Cannot be more excited about the lineup for the inaugural Function of Evolving Systems GRC conference I am co-organizing with the amazing Joy Bergelson. Less than a month away: August 9 - 14, 2026. Still a few spots left! And do check out the amazing list of speakers: www.grc.org/function-of-...

We are very excited to share our latest. We thought that soft sweeps would be the only type of sweep spreading across human gut microbiomes. Turns out many are hard! Reach @peterlaurin.bsky.social 's thread on why! And tomorrow at #SMBE2026 I will share this work and more!

Peter Laurin@peterlaurin.bsky.social · last mo.

Super excited to share new work with my advisor @nanditagarud.bsky.social! We re-examine the rapidity of adaptation in the human gut microbiome and begin to characterize the adaptive architecture of selective sweeps spreading across human guts. www.biorxiv.org/content/10... 1/n:

UCLA is so lucky to have this amazing course by @clsong.com !

Chuliang Song@clsong.com · 2mo ago

Spent the last two years developing a new Intro to Physics course for undergrad biology majors. It features tons of examples from biology (especially Ecology & Evolution!) and requires only middle school-level math. Lecture note here shorturl.at/0PiVp Any comments or feedback are highly welcome!

Our paper entitled "The persistence and loss of hard selective sweeps amid admixture in ancient Eurasians" is now out in PNAS! www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1.... A really fun and informative collaboration with @mharris.bsky.social, Ziyi Mo and Adam Siepel. (1/n)

The persistence and loss of hard selective sweeps amid admixture in ancient Eurasians | PNAS

The extent to which human adaptations have persisted throughout history despite strong eroding demographic events such as admixture, genetic drift,...

pnas.org

I am excited to share our latest paper, Uniform bacterial genetic diversity along the gut, now out in Nature Communications! www.nature.com/articles/s41.... (1/n)

I am seeking a postdoc to join my group at UCLA -- ideally the candidate would have some experience in either population genetics or microbes/microbiome (computational background needed). We have a range of projects and are happy to tailer to your interests. Please dm/email me if interested.

Grateful to share our paper on gene-specific selective sweeps in human gut microbiomes, now out in Nature! It has been a joy to work with @rwolff.bsky.social, whose insights and hard work made this possible. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Gene-specific selective sweeps are pervasive across human gut microbiomes - Nature

Development and application of the integrated linkage disequilibrium score (iLDS) reveals both selective pressures impacting the human gut microbiome and the mechanisms by which gut bacteria adapt to ...

nature.com

New research in #GENETICS from @azurita.bsky.social, Christopher Kyriazis, and @klohmueller.bsky.social demonstrates how unmodeled selection on synonymous mutations may affect downstream inferences of the distribution of fitness effects. buff.ly/IDY87W1

Delighted to see our paper studying the evolution of plasmids over the last 100 years, now out! Years of work by Adrian Cazares, also Nick Thomson @sangerinstitute.bsky.social - this version much improved over the preprint. Final version should be open access, apols. Thread 1/n

Excited to share a new preprint w/ the Sonnenberg lab, led by Matt Carter, @zzzhiru.bsky.social & @mattolm.bsky.social. We analyzed the microbiomes of two non-industrialized populations from opposite sides of the globe to try to reconstruct the recent evolutionary history of our gut microbiota.

Prehistoric Global Migration of Vanishing Gut Microbes With Humans

The gut microbiome is crucial for health and greatly affected by lifestyle. Many microbes common in non-industrialized populations are disappearing or extinct in industrialized populations. Understand...

biorxiv.org

I am seeking a postdoc for my group at UCLA. We work at the intersection of population genetics x microbiome (garud.eeb.ucla.edu). If interested, please message me!

The Xue lab at UC Irvine is looking for a staff scientist to support our work investigating how microbes interact and evolve in the gut microbiome! Open to a wide range of previous experience levels, see ad for more. recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF09601

Junior, Assistant, or Associate Specialist – Xue Lab

University of California, Irvine is hiring. Apply now!

recruit.ap.uci.edu

So excited to see @alisonfeder.bsky.social among the winners of the freeman hrabowski award!! www.hhmi.org/programs/fre...

The 2025 Freeman Hrabowski Scholars | HHMI

Freeman Hrabowski Scholars are outstanding early career faculty who have the potential to become leaders in their research fields.

hhmi.org

Super excited to share my latest preprint with @klohmueller.bsky.social! Here we leverage the unique signature that recessive deleterious variants can lead to an increase in archaic ancestry to tackle a classic question - the dominance distribution on the human genome www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Neanderthal introgressed ancestry reveals human genomic regions enriched with recessive deleterious mutations

Negative natural selection on deleterious mutations plays a key role in shaping human genetic variation. Understanding the dominance of deleterious mutations is critical as it can fundamentally impact...

biorxiv.org

We are thrilled to share that our paper entitled "Inference of the demographic histories and selective effects of human gut commensal microbiota over the course of human history" is officially out in MBE! academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-...

