Tessera

Michael Matschiner

@mmatschiner.bsky.social

Professor of Systematic Zoology at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich Director of Bavarian State Collection for Zoology

48 Posts529 Follower 191 Folgt

Adam Phillippy @aphillippy.bsky.social · 3d ago

For the past 30 years, “whole-genome sequencing” has been a misnomer. Today the T2T Consortium publishes a dozen papers heralding a future of truly complete genomes for humans and nearly any vertebrate 👨‍🔬🐒🐦🐀🦒🐎🫏🐹🐟 (sorry, no salamanders): www.cell.com/consortium/t... 🧵[1/15]

Kieran Samuk @ksamuk.bsky.social · 6d ago

Just posted: a group paper describing major updates to my software pixy, for population genetic summary statistics. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... New since 2021: arbitrary ploidy, multiallelic sites, missingness-aware Watterson's θ and Tajima's D, Hudson's FST, multicore execution!

Alt text: Schematic of the pixy workflow. Left, inputs: a bgzipped, tabix- or CSI-indexed VCF with callable sites supplied as an all-sites VCF or gVCF blocks, a populations file, and optional BED and sites files. Centre, core: windowing by fixed width, BED or region; statistic selection; options for Hudson's FST, multiallelic SNPs, automatic ploidy detection and multicore execution. Right, outputs: one TSV per statistic for pi, dxy, FST, Watterson's theta and Tajima's D, with raw count columns for exact aggregation. Bottom, development: GitHub fork and pull request, local checks with ruff, mypy and pytest, continuous integration across Python 3.10 to 3.14, and distribution through conda-forge. Features new since the 2021 release are badged "new".

KamilSJaron.bsky.social @kamilsjaron.bsky.social · 2w ago

New preprint: 338 coleopteran genomes reveal exceptional rearrangement variation compared to other insect orders. Big congrats to @arf-mln.bsky.social, for getting this giant piece together. Big collaboration of @joanameier.bsky.social's and my groups. 🧵👇 doi.org/10.64898/202...

Phylogeny of 338 species with tips painted by the chromosomal ancestry of their contemporary genomes (well separated colours indicate only few changes, while blending indicates rearrangements). Colouring of the branches is by the number of rearrangements. The ring between paints and phylogeny indicates wether the chromosomal rearrangement was fusion dominated (brown) or fission dominated (teal) process.
Photo credits: Udo Schmidt, Lech Borowiec, JL Tachet, David Navrátil, Fred Chevaillot, Siga, Cosmin Manci, John Hallmén, Igor Souza-Gonçalves, Alex Hyde, H. Coiffait, David Ignace, Yves Bousquet.

Debbie Leigh @debbiemleigh.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Come work with me unlocking the secrets of island genetic diversity patterns! And exploring how the severely elevated genetic erosion we have previously shown on island systems might impact communities. #postdoc #job #germany senckenberg.softgarden.io/job/65352091...

Postdoctoral Researcher in Macrogenetics (f/m/d) at Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung

We're looking for: Postdoctoral Researcher in Macrogenetics (f/m/d) (Full or Part Time) • Frankfurt am Main, Deutschland

senckenberg.softgarden.io

Joana Meier @joanameier.bsky.social · 4w ago

Can highly recommend joining Emília's awesome group in Cambridge.

Emília Santos@emiliapsantos.bsky.social · 4w ago

🎨 job alert 🐠 Come join us! We have two positions open! These are part of our @erc.europa.eu funded project on the mechanisms underpinning convergence of colour patterns in cichlid fishes! Closing date: 16th August. Postdoc: www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/researc... Technician: www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/researc...

Tom Near @tjnear.bsky.social · last mo.

🧵1/11 New paper alert! One of 2 out today from #NearLab. Tunas are basically the superheroes of the ocean — warm-blooded, massive, and blazing fast. But HOW did they get that way? A new study just cracked open 50+ million years of evolutionary history. Let's dive in. 🐟⬇️

Vertebrate Genomes Project @vertebrategenomes.bsky.social · last mo.

