new paper in @molecology.bsky.social from MVLS-DTP @uofgmvls.bsky.social research of @teamlizard.bsky.social 's J Smout 🧬 gene expression & alternative splicing in a viviparous lizard; new candidate genes + some known from other amniotes 👀🦎 @sbohvm.gla.ac.uk onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Gene Expression and Alternative Splicing Throughout the Reproductive Cycle of a Viviparous Lizard Reveal Novel Genes for Pregnancy and Convergence With Squamates and Mammals

Squamate pregnancy is an important topic in reproductive and evolutionary biology, as it provides insight to amniote live-bearing that is not mammalian. Gene regulation in squamates is poorly charact...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

🧬 New from Aqil et al! 📄 Mismapping of sequencing reads from polymorphic duplications generates spurious trans-eQTLs

Mismapping of sequencing reads from polymorphic duplications generates spurious trans-eQTLs

Polymorphic gene duplications absent from the reference genome can generate spurious trans-eQTLs. Specifically, variants tagging the polymorphic duplicate may masquerade as trans-eQTLs regulating the ...

cell.com

(1/10) The majority of human genetic variation is located in non-coding regions. The great challenge of the post-genomic era is to assign function to these variants. We reasoned that combining haplotyping with allele-specific multiomics can help pinpoint the functional ones: rdcu.be/fgr5W. A thread:

Mapping functional non-coding variation in individual human genomes through haplotyping, multiomics, and deep learning

Nature Communications - How non-coding mutations in DNA contribute to phenotypes is a largely unresolved question. Here the authors integrate personal genomics and machine learning to identify...

rdcu.be

Thanks to a couple of recent Ws on the funding front, we have 3 open postdoc positions in Helsinki, Finland in the field of salmonid fish ecological and evolutionary genomics. DL 7.8. More details in advert: jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...

Nature research paper: Alternate RNA decoding results in stable and abundant proteins in mammals go.nature.com/4vtxVUh

Alternate RNA decoding results in stable and abundant proteins in mammals - Nature

Alternate RNA decoding, an understudied process, leads to peptide sequence modifications that can have substantial functional effects on protein stability, tissue-specific proteomes and disease.

go.nature.com

Our brilliant PhD students are at #SMBE2026 ! S22: P334 Rachel Carboni with snMultiomics S22: P339 @xindih.bsky.social with epistasis vs modularity in GRNs (w/ @fishcongen.bsky.social) S22: talk at 17:45 @jennisiren.bsky.social with GxE in gene expression (w/ main sup @pyhatanja.bsky.social)

Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution@official-smbe.bsky.social · 2mo ago

#SMBE2026 S22: Evolution of gene regulation: insights from novel molecular and statistical approaches 🗓️ Wed Jul 1, 1:20pm - Part 1 🗓️ Wed Jul 1, 3:50pm - Part 2 🔗 smbe2026.org/programme

Published version @pnas.org of our collaborative work with Talia Karasov Lab (tkarasovlab.org) et al., 🧵👇 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... @cloeucl.bsky.social @ugiatucl.bsky.social @ucllifesciences.bsky.social @uofubiology.bsky.social #microsky #phagesky

Hernán A. Burbano@hernanaburbano.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Our new collaborative work led by @taliamycota.bsky.social Jiajun Cui & Emma Caullireau between my lab @ucllifesciences.bsky.social @cloeucl.bsky.social & the Karasov Lab (tkarasovlab.org) @uofubiology.bsky.social and collaborators: @plantricia.bsky.social et al. tinyurl.com/5yx2wmz5 (1/n)

What an incredible new paper out today in @science.org, led by Frederickson Lab member @usuitakuji.bsky.social (from his PhD work with Amy Angert)! Competition increased adaptation to warming across replicated miniaturized "landscapes" using duckweeds as a model plant community

Takuji Usui | 薄井拓路@usuitakuji.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Excited to share our new paper in which we test how competition alters adaptation at a warming range edge @science.org We find that competition can increase adaptation to warming when there is a shared evolutionary response to both biotic and abiotic drivers of selection: tinyurl.com/3j8s9t8b

Exciting breakthrough technology from the lab, now live in @cellcellpress.bsky.social ! Instead of cutting the genome where proteins bind (e.g., Cut&Tag), D&D-seq scars the DNA with a deaminase, allowing single cell genome mapping of TFs and chromatin remodellers!

