So proud of this manuscript- lead by the fantastic @henryarenas.bsky.social with two undergraduates (Cage Cochran and Quinn Evans) each doing a Herculean effort during their honors theses, and Hongfei Chen helping out tremendously with lab work. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Maintenance of phenotypic divergence in two sympatric monkeyflowers with weak reproductive isolation

Sympatric species often exhibit permeable reproductive barriers, yet many of them coexist as phenotypically distinct entities. One way to account for this apparent paradox is that selection on loci th...

biorxiv.org

Working with mitogenomes for eDNA, phylogenetics, etc, but not sure what's available on GenBank? Maybe your study group has weird mitogenome features? Come explore with with my new GenBankMitoReview tool! github.com/dmacguigan/G... #DNA #bioinformatics #eDNA #GenBank

I am incredibly thrilled to announce that I will be starting as an Assistant Prof at Yale EEB in January 2027!! 🎉🎊 Stay tuned for student and postdoc openings, and please feel free to reach out to me if you are interested in eco-evo, range dynamics, species interactions, and global change! 🌐🌱🦠🧬

I talked about this at PEQG a few weeks ago. In addition to github.com/RILAB/argprep (preps your genome assemblies for SINGER), argtest github.com/RILAB/argtest does some QC to clean up an ARG estimated with SINGER.

Minibwa is a hybrid of bwa-mem and minimap2 and the successor of bwa-mem for short-read mapping. ~4X/2.5X as fast as bwa-mem/bwa-mem2 for WGS reads at comparable accuracy. Native support of directional bisulfite-seq. Applicable to long reads. Preprint at arxiv.org/abs/2606.15357

A team led by the @leibnizipk.bsky.social and @fz-juelich.de has developed an AI-model that predicts where regulatory proteins bind to plant DNA in order to switch genes on and off. The study has been published in "Nature Communications". ➡️Paper: tinyurl.com/mryxendn ➡️PR: tinyurl.com/37kpbpzh

Just got back from an incredible week at #PEQG2026 packed with learning, great science, and exciting conversations!🌱 I had the opportunity to present my ongoing research on a #pangenomic perspective on #NLR gene diversity in #Mimulus. Grateful for the inspiring talks, workshops, and conversations!

Researchers have identified superparamagnetic macrophages in the livers of rock pigeons to be crucial for magnetic sensing. The finding uncovers an unexpected role for immune cells in sensory perception and may fundamentally change our understanding of animal navigation. https://scim.ag/4nTQ3nq

5 Jahre #IchBinHanna. Alle sind sich inzwischen einig, dass sich grundlegend was ändern muss. Zig konstruktive Vorschläge. Und dann das: Der neue Referentenentwurf fürs #WissZeitVG ist 1 Witz. Und zwar 1 ganz schlechter. Meine Einordnung ⬇️ #IchBinHanna @drkeichhorn.bsky.social @kubon.bsky.social

We are often asked whether pangenomes are worth the hassle. The files can be large and methods to explore them are much more challenging than linear references. Earlier this week, we preprinted a clear example of how and why pan-genome graphs are so important for trait discovery.

bioRxiv Genomics@biorxiv-genomic.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Dissecting the regulatory and genomic drivers of the dichogamy determining G-locus in pecan https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.14.725045v1

I am SO THRILLED to share our first fully-lab lab paper!!!!!! Led by @hybridzones.bsky.social & @hagarsoliman.bsky.social, w/ a major assist from @pfschwarz.bsky.social!!!!!!!!!!!!! Read more below, if you're curious (you should be- it's AWESOME!!!!!!!) link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Introgression and parental conflict shape repeated occurrences of postzygotic isolation in Mimulus

Postzygotic reproductive isolation is often thought to accumulate as a byproduct of neutral divergence. Yet it frequently evolves rapidly, in line wit…

sciencedirect.com

Gestern hab ich bekannt gegeben, dass ich spätestens 2028 aus der Wissenschaft aussteigen werd — darüber schreibt @evamurasov.bsky.social nun im @tagesspiegel.de. Zig Kommentare & Nachrichten zeigen mir: Sehr viele Wissenschaftler_innen hadern. Bedingungen müssen dringend besser werden! #IchBinHanna

#IchbinHanna-Gründerin schmeißt hin: Amrei Bahr wurde Juniorprofessorin – und verlässt die Wissenschaft

Mit ihrem Einsatz für bessere Arbeitsbedingungen an Unis wurde Amrei Bahr bekannt und löste eine Bewegung aus, die das Wissenschaftssystem ändern will. Jetzt gab die Juniorprofessorin ihren Ausstieg a...

tagesspiegel.de

Biological invasions present an interesting paradox: often little genetic variation is accompanied by dramatic ecological success. Led by PhD student Chris Osborne, we evaluated genetic diversity in a classic invader, brown treesnake on Guam. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Photo: Pavel Kirilliov

@stressedbranch.bsky.social

Botanical Society of America@botsocamerica.bsky.social · 6mo ago

🏵 Check out the latest #AJB Synthesis article, by Haley Branch! 🏵 The sleeping giant needs coffee: Overlooked areas for integrating plant #ecophysiology & evolutionary biology doi.org/10.1002/ajb2... #botany #plantscience #ecology #evolution

We’re excited to share the Pan-genomes Doorstep Meeting @ #PEQG26! Join this 3-hour workshop on evolutionary applications of pangenomics, covering construction, analysis, phylogenetics, annotation & graph QC. Register separately or as an add-on to PEQG: genetics-gsa.org/peqg-2026/do...