🚨 MANUSCRIPT ALERT 🚨 The VGP Phase I manuscript pre-print is now live on bioRxiv! 🧬 doi.org/10.64898/202... Over 8 years, the VGP generated reference genomes for more than 800 vertebrate species, spanning ~95% of vertebrate orders and delivering some of the highest-quality genomes ever produced.

A graphic announcing the release of the Vertebrate Genomes Project Phase 1 manuscript on bioRxiv with drawings of various vertebrate creatures.

The title and author list of the VGP manuscript, "The Vertebrate Genomes Project Phase I: A global reference genome resource"

A QR code linking to the pre-print of the VGP manuscript

LIB-MorphoLab @lib-morpholab.bsky.social · last mo.

The application deadline for the #Curator (m/f/d) of #Ornithology position at @leibnizlib.bsky.social in Hamburg has been extended to 30 August 2026. 🐦🦉🦅🪶🥚 More details and apply here: 8101202752.karriereportal.cloud/job/2026-18-.... Please share.

Karriereportal

Karriereportal für Bewerbungen

8101202752.karriereportal.cloud

LIB-MorphoLab@lib-morpholab.bsky.social · 2mo ago

📢Job alert: #Curator (m/f/d) for the #Ornithology collection at @leibnizlib.bsky.social in Hamburg. 🐦🦉🦅🪶🥚 Application deadline: July 1, 2026. For more details and application see: 8101202752.karriereportal.cloud/job/2026-18-.... Please share.

Michael Matschiner @mmatschiner.bsky.social · last mo.

Great opportunity:

Wolf Lab@jochenwolflab.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Looking for a postdoc opportunity in evolutionary genetics? Join the Wolf Lab at LMU Munich. job-portal.lmu.de/jobposting/7...

Hernán E. Morales @hernmoral.bsky.social · last mo.

Just in time for #SMBE2026, our new preprint is out: using 130 genomes spanning ~200 years, fitness data and simulations, we show that conservation rescued the Mauritius kestrel from extinction, but not from genomic erosion. 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #popgen #consgen #conservation

Prosanta Chakrabarty @prosanta.bsky.social · last mo.

Y'all - the Smithsonian is hiring three new curators - herpetology, ichthyology, and ornithology! Notably, this is a 2nd fish curator position - i.e., not the same as the one advertised last month. So if you applied for that one apply again. www.usajobs.gov/job/873849000

Curator of Vertebrates

Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History currently has openings for three early-career Research Curators in Vertebrate Zoology, one each from the disciplines of ornithology, herpetology and ichthyology. The Department of Vertebrate Zoology seeks candidates with demonstrated expertise in, and a commitment to, collections-based research centered on systematics and evolution of birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes. This includes the ability to pursue an original approach to systematics and comparative analyses using, for example, morphology, development, and/or molecular data, and showing evidence of broader impacts or applications in evolutionary biology and/or collections-based ecology, as demonstrated by a record of peer-reviewed publications.

Candidates must have demonstrated the ability to establish an externally funded research program and to contribute to the growth and curation of the collections. Research in the Department is supported by the Museum’s shared laboratories, including the Laboratory of Analytic Biology and the Scientific Imaging facility, among others. The Department’s scientific collections are the largest in the world for fishes, amphibians, and reptiles, and the third largest for birds.

These federal positions will be filled at the GS-12 level, with a starting salary of $102,415, and excellent benefits. The positions are permanent and require a one-year probationary period.

The official announcement is posted on USAJOBS, where applications must be submitted.
https://www.usajobs.gov/job/873849000

Please be sure to read the announcement and instructions carefully, as the process of applying via USAJOBS is stringent and differs from applying for an academic position. This website offers helpful advice: https://serc.si.edu/careers/tips-applying-federal-jobs

Please contact the Search Committee Chair, Michael McGowen (mcgowenm@si.edu) or the Department Chair, Helen James (jamesh@si.edu) with any questions.

