🚨Our new preprint is out! 🤩 🌟 Mutation rates vary widely across taxa, and decades of research have sought to explain why. ♀️♂️ Reproductive modes, and evolutionary shifts between them, could help explain some of this variation. ❓ So what does the evidence tell us? 👀 Read our preprint to find out!

I know lots of Canadians want to celebrate this as a “win” but it isn’t. We have consistently underfunded our universities and research capacity for decades. Adding big names that eat up a lot of capital will not improve our science at all. #Canada www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/art...

Canada recruits dozens of foreign scientists, researchers, poaching many from U.S.

Canadian universities have recruited dozens of foreign scientists and researchers, many of them poached from prestigious U.S. institutions.

ctvnews.ca

How do you turn a purple flower white? Another from lab, led by @damianmicroeco.bsky.social and Emily Glasgow, with big contributions from Martin Henry, Margaret Li, and Amanda Peake. Mendelian Polymorphisms for the Win! #evolbio #plantscience

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology@biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 3mo ago

A rare deletion of BZ1 in the ivy-leaf morning glory eliminates anthocyanin-based pigmentation. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.08.730875v1

Check out our new issue - including the Editor's Choice article by @jeromeburkiewicz.bsky.social et al! They show that despite phenotypic plasticity, flower morphology of the spotted jewelweed has evolved in urban habitats to better suit bumblebees, their main pollinators doi.org/10.1093/evle...

Op-ed by CSEE council members Laurence Feyten, Simon Joly and CSEE member Fanie Pelletier in response to the discussion paper of the Government of Canada, which proposes significant setbacks in the environmental assessment processes for major economic projects. @lapresse.ca

CSEE_SCEE@csee-scee.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Texte d'opinion de Laurence Feyten, Simon Joly et Fanie Pelletier en réaction au document de travail déposé par le gouvernement du Canada qui propose des reculs importants dans les processus d'évaluation environnementale pour les grands projets économiques. www.lapresse.ca/dialogue/opi...

Texte d'opinion de Laurence Feyten, Simon Joly et Fanie Pelletier en réaction au document de travail déposé par le gouvernement du Canada qui propose des reculs importants dans les processus d'évaluation environnementale pour les grands projets économiques. www.lapresse.ca/dialogue/opi...

Grands projets économiques | Le pari risqué du recul des garde-fous environnementaux

Le Canada souhaite accélérer la réalisation de grands projets économiques au nom de la souveraineté énergétique et commerciale. Dans le contexte géopolitique actuel, cet objectif peut paraître raisonn...

lapresse.ca

Thursday morning at #CSEE2026, M.Sc. student Sufia Khader (@sufflox.bsky.social) is going to present her work on the characterization of the extent of vegetative reproduction in the endangered plant Polemonium vanbruntiae using genomics. Don’t miss this! 📅 Thursday 🕚 11am 📍 BA-1240

I also have a poster presenting the results from M.Sc. student Édouard Courret and Ph.D. student @jeromeburkiewicz.bsky.social on the relationship of flower colour and fitness in Impatiens capensis. Come and chat with us! #SCEE26

Want to learn more about the pace of sex chromosomes evolution in a young system? Then come see my presentation about guppies this afternoon! 🐟 📍BA-2185, 4h30 pm. And stay tuned for @squarehare.bsky.social's talk right after mine! #CSEE2026

🚨 My very first postdoc paper is out! 🐠 We show that the Y chromosome of the swamp guppy (Poecilia picta) has rapidly degenerated, losing genes, shrinking, and filling up with transposable elements, while the X responds by exporting key male genes to autosomes. 🧵⬇️ 1/6 📷Joëlle Lafond

🚨 My first first-authored paper is out in @evolletters.bsky.social 🌆🏵️ Urbanization changed the pollinator community and flower morphology of Impatiens capensis. 🐝 The size of bumblebees—the main pollinators—correlated with sepal size, driving selection for larger sepals in urban populations. 🧵⬇️

Evolution Letters@evolletters.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Urban habitats reshape pollinator communities and flowers respond: jewelweed sepal size evolves via plastic and genetic changes. By @jeromeburkiewicz.bsky.social @simjoly.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/evle... image credit Wim Rubers @Wikimedia

1 billion percent endorse this. My colleague @mfrederickson.bsky.social and I share this paper when teaching field courses....

Darren Dahly@statsepi.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Every day is a good day for sharing one of the most useful papers about research data ever written. PLEASE get your people to understand and follow this advice. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Absolutely essential reading for anyone considering those "unicorn" hiring positions in Canada. Observations from researchers who are already there: www.nature.com/articles/d41... 🧪

The problem with Canada’s plan to buy scientific prestige

The government’s plans to poach 100 US researchers might make good economic sense. But what about the existing community?

nature.com

Folks, the use of AI to write reviews is a clear violation of peer review ethics + it endangers the authors' intellectual property rights. Don't do it.

BWJones@bwjones.bsky.social · 6mo ago

<sigh> One reviewer used AI to review our manuscript. How do we know? Suggested papers to cite that do not exist. Some titles correct, but everything else is wrong or just fabricated out of whole cloth. Requested citations for things I’ve said in review papers that were citing other papers.

