolution

De novo gene origination from noncoding regions is a major source of genetic innovation. Dong et al. [1] (Nat. Genet. 2025; 57:2562–2569) reveal that bryophytes harbor an exceptionally high abundance of such genes, establishing them as a new and key system for studying the mechanisms and evolutionary consequences of new gene emergence in plants.

dlvr.it

I'm recruiting PhD students for the Barker Lab @uofa-eeb.bsky.social We study plant evolutionary genomics - polyploidy, hybridization & machine learning for genome evolution. Work with Selaginella, Xanthisma, Brassica & more. Funding available via CAMBIUM Fellowships. Reach out if interested! 🧬🌵🤖

And look at this graphic abstract….. 😱🤯

Bryan White, MS Bio, MPH 🧬@crvscience.com · 10mo ago

Homie got 229 pairs of chromosomes www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

- "What should I say if someone calls - like, you’ve won the Nobel prize or something?" - "Just tell them I’m living my best life"

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 10mo ago

Nobel committee unable to reach prize winner who is ‘living his best life’ hiking off grid

New preprint! In collaboration with @ergabiodiv.bsky.social, we explored the convergent #evolution of the S-locus #supergene controlling distyly in the #primrose family. Link: doi.org/10.1101/2025... #heterostyly #genomics #preprint #bioRxiv

✨Don't miss the N&V✨ 📰The dawn of bryophyte genomics is here. By Giacomo Potente, Yuling Yue & Péter Szövényi. ⬇️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The dawn of bryophyte genomics is here - Nature Genetics

Bryophytes are a widespread group of land plants that occupy nearly all biomes, yet their genetics and evolutionary history have long remained underexplored. Now, a study that generates extensive genomic data for bryophytes highlights de novo gene formation and horizontal gene transfer as key forces that shape bryophyte diversity and adaptation.

nature.com

*Postdoc in Evolutionary genomics at Stockholm University* We are recruiting a postdoc for a large interdisciplinary project to investigate evolutionary drivers and genomic consequences of pollen evolution in response to pollination mode shifts in flowering plants. 1/5 su.varbi.com/what:job/job...

Check out our new preprint! We compare sequence versus synteny approaches for resolving a challenging #phylogenetic problem. In this case, synteny is far more informative! Also includes the first chromosome-level #genome for the enigmatic #fish family Gyrinocheilidae. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Excited to share that my first News & Views is out in @natgenet.nature.com! Together with Yuling Yue and @peterszovenyi.bsky.social, we highlight a landmark study presenting 100+ bryophyte genome assemblies and what they reveal about plant evolution. 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The dawn of bryophyte genomics is here - Nature Genetics

Bryophytes are a widespread group of land plants that occupy nearly all biomes, yet their genetics and evolutionary history have long remained underexplored. Now, a study that generates extensive geno...

nature.com

Where does pollen go after leaving a flower? Our paper on pollen fates in buzz pollinated flowers is out. Congrats to the three brilliant undergrads that carried out this study from beginning to end! pollinationecology.org/index.php/jp...

🌱 How does polyploidy shape plant reproduction? Excited to have contributed to a new study in @molbioevol.bsky.social on the loss of distyly in the polyploid Primula grandis! doi.org/10.1093/molb...

Genomic Patterns of Loss of Distyly and Polyploidization in Primroses

Abstract. Transitions from outcrossing to selfing and from diploidy to polyploidy often co-occur in plants, likely because the ability to produce selfed se

doi.org

*Job alert* Come work with us! We have a fully funded 4yr #PhD position in #alpine & #Arctic plant #ecology available in our group @unibas.ch. The project includes fieldwork & connects to other ongoing projects on species range shifts & microclimate. jobs.unibas.ch/offene-stell... Please repost! 🌐🧪

Universität Basel: PhD position in alpine and arctic plant ecology

The research group Ecology at the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Basel in Switzerland invites applications for a fully funded four-year PhD position in alpine and arctic pla...

jobs.unibas.ch

Delighted to see this piece celebrating 60 years of the University of Leicester’s Department of Genetics! 🧬 I spent a few months there as an Erasmus student and I have great memories of the brilliant people met there. Here’s to the next 60! 🥂

Turi King@turiking.bsky.social · last yr.

Lovely article by @edhollox.bsky.social in the @gensocuk.bsky.social magazine about the University of Leicester's Department of Genetics reaching the grand old age of 60! 🧬😊

🚨Preprint🚨 Sex chromosome identification & genome curation from a single individual with SCINKD www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Incredible work led by @drpintothe2nd.bsky.social in collaboration w/ @drsimonegable.bsky.social @stuartvnielsen.bsky.social @tonygamble.bsky.social SE Keating & CH Smith

Some months later, work is now published @natcomms.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Evolutionary conservation of the grape sex-determining region in angiosperms and emergence of dioecy in Vitaceae - Nature Communications

Domesticated grapevine produces hermaphroditic flowers, while other Vitis species are dioecious. The authors report that the Vitis sex-determining region contains flowering-related genes conserved acr...

nature.com

Dario Cantù@cantulab.bsky.social · 2y ago

New preprint from the lab biorxiv.org/content/10.1... describing the conservation of the grape sex determining region (SDR) across angiosperm genomes and detailed history within Vitaceae leading to dioecy in Vitis and Muscadinia. Collaboration with

'They say there's a need to create such a service in case U.S. funding is curtailed or the quantity or quality of its 37 million citations fall victim to politicization, or a DOGE-like chain saw attack of its trained personnel, sources told MedPage Today.' www.medpagetoday.com/special-repo...

Germany Plans Global Alternative to PubMed

In the wake of a brief PubMed outage, team launches project to ensure uninterrupted access

medpagetoday.com

The WorkflowHub registry has a global reach, with hundreds of research organisations involved, and more than 800 workflows registered. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #bioinformatics #FAIR

WorkflowHub: a registry for computational workflows - Scientific Data

Scientific Data - WorkflowHub: a registry for computational workflows

nature.com