Emily Troyer @fishfetisher.bsky.social · 2mo ago

New preprint on Eupercarian fishes is here! We present a new phylogeny and skull shape analysis of this massive clade! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Ecological axes of skull diversification in a massive vertebrate radiation

Eupercarian spiny-rayed fishes are one of the largest vertebrate radiations, rivaling mammals and occupying nearly every aquatic habitat. We present a densely sampled, time-calibrated phylogenomic fra...

biorxiv.org

Chase Brownstein @chasedbrownstein.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Please join me next Tuesday at 3:15 PM (Room 21) at #Evol2026 to learn about the complex history of complex trait loss, extinction, and evolutionary radiation in extreme ecosystems in a clade of thousands of fishes!

Molly Przeworski @mollyprz.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Now published: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

What sets the mutation rate of a cell type in an animal species?

Mutation rates per generation are strikingly similar across germlines of animals and across at least one somatic cell type, suggesting a key role for natural selection in shaping mutation rates. This ...

journals.plos.org

Molly Przeworski@mollyprz.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Happy to highlight an essay I wrote together with @marcdemanuel.bsky.social, @natanaels.bsky.social and Anastasia Stolyarova, trying to think through what sets the mutation rate of a cell type in an animal species: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/n

Jocelyn Anderson Photography @jocelynanderson.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A male Baltimore Oriole flying across the nature path to chase away a Blue Jay that has gotten too close to the nest.

Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Led by the incomparable Sanaa El-Sayed, a study out today in Science Advances throws open an important new window on marine fish diversity during the critical few million years following the K-Pg mass extinction. Below: artistic vision of the new fauna by Ian Baylatry.

Illustration of many fishes swimming in sunlit blue water.

Matthew Hahn @3rdreviewer.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Very happy to announce a big new paper from the lab, led by grad students @smishra677.bsky.social and Laia Pomar-Pallarès (in collaboration with @roblanfear.bsky.social). We introduce a new way to study introgression, with accompanying software (DAFT) 1/n 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.org

European Commission @ec.europa.eu · 4mo ago

Big opportunities for researchers 🌍 We are investing nearly €400 million to help researchers share their work and collaborate with the best scientific teams across the EU. The 2026 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships are now open. More: link.europa.eu/PNxpxw

Molecular Biology and Evolution @molbioevol.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Wong et al. present IQ-TREE version 3, with new features including mixture models, gene and site concordance factors, integration with phylogenomic divergence time estimation, and a fully featured sequence simulator. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msag117 #evobio #molbio #compbio

MBE | IQ-TREE 3: phylogenomic inference software using complex evolutionary models

Mozes Blom @moosblom.bsky.social · 3mo ago

🚨 Wanted: PhD student excited about population genomics, Natural History Collections and birds! 📍 Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany 🕒 3 Years, funded by the Leibniz Junior Researchgroup program Details and Application portal 👇 jobs.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin/jobposting/d...

12/2026 PhD student (f/m/d)

jobs.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin

Molly Schumer @mollyschumer.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Job ad now available here: careersearch.stanford.edu/jobs/life-sc...!

Life Science Research Professional 1 in School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford, California, United States

Life Science Research Professional 1 (On-Site Only)This position has been deemed critical by the School of Humanities and Sciences Dean’s Office and.....

careersearch.stanford.edu

Molly Schumer@mollyschumer.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Please share widely! We will imminently be posting a technician position in our lab group since @rheasood.bsky.social is off to grad school 🙌! If you know of anyone excited about molecular biology, evolution, and functional genomics please have them reach out (schumer at stanford). Start date ~June

Naturkundemuseum Stuttgart @smnstuttgart.bsky.social · 4mo ago

The Natural History Museum Stuttgart is seeking to fill a position as Curator / Researcher (m/f/d) in Ichthyology Permanent, full-time (80–100%) Remuneration in accordance with TV-L E13 Application deadline: 17/05/2026 ➡ Further information: https://t1p.de/3svwg