Pan-genomes Meeting - 2026 Population, Evolutionary, and Quantitative Genetics Conference

Visit our website to learn more.

genetics-gsa.org

This article is now published! academic.oup.com/nargab/artic... We’ve added a few new analyses. First off, we show that, while gene presence absence variation (PAV) scales with evolutionary distance in both plants and animals, the base level and rate of accrual are both twice as high in plants.

Evolutionary and methodological considerations when interpreting gene presence–absence variation in pangenomes

Abstract. While graph-based pangenomes have become a standard and interoperable foundation for comparisons across multiple reference genomes, integrating p

academic.oup.com

John Lovell@jotlovell.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Determining presence-absence variation (PAV) across reference genomes is a major goal of pangenome analysis. It turns out that A LOT of gene PAV is due to methodological artifacts. We explore the causes of this in soybean and cotton datasets in our recent preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Slim 5 can now simulate genomes with multiple chromosomes like autosomes, sex chromosomes, mitochondria and chloroplast dna academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

SLiM 5: Eco-evolutionary Simulations Across Multiple Chromosomes and Full Genomes

Abstract. Evolutionary simulations of multiple chromosomes, even up to the scale of full-genome simulations, are becoming increasingly important in populat

academic.oup.com

I am very excited to share our new paper with my amazing co-authors and mentors @dmacguig.bsky.social @fishgenomes.bsky.social @tjnear.bsky.social . We investigate a secondary contact zone in #darters. track.smtpsendmail.com/9032119/c?p=...

Mosaic tri-lineage secondary contact shapes diverse genomic outcomes in darters

Abstract. Speciation does not always lead to complete reproductive isolation, which can result in hybrid zones with gene flow. In freshwater fishes, second

track.smtpsendmail.com

Go read our new pre-print!

Jenn Coughlan@jenncoughlan.bsky.social · 10mo ago

We're on a roll: Super proud of this paper lead by Dr. Megan Frayer & GS Hagar Soliman (with a major contrib from GS Pia Schwarz): Introgression and Parental Conflict Shape Repeated Occurrences of Postzygotic Isolation @hybridzones.bsky.social @hagarsoliman.bsky.social @pfschwarz.bsky.social

At the same time, Dr. Megan Frayer was finding that these two species have a ✨sorted✨ history of gene flow, including introgression of a large chromosomal inversion that has been previously implicated in hybrid seed inviability

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media.tenor.com

but here's where things get spicy: in her rotation project, Pia showed that the genetic basis of hybrid seed inviability is in fact SHARED between two such incidences involving two different (and phylogenetically distinct) species.

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She followed up with super awesome embryo rescues to show that these incidences of hybrid seed inviability arise in the endosperm, & that hybrid seeds show parent-of-origin biased growth effects, following some predictions that hybrid seed inviability may be evolving via parental conflict

Then Hagar stepped up to the plate: she showed that RI follows a geographic rather than phylogenetic pattern: populations that are closer together have the same patterns of crossing. Importantly, these patterns TRANSCEND SPECIES BOUNDARIES, creating a complex landscape of hybrid seed inviability.

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media.tenor.com

This is work that I first started as a postdoc: I was befuddled about why we saw hybrid seed inviability evolve so many dang times in such a short period of time in monkey flowers, so I started just doing a ton of crosses.... like truly an unhinged amount...

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media.tenor.com

We're on a roll: Super proud of this paper lead by Dr. Megan Frayer & GS Hagar Soliman (with a major contrib from GS Pia Schwarz): Introgression and Parental Conflict Shape Repeated Occurrences of Postzygotic Isolation @hybridzones.bsky.social @hagarsoliman.bsky.social @pfschwarz.bsky.social

Very important paper and resource. Bryophyte genomes expanded by one order of magnitude. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Bryophytes hold a larger gene family space than vascular plants - Nature Genetics

A super-pangenome analysis incorporating 123 newly sequenced bryophyte genomes reveals that bryophytes exhibit a larger number of unique and lineage-specific gene families than vascular plants.

nature.com

This was a HUGE effort, taking years of diligent work. Hongfei was a true leader, and I'm really proud of this cool piece. We'd love any feedback y'all might have. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Unique genetic bases of repeated life-history divergence associated with high altitude adaptation in Mimulus perennials

Understanding evolutionary repeatability is a central question in biology, as it informs how predictably organisms respond to similar selection pressures. However, the extent to which phenotypic repea...

biorxiv.org

Lots of cool data to dig into, but the big take homes: Phenotypic evo is repeatable, but the genetic bases of these traits is largely not. Of the QTL we do find in more than one cross, QTL with large effect sizes or those implicated in more than one trait tend to pop up in more than one cross!!!!

Late to the party, but I'm so excited about the first paper from our lab: ✨Unique genetic bases of repeated life-history divergence associated with high altitude adaptation in Mimulus perennials ✨ This work was led by the ABSOLUTE ROCKSTAR Hongfei Chen!

I hope to take a PhD student in the coming application cycle. Please reach out if you are interested in joining our lab in EEB at Yale, especially if interested in working on the natural history/ phylogenetics/ morphology/ population biology/ development/ genomics of siphonophores. dunnlab.org