A paper that inspired and inspires my thinking a lot. Really happy to see it finally out.

Paco Majic@hhydrochaerus.bsky.social · 4w ago

What drives the variation in mutation rates between seals and walruses, gulls and pelicans? Maybe selection counteracting the burden of deleterious mutations- or maybe it is a spandrel, a neutral byproduct of the diversification of development and life-history academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

Do social bird species have more stable demographic histories? We do not find this to be the case in our new preprint doi.org/10.32942/X2N... Together with @ryangermain.bsky.social and many others

What drives the variation in mutation rates between seals and walruses, gulls and pelicans? Maybe selection counteracting the burden of deleterious mutations- or maybe it is a spandrel, a neutral byproduct of the diversification of development and life-history academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

Mutation rate variation as the neutral byproduct of developmental and life history diversification

Abstract. Understanding why species differ in their rates of mutation is central to explaining patterns of molecular and phenotypic evolution. Mutation rat

academic.oup.com

The first preprint from my PhD is out! :thread: How does an animal choose between two completely different reproductive fates? Here’s how one planarian does it :point_down: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Life-cycle trajectory inference links temperature-gated progenitors to reproductive fate

Temperature shapes reproductive strategies across animals, yet how individuals switch between sexual and asexual reproduction remains unknown. We establish the planarian Phagocata morgani as a model f...

biorxiv.org

The lab is at #SMBE2026! Come see @junishigohoka.bsky.social talk on Wednesday in the "Fitness Landscapes" symposium @3:50pm. Jun will talk about our theoretical and experimental efforts to understand the implications of *probabilistic* GP maps for evolution (in contrast w *deterministic* GP maps).

First pre-print from the lab, a collaborative effort led by Jess Bourn @bournsupremacy.bsky.social, a fantastic PhD in my group. We resolve a key problem in development + evolution: how do we quantify heterochrony and link temporal variation to phenotype? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Quantitative mapping of heterochrony to species-specific phenotypes

The genetic program of animal development is conserved, but its rate of execution varies across species. Heterochrony, shifts in the relative timing of developmental events, generates phenotypic varia...

biorxiv.org

🚨FULLY FUNDED PHD POSITION!🚨 If you are interested in trying to answer the question of "How did climate shape the movements, interactions, and evolution of hominin populations?" Come join my lab at @humanorigins.bsky.social 🧬🧪 deadline 7th of June ⬇️ uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet...

🦈🧠2 JOB OFFERS in the brand-new Neuroshark group starting at the Institute of Neuroscience Paris-Saclay (NeuroPSI)? Lab manager: www.linkedin.com/posts/idoia-... Bioinformatician: www.linkedin.com/posts/idoia-... Curious about the lab but not your profile? Feel free to contact me

Lab manager job | Idoia Quintana Urzainqui

JOB OPPORTUNITY 🦈 🧠 🔬. We are looking for a Lab Manager to help establish a new group studying shark embryos to understand the origin of the vertebrate brain. Reach out if this motivates you. We’re ba...

linkedin.com

Excited to share my first preprint from my PhD w/ @justinmcrocker.bsky.social. We show that cell type-specific regulatory dominance promotes robustness and evolutionary innovation through interallelic transcriptional hubs, potentially expanding the mutational paths available to diploids. (1/18)

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology@biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Interallelic cis-regulatory dominance promotes robustness and evolutionary innovation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.17.712157v1

Heya science peeps, my first first-author paper is on Biorxiv! We show how transcriptome-wide expression variability in outbred animals responds massively to an environmental stressor and is underpinned by cryptic variability- (not just mean-) controlling alleles. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Rethinking insecticide toxicology for the 21st century: a review written with Philip Batterham. Led by Lautaro Gandara @embl.org and Felipe Martelli: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Rethinking insecticide toxicology for the 21st century

Insecticides remain indispensable for crop protection and food security, yet their widespread use may contribute to the global decline of beneficial i…

sciencedirect.com

Inspired in this iconic Guarda course, a group of four Latin American researchers organized the South American version: #EvoSur. The masterminds behind this amazing idea: Paco Majic (Uruguay) @hhydrochaerus.bsky.social, Santi Herrera (Colombia), Caua Westmann (Brasil) and Ana Maria Agapito (Perú).

Richard Lenski@relenski.bsky.social · 8mo ago

The 2026 Guarda Summer Course in Evolutionary Biology is now accepting applications. Amazing place, amazing course, amazing opportunity for early grad students. tb.ethz.ch/education/gu...

Con estudiantes y profesores de cada rincón de Nuestraamérica 🇧🇴🇵🇾🇧🇷🇦🇷🇪🇨🇨🇱🇻🇪🇨🇴🇺🇾🇵🇪, el taller EvoSur de biología evolutiva transcurrió la semana pasada con total éxito! Nos encontramos 34 personas —estudiantes, profesores y organizadores— en el balneario Playa Verde, Maldonado, Uruguay.

🔊 ¡Llamado a pensar la evolución desde el sur! Invitamos a estudiantes de maestría y doctorado en biología evolutiva de Sudamérica a postularse a EvoSur. 🧬 Un espacio para intercambiar ideas, debatir evolución y tejer redes científicas con todas las voces, todas: sites.google.com/view/evosur2...

EvoSur

MOTIVACIÓN

sites.google.com