Kurator/in (m/w/d) für Ichthyologie gesucht — Naturkundemuseum Stuttgart, ab sofort; naturkundemuseum-bw.de/en/jobs

Andrew Digby @digs.bsky.social · 4mo ago

This year's #kakapo breeding season has been the biggest on record: - 256 eggs (252 in 2019) - 148 fertile eggs (116 in 2019) - 105 eggs hatched (86 in 2019). It'll be 2+ months until we know how many chicks will fledge (73 in 2019). There are currently 95 alive. #conservation #kakapo2026 #birds

A female kakapo on a nest facing the camera, with a young chick in front of her. Credit: Andrew Digby

Andrew Roger @andrewjroger.bsky.social · 5mo ago

So you are using IQ-TREE to estimate a tree for "deep time" phylogenetics using amino acid alignments. There is a lot of confusion about how to test model fit. Here are some suggestions.

Silas Tittes @silastittes.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Thought I would share this famous analogy from Felsentein’s book I just re-stumbled on. Just in case you’re bug in a box and missed it 😜

Bugs in a box-an analogy
We can make a physical analogy (if a somewhat fanciful one) by considering a box containing hyperactive, indiscriminate, voracious, and insatiable bugs. We put k bugs into the box. They run about without paying any attention to where they are going. Occasionally two bugs collide. When they do, one instantly eats the other.
Being insatiable, it then resumes running as quickly as before. It is obvious what will happen. The number of bugs in the box gradually falls from k to k - 1, to k-2, as the bugs coalesce, until finally only one bug is left.
The analogy is actually fairly precise. The number of pairs of bugs that can collide is k(k - 1) /2. If there are 2N "places" in the box that can be occupied, the probability of a collision will be proportional to k(k - 1)/4N. The size of the population corresponds to the size of the box. A box with twice as many "places" will slow the coalescence process down by a factor of two. So a simpleminded physical analysis of the bugs-in-a-box process will have the Kingman coalescent distribution as the probability distribution of its outcomes.

Rachel Warnock @rachelwarnock.bsky.social · 5mo ago

I’m looking for a post doc (up to five years) interested in phylogenetics and earth systems - please spread the word!

Barbara Kleine-Marshall@barbaraikm.bsky.social · 5mo ago

We are looking for 6 motivated Postdocs interested in various aspects of Earth system sciences. More information here: fau-earth-system-science.github.io #geochemistry

Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 6mo ago

Dinosaurs And Non-Dinosaurs xkcd.com/3204/

Comic. [2x2 chart. Top left quadrant: seem like dinosaurs x are dinosaurs. Silhouettes of dinosaurs stegosaurus, triceratops, tyrannosaurus, velociraptor, and long-neck dinosaur. Top right quadrant: seem like dinosaurs x are not dinosaurs. Silhouettes of mosasaur, quetzalcoatlus, dimetrodon, plesiosaur, and pteranodon. Bottom left quadrant: don’t seem like dinosaurs x are dinosaurs. Silhouettes of penguin, egret, ostrich, pigeon, falcon. Bottom right: don’t seem like dinosaurs x are not dinosaurs. Silhouettes of squirrel, stapler, plant, person, and bicycle.]

Thomas Desvignes @notothentoma.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Only ~3 weeks left to submit abstracts to the @scar-antarctic.bsky.social meeting in Oslo! Come present your work on Antarctic and/or sub-Antarctic fish evolution in session#21 convened by @mmatschiner.bsky.social, Julia York, Jin-Hyoung Kim, and myself! All the fishes are welcome!❤️🐟🧪🌎🇦🇶 scar2026.org

Home | SCAR open science conference

scar2026.org

The Onion @theonion.com · 6mo ago

Reptile Handler At Birthday Party Ruthlessly Heckled By 6-Year-Old For Showing Amphibian https://theonion.com/reptile-handler-at-birthday-party-ruthlessly-heckled-by-6-year-old-for-showing-amphibian/

Rabih Alameddine @rabihalameddine.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Charley Harper, "Darwin's Finches", from "The Giant Golden Book of Biology", 1961