McGill Biology is hosting a panel to showcase non-academic careers in Biology. Come listen to former PhDs and MScs now working in non-profits, industry, and government. biologygraduatestudent.association.mcgill.ca/events/career-panel Come out on Tues, March 24 from 2-4:30pm @biomcgill.bsky.social

Check out AJB's special issue "Paradigm shifts in flower color" a bunch of cool papers on flower coloration with a focus on non-pollinator drivers of color variation 🌸🌼🌺https://bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/15372197/2026/113/1

Special Issue: Paradigm Shifts in Flower Color: American Journal of Botany: Vol 113, No 1

Click on the title to browse this issue

bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

A student wrote to me after the midterm, and they said they should have gotten a lower grade. I think this is important, because I fundamentally disagree with this student, and it took me a while to articulate why. This is my rough draft. 🧵

Do you want to do a Masters in Evolutionary Biology? The call for applying to the MEME program is now open! MEME is a fantastic 2-year MSc between four European Universities on all areas of Evolutionary Biology. Apply and study in Sweden/France/the Netherlands/Germany/USA/Switzerland! www.evobio.eu

📢 Prochain séminaire // Next conference AI tools in scientific writing: Should you? And how? 👨‍🔬 Stephen B. Heard, U New Brunswick 📅 Mercredi, 10 septembre 2025, 13:30 📍 Centre sur la biodiversité, B-104

Si vous êtes à Montréal mercredi, vous devriez venir écouter le séminaire de @stephenbheard.bsky.social sur l'utilisation de l'IA en rédaction scientifique! 🧪 If you are in Montreal on Wednesday, you should definitely come to @stephenbheard.bsky.social's talk on AI in scientific writing! 🧪

IRBV@irbv.bsky.social · last yr.

📢 Prochain séminaire // Next conference AI tools in scientific writing: Should you? And how? 👨‍🔬 Stephen B. Heard, U New Brunswick 📅 Mercredi, 10 septembre 2025, 13:30 📍 Centre sur la biodiversité, B-104

📢 Prochain séminaire 👩‍🔬 Silvana Martén Rodriguez, UNAM 🧪 Changing tracks towards the summit: pollination and breeding system shifts along tropical mountain gradients 📅 Mercredi 27 août 2025 à 11h30 à l’IRBV (B-354).

Is the Most Effective Pollinator Principle a zombie idea? How do plants adapted to one pollinator shift to another without traversing an adaptive valley? How should we measure fitness in pollinator selection studies? We explore these questions and more in a new review doi.org/10.1093/aob/...

Beyond the Grant–Stebbins model: floral adaptive landscapes and plant speciation

AbstractBackground. Floral diversity, a striking feature of angiosperm evolution, provides the impetus and rationale for linking pollinator-driven selectio

doi.org

Interested in sex chromosomes evolution and want to wrap up today’s talks on a colorful note? Come see my presentation on guppy sex chromosomes today, July 8th! 🐠 #CSEE2025 ⌚16h15, 📍 Lac Memphrémagog

Hey #CSEE2025 interested in flowers, natural selection, urbanization or any combination of the three? I’m presenting results of my thesis at 11am today in the urban ecology session (Rivière Coaticook)

Simon Joly@simjoly.bsky.social · last yr.

You have to come and see the talk of @jeromeburkiewicz.bsky.social that will test if urbanization affects natural selection by pollinator on flower shape. #CSEE2025 It is at 11:00 in Rivière Coaticook

🚨 My first first-authored paper is out on bioRxiv! 🌆🏵️ Urbanization changed the pollinator community and flower morphology of Impatiens capensis. 🐝 The size of bumblebees—the main pollinators—correlated with sepal size, driving selection for larger sepals in urban populations. 🧵 More below ⬇️

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology@biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · last yr.

Urbanization drives genetic and plastic responses of the spotted jewelweed flower morphology https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.10.658901v1

Je suis heureuse d’annoncer l’obtention d’une bourse postdoctorale du FRQ pour mon projet sur les conséquences de la perte de recombinaison génétique chez les guppys, dans le labo de Judith Mank (UBC)! Je présenterai ces travaux au #SCEE2025 à Sherbrooke cet été – au plaisir de vous y voir!

If you hate statistics like I do, then you'll love my free lectures. Putting science before statistics, 20 lectures from basics of inference & causal modeling to multilevel models & dynamic state space models. It's all free, made with love and sympathy. 🧪 #stats www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

🌧️🌵 Climate extremes are reshaping the world of pollinators! A new study reveals that a decrease or excessive increase in water availability can negatively affect the reproductive potential of plant species & pollinators collecting their nectar. 🌍🧪 Learn more: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Extreme events induced by climate change alter nectar offer to pollinators in cross pollination-dependent crops - Scientific Reports

Scientific Reports - Extreme events induced by climate change alter nectar offer to pollinators in cross pollination-dependent crops

nature.com

Exciting news! @wcratcliff.bsky.social and I published an essay last week in @nature.com reviewing the substantial contributions of 'long-term' studies to evolutionary biology www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/n

Really excited to say that my lab's paper on color transitions in Mimulus sect. Erythranthe is out! We found that some traits demonstrate evolutionary convergence in phenotype & genotype, while others are divergent, & that - as Bob Vickery found - bees prefer yellow! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Within-species floral evolution reveals convergence in adaptive walks during incipient pollinator shift - Nature Communications

During evolution, how adaptive walks cross fitness valleys remains unclear. This integrative study on monkeyflowers reveals that convergence in large steps (floral color and gene expression) drives a ...

nature.com