This is out now: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Association between lactase persistence and height in the past (indicating people with the persistence allele were better nourished by drinking milk than those without it) provides a potential explanation for why it was under strong selection.

We are in Bluesky and we are happy to share our two last consortium publications: the DrosEU expanded DEST dataset and a Continent-wide study of phenotypic differentiation among European #Drosophila melanogaster populations (1/7)

Genetic architectures of #ComplexTraits vary widely. @yuvalsim.bsky.social @jkpritch.bsky.social @gs2747.bsky.social &co show these diffs arise from mutational target size & heritability per site; when controlled for, all tested traits have similar architectures @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/47mZXqT

7 reasons to use Bayesian inference! statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/10/11/7...

Just published an interactive article about a magical algorithm known as the Burrows-Wheeler Transform, which powers sequence alignment tools like bowtie and bwa: sandbox.bio/concepts/bwt It's also notoriously unintuitive so I'm hoping this article helps you build that intuition.

Molecular evolution of dietary shifts in ladybirds 🐞 expansions of digestive & detoxifying #gene families in the herbivorous ladybirds, & absence of most plant cell wall-degrading enzymes in the ladybirds from the transition to carnivory link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Red devil spiders from the Canary Islands have a genome half the size of mainland counterparts - Pisarenco, @jrozasub.bsky.social et al. show how purifying selection against slightly deleterious DNA and TE insertions is the primary mechanism. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf206 #evobio #molbio #TEsky

Does #dengue virus hijack #mosquitoes' brain? Study led by Felix Hol @pasteur.fr discovered that infected mosquitoes take smaller blood meals. As a result, they bite more often, and potentially infect infect more people. (video in French with English subtitles available) youtu.be/2u_qckfAQa4?...

Dogs are humanity's best friend—but how long has it been that way? 🐕 This Science study investigated ancient dog genomes, revealing a complicated genetic legacy that reflects a long, shared history with humans. Learn more on #InternationalDogDay: https://scim.ag/41mQvR6

For those interested: 🚀 BayPass v3.1 released! 🔹 Improved MCMC adaptive phase 🔹 Computation reduced >6X with default (recommended) options, while keeping similar accuracy 🔹 Plus other minor edits 📖 Details in the manual / changelog 🔗 Repo: forge.inrae.fr/mathieu.gaut...

interesting pre-print arxiv.org/abs/2408.07300

doi.org/10.1093/molb... Thrilled to share our new paper in MBE! 🎉 Presenting DEST 2.0: 530 pooled Drosophila populations spanning 12 years across 6 continents. We map genomic footprints of adaptation, from pesticide resistance to seasonal changes. #PopulationGenetics #Drosophila #Genomics #Evolution

If someone you know buys into claims about "genetic optimization" of embryos using polygenic scores of cognition, just send them our 2024 paper on Beethoven & musicality. We wrote it to help communicate limits of individual-level genetic predictions & complexity of links between DNA & behaviour. 🧪👇

In #GENETICS, Williams et al. present a novel statistics—haplotype score—for summarizing identity-by-descent (IBD) sharing that can distinguish half-sibling pairs from avuncular or grandparent-grandchildren pairs and assign individuals to ancestor vs descendant generation. buff.ly/SaZP3CA

In @elife.bsky.social: Effective population size does not explain long-term variation in genome size and transposable element content in animals doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

How can we reform science? I have some ideas. But I am not sure you’ll like them, because they don’t promise much. elevanth.org/blog/2025/07...

We wrote a review on Transposable Elements (TEs) and almost all aspects of TE silencing and their roles in biological processes & disease. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thanks Kew! The paper itself can be found here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Is a world without #beer, #wine #sake #bread, #cheese livable or even imaginable? All of these delights & more, we owe to the domestication of one particular kind of #fungi by our ancestors. Jose