Much has been written about The Selfish Gene, and few books have been both as influential and as persistently contested. To commemorate its 50th anniversary, here are some brief thoughts in the latest issue of @science.org. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A provocative view of evolution turns 50

The Selfish Gene continues to challenge readers half a century later

science.org

Emilio Egal’s first PhD paper on the effects of dispersal on fitness in wild Atlantic salmon, using a 15-year genetic pedigree comprising more than 1,100 adults and 3,400 juveniles! @inrae-france.bsky.social @inrae-ecobiop.bsky.social @cbgpmontpellier.bsky.social @ofbiodiversite.bsky.social

Selection against dispersers: sex, age and origin-dependent fitness differences in wild Atlantic salmon

Abstract. Local adaptation is often portrayed as uniform fitness disadvantages of immigrants relative to locals. Yet dispersal costs vary with origin, sex

royalsocietypublishing.org

Have you ever wondered if fish yawn? (and if they do, what that tells us about yawning?) The first preprint from the lab and a serendipitous observation ⬇️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

1/6) What if aging begins, in part, as a bargain made in youth? In turquoise killifish, editing vgll3—a gene linked to puberty-timing in humans and salmon—revealed one of the first causal single-gene examples of antagonistic pleiotropy in vertebrate aging 🧵

Twenty five years on from Dolph Schluter's book "The Ecology of Adaptive Radiation" that reshaped the way adaptive radiation was studied, this review revisits key questions raised to evaluate the progress made over the past quarter century, 8 of which remain unresolved...🌍🧪👇

‘The ecology of adaptive radiation’ revisited: A 25-year reflection

Abstract. Twenty-five years ago, the book The Ecology of Adaptive Radiation by Dolph Schluter presented a testable framework that integrated ecology, genet

doi.org

Reinforcement influences the ability of cryptic female choice to exert conspecific sperm precedence in hybridizing Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and brown trout (Salmo trutta) https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.08.723816v1

Excited to share this new pre-print from the fantastic @kelsiehunnicutt.bsky.social! Kelsie put together a thoughtful and thorough review on hybridization in animal evolution: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v.... She tracks notable shifts in perspectives on the study of hybridization through time.

From diminishing returns to entrenchment: a unifying theory of epistasis along adaptive walks revealed by Fisher's geometric model https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.07.723117v1

New TREE paper led by Jana Nickel on 'Hitchhiking of deleterious mutations within chromosomal inversions' doi.org/10.1016/j.tr... Broadly, if inversions are linked to an adaptive trait, homokaryotypes are at high frequency, and purging can reduce deleterious mutation load.....

Heidbreder et al. leveraged natural hybrids of wood ant species to highlight the underappreciated impact of Bateson-Dobzhansky-Muller incompatibility connectivity on the persistence of reproductive barriers over time. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msag063 #evobio #molbio #speciation

Genomic incompatibilities are persistent barriers when speciation happens with gene flow in Formica ants

Abstract. A current goal of speciation research is identifying loci underlying reproductive barriers between species. Locating barrier loci in population g

doi.org

Join us in wishing a massive happy 100th birthday to the man who has inspired millions of people around the world to care about nature and look after our planet - the incredible Sir David Attenborough! 🎉

What drives the evolution of life histories at the species, population, or molecular level? Why are these Atlantic salmon so incredibly small? We are inviting potential candidates to express their interest to write a MSCA postdoctoral fellowship with us: euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/hosting...

"AI-assisted grants produced more research, but not necessarily more breakthroughs."

