Is that Bayesian time of the year in #sistematicaunam @unam when we use the pain of non-convergence @nmkphylo.bsky.social experienced some years ago, that make for a great cautionary tale on parametric #phylogenetics

When I started my PhD ~10 years ago, only 2/5 echinoderm groups (the star-shaped sea stars and brittle stars) had genome-scale phylogenetic datasets. I am proud to say that the quest to complete the clade is now over doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

Phylogenomics of extant Crinoidea (Echinodermata) reveals extensive morphological homoplasies and a Permian origin

Abstract. Crinoids have Ordovician origins and are unique among living echinoderms in their attachment to the substrate. Most diversity is within Comatulid

doi.org

Becoming a part of the @systbiol.bsky.social community is one of my greatest scientific achievements. I am happy to celebrate this today with a journal cover and a nomination to the editorial team

Spring is here

Our latest paper, now how to conciliate apparently discrepant evolutionary rate patterns in squamates, but which may well apply to any study system with Stephanie Pierce and @7brumas.bsky.social #macroevolution academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...

Evolutionary rate incongruences in squamates reveal contrasting patterns of evolutionary novelties and innovation

Abstract. Understanding the rate of phenotypic evolution can reveal fundamental aspects of organismal evolutionary trajectories. Hence, several studies hav

academic.oup.com

I am extremely happy to see that our review on fossil tip-dating is out in early view in Systematic Biology! A huge thanks to all the authors of this massive project (@heckeberg.bsky.social, @basantakhakurel.bsky.social, Gustavo Darlim, and @hoehna.bsky.social)! academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...

🚨Palaeoverse Lecture Series🚨 🗓️25th September 2025, 15:00 UTC🗓️ Join us next week to hear from @nmkphylo.bsky.social and @russellgarwood.co.uk, on “The Tree of Life and Death: What do Fossil Taxa Contribute to Morphological Phylogenetics?” 🌳🐣⚰️ Register here: bit.ly/palaeoverse-...

Today I learned the (very) hard way that R will tell you a file does not exist even when it totally does if the path to it exceeds 260 characters (in Windows) (and you can enable long paths, but it is not the default)

A Sunday reading Fabre’s “Souvenirs entomologiques” by the fireplace is a Sunday well spent

🚨Palaeoverse Lecture Series🚨 It’s time to announce our Summer 2025 talk schedule 👀 Looking forward to hearing from @spissatella.bsky.social, @sauropodlets.bsky.social, @nmkphylo.bsky.social and @russellgarwood.co.uk! Sign up here: bit.ly/palaeoverse-lecture-series-2025

📢 Tired of choosing between fossils to incorporate into your phylogenetic analysis? Us too. 💥 Check out our new preprint on incorporating stratigraphic ranges into the FBD model, implemented in BEAST2. We explore how using ranges affects the inference of dog 🐶 and penguin 🐧 trees 🌳

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

Enhancing Evolutionary Timelines: The Impact of Stratigraphic Range Information on Phylogenetic Inference https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.17.649084v1

I'm recruiting a PhD student to join my lab at the University of New Orleans starting in Fall 2025. Research topics will focus on building and using phylogenies to study the diversification of birds, with an emphasis on Neotropical bird radiations. Contact me if interested.

I finally have something worth posting here! A new paper on wormsI never expected to see fossilised! Juracanthocephalus is the first body fossil of Acanthocephala and remarkably provides links with rotifers and other gnathiferans. Published in @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A Jurassic acanthocephalan illuminates the origin of thorny-headed worms - Nature

An acanthocephalan body fossil, Juracanthocephalus daohugouensis, is described from the Middle Jurassic Daohugou biota of China, showing previously unrecognized diversity in ancient Acanthocephal...

nature.com

The Malvinas War erupted 43 years ago. Its memory remains to this day alive in every corner

Ahh the smell of fresh reviews in the morning

Check out my interview with @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social for some thoughts on phylogenies, uncertainty, and the complexities of life as a scientist

Methods in Ecology and Evolution@methodsinecoevol.bsky.social · last yr.