Inference of the demographic histories and selective effects of human gut commensal microbiota over the course of human history

Abstract. Despite the importance of gut commensal microbiota to human health, there is little knowledge about their evolutionary histories, including their

academic.oup.com

Thrilled to share my Perspective piece "Assembly Graph as the Rosetta Stone of Ecological Assembly" in Environmental Microbiology! Huge thanks to @asanchezlab.bsky.social for the invite & reviewers for insightful feedback.

Assembly Graph as the Rosetta Stone of Ecological Assembly

This paper introduces the assembly graph as an integrative lens to unify ecological assembly theories across dynamical, informational, and probabilistic approaches. In addition to theory, it also pre...

enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

UCLA QCBIO is looking for its next director! Please consider applying! recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF10007

Director, Institute for Quantitative and Computational Biosciences

University of California, Los Angeles is hiring. Apply now!

recruit.apo.ucla.edu

Finally, our paper, "A Conserved Bacterial Genetic Basis for Commensal-Host Specificity," has been officially published in Science. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A conserved bacterial genetic basis for commensal-host specificity

Animals selectively acquire specific symbiotic gut bacteria from their environments that aid host fitness. To colonize, a symbiont must locate its niche and sustain growth within the gut. Adhesins are...

science.org

Apply to work with Katherine! A fantastic opportunity!

Katherine Xue@ksxue.bsky.social · 2y ago

Hi friends new and old! I study how microbes interact and evolve in complex communities like the human gut microbiome.🦠🧬💩 I'm thrilled to share that I'm starting a lab at UC Irvine in April 2025 and am recruiting at all levels - please spread the word! kxuelab.com More about my work below...🧵1/n

Hi friends new and old! I study how microbes interact and evolve in complex communities like the human gut microbiome.🦠🧬💩 I'm thrilled to share that I'm starting a lab at UC Irvine in April 2025 and am recruiting at all levels - please spread the word! kxuelab.com More about my work below...🧵1/n

Xue lab at UC Irvine

Ecology and evolution in the human gut microbiome

kxuelab.com

Delighted to share that our paper on discovering selective sweeps with haplotype statistics in aDNA is now out in Nat. Comm! www.nature.com/articles/s41... Wonderful collaboration with Vagheesh Narasimhan, Devansh Pandey, and @mharris.bsky.social

Leveraging ancient DNA to uncover signals of natural selection in Europe lost due to admixture or drift - Nature Communications

Large-scale ancient DNA (aDNA) studies offer the chance to examine genomic changes over time, providing direct insights into human evolution. Here the authors use aDNA from 708 European samples to ide...

nature.com

Hi all! I'm excited to announce a tenure track faculty position in conservation genomics in EEB at UCLA! We're looking for candidates who use genomic tools to study evolutionary processes related to conservation. Note, the actual application deadline is Nov 29. recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF09875

Conservation Genomics Faculty Position

University of California, Los Angeles is hiring. Apply now!

recruit.apo.ucla.edu

Job alert! We are searching for a faculty member to join us @UCLAEEB in the area of Conservation Genomics. I have had very positive experiences here at UCLA and would be happy to chat with you if you are interested! Please apply and be my colleague! recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF09875

Conservation Genomics Faculty Position

University of California, Los Angeles is hiring. Apply now!

recruit.apo.ucla.edu

The UCLA Goodman-Luskin Endowed Postdoctoral Fellowship in Microbiome Research ($100K in salary + supplies) deadline is June 1. Get in touch if you would like to write a proposal together! And, get in touch even if your timeline is different - I am looking for a postdoc!

Excited (and relieved!) to share that my 1st paper in grad school finally came out in PLOS Biology! We were motivated by a very basic question: how fast, really, do bacteria exchange DNA in the human gut? (1/n)

Dynamics of bacterial recombination in the human gut microbiome

Recombination is a ubiquitous force in bacterial evolution, but its dynamics are poorly characterized in many natural populations. This study presents a metagenomic approach for quantifying the landsc...

t.co

Really proud of this work with Richard Wolff on detecting selective sweeps that have spread across host microbiomes. I leave for you an animation we made featuring the highlights of our paper. Ricky has done a great job sharing some highlights of the paper below. garud.eeb.ucla.edu/pervasive-se...

Ricky Wolff@rwolff.bsky.social · 3y ago

I'm so excited to share this new paper (with my great advisor @nanditagarud.bsky.social), on selective sweeps in gut bacteria. In this long thread, I’m going to go over our results, but I also want to highlight some of the incredible work that set the stage for us www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We are delighted to share our work on “Inference of the demographic histories and selective effects of human gut commensal microbiota over the course of human history”! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Please check out the full tweet thread and GIF here: twitter.com/nanditagarud...

I am looking for a graduate student and a postdoc to join my group! We are a computational group working on understanding evolution in natural populations with a large emphasis on the microbiome. Please get in touch by dm or email! garud.eeb.ucla.edu