Stephen Turner@stephenturner.us · 3mo ago

AI Is Changing Who Wins Research Grants: niinstitute.kellogg.northwestern.edu/press/ai-is-...

New paper! 70 years since their introduction via a sewer, we detailed the unexpected Great Lakes pink salmon invasion history, their plasticity to adapt to new environments, and research needs relevant for managing the species everywhere! 🦑🐟🌎 @evathorstad.bsky.social doi.org/10.1111/faf....

The Forgotten Pink Salmon in the Laurentian Great Lakes: An Unexpected Invasion With Insights for Three Oceans

Introductions of species outside their native range, such as pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) in the Laurentian Great Lakes, can serve as unplanned experiments that provide new insights into ecol....

doi.org

Interested in pleiotropy dissection but not sure where to start, which methods are useful, which studies offer illustrative examples, or how to robustly validate your results? Look no further 👀 rdcu.be/eSfAZ

Dissecting pleiotropy to gain mechanistic insights into human disease

Nature Reviews Genetics - Genome-wide association studies of increasing scale have revealed the prevalence of pleiotropic genetic variants that affect multiple traits. In this Review, the authors...

rdcu.be

Ever wondered what makes some alleles dominant (A) and others recessive (a) ? In our new paper, we explored how a series of recently discovered "dominance modifiers", genetic elements that have long remained elusive, achieve their regulatory function. journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

Dominance modifiers at the Arabidopsis self-incompatibility locus retain proto-miRNA features and act through non-canonical pathways

Author summary Many plants avoid self-fertilization through a system of self-incompatibility, which allows them to recognize and reject their own pollen. In plants like those in the Arabidopsis family...

journals.plos.org

Ongoing DFO cuts to the Genomics Program and across the organization further compromise the capacity to conduct critical research evaluating the impacts of cumulative stressors and pathogens on salmon survival and to aid in the conservation of imperiled stocks 🧪🌎🌐🦑🐟 thetyee.ca/News/2026/04...

Salmon Scientists Warn the DFO Is Killing a Crucial Lab | The Tyee

The genomics program opened up the ‘black box’ of wild fish research. Former and current staff say it’s been gutted.

thetyee.ca

Our new paper is officially out in @newphyt.bsky.social! We disentangle how plants balance the trade-offs between rapid growth and water conservation. We found that Cape Verde Arabidopsis use a highly coordinated drought escape strategy driven by pleiotropic genes.

New Phytologist@newphyt.bsky.social · 3mo ago

The genetic basis of multi-trait drought escape in colonizing A. thaliana lineages Elfarargi et al. @ahmedelfarargi.bsky.social @ahancock.bsky.social @apmweber.bsky.social @mpipz.bsky.social @trr341.bsky.social @ceplas.bsky.social nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

This is wild: the authors find evidence for giant, macro-predatory octopuses in Late Cretaceous oceans that might max out at *62 feet long,* comfortably large enough to attack, kill and eat mosasaurs

Earliest octopuses were giant top predators in Cretaceous oceans

Top predators drive changes in ecosystem structure. For the last ~370 million years, large-sized vertebrates have dominated the apex of the marine food chain, while invertebrates have served as smalle...

science.org

Uzezi Okinedo and @brooklebee.bsky.social characterized pleiotropy in local adaptation in endemic sunflower populations that exhibit bimodal life-history strategies. Their results support a model of ecotypic divergence under gene flow. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evag098 #genome #evolution #PlantSky

Safe to say that we are very excited about this here at ESEB! Huge thanks to Brian Golding for entrusting us with the fantastic service that you have created and curated for the years! Follow @evoldir.bsky.social

EvolDir@evoldir.bsky.social · 4mo ago

📣 EvolDir is now managed by @eseb.bsky.social! We are delighted to be taking the reins and express our gratitude to both Brian Golding who began this service to the community in the mid-1980s and to @rdmpage.bsky.social who ran this account until now 👏 You can now find evoldir here: evoldir.net