Our next author shortlisted for the 2024 Robert May Prize is @nmkphylo.bsky.social 🏆 Head over to the Methods Blog to read about his research and his journal in ecology 🌎 🧪

Great ambient music, terrible phylogeny, highly uncertain ancestral state

Leken

YouTube video by Henrik Lindstrand - Topic

youtu.be

More good news!! Our (@russellgarwood.co.uk, @cambriannelids.bsky.social) 2023 article in Palaeontology is a #TopCitedArticle! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Inaccurate fossil placement does not compromise tip‐dated divergence times

Time-scaled phylogenies underpin the interrogation of evolutionary processes across deep timescales, as well as attempts to link these to Earth's history. By inferring the placement of fossils and us...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

One of the wood-associated seastars we described last year was chosen as one the top 10 new marine species of 2024! ⭐️

WoRMS@marinespecies.bsky.social · last yr.

(8/10) The Scripps Cousins Wood-Dwelling Seastar has some remarkable adaptations for life on sunken wood. marinespecies.org/worms-top-te... @scrippsocean.bsky.social #toptenmarinespecies #taxonomistappreciationday #OceanDecade #GenOcean #marinespecies #deepsea

Like morphometrics, micro-CT scanning, and morphological evolution? Then please consider applying for our 18 month postdoc position at the university of Southampton! Details here: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMF402/r...

The deep sea as a Dutch Golden Age painting

Cephalopods Daily@cephalopodsdaily.bsky.social · last yr.

I love photos like this. The octopus is just surrounded by a tuna crab buffet, but they are all just sort of chilling. 🦀🐙📷Dave (inaturalist.ca/observations...)

And finally have it in preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... In it, we (@basantakhakurel.bsky.social, @brenenwynd.bsky.social, @peterjwagner3.bsky.social, and Christian Kammerer) took a look at estimating a phylogenetic tree of dicynodonts using both discrete and continuous characters.

Incorporating continuous characters in joint estimation of dicynodont phylogeny

Continuous characters have received comparatively little attention in Bayesian phylogenetic estima- tion. This is predominantly because they cannot be modeled by a standard phylogenetic Q-matrix appro...

biorxiv.org

April Wright@wrightam.bsky.social · last yr.

Finally submitted the big manuscript that's been around too long

New preprint out with @echinerd.bsky.social et al. on total-evidence dating showcasing: 1) Sea urchins (the best clade) 2) Lyrics by Peter Gabriel-era Genesis (the best prog band) 3) Extreme effect of the type of relaxed clock on phylogenetic and macroevolutionary inferences (a bit scary honestly)

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

But the clock, tick-tock: the preeminence of relaxed clock models in total-evidence dated phylogenetics https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.28.640870v1

To celebrate the 7th month of our exile in 🇦🇷 (or 29.17% of our sentence), it sure is good to share with everyone that I have become a remote member of @trsimoes.bsky.social lab at Princeton EEB

I was sent this paper to review about a month ago by the journal MDPI Plants. After reading the abstract I decided not to. I will leave the abstract here without further comments. 1/7

phy_papers@phypapers.bsky.social · last yr.

Geometric Models of Speciation in Minimally Monophyletic Genera Using High-Resolution Phylogenetics https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40006789/

Altmetric has gone rogue with a rant about atonal music and metal. @russellgarwood.co.uk I bet you didn’t see that coming

Altmetric@altmetric.com · last yr.

THREAD BORN IN DISSONANCE An ophidian trek into the heart of how paradigm shifts can happen in modern music. www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtO3... 1/45

Urban paleontology

New paper in Systematic Biology with cool dude @jgsaulsbury.bsky.social academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...

The consequences of budding speciation on trees

Abstract. Paleobiologists have long sought to explain how alternative modes of speciation, including budding and bifurcating cladogenesis, shape patterns o

academic.oup.com

Job Alert: Senior Research Associate in Phylogenomics @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social researching timing, sequence and phenotypic consequences of rediploidisation following whole genome duplication - comparative genomics, molecular clock and phenotypic disparity methods, with @jameswclark.bsky.social

If you like snowflakes, check our new preprint about axial patterning in brittle stars ⭐ We looked at the expression of anteroposterior patterning genes in Amphipholis squamata juveniles, and compared it with existing data from other classes www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @lowelab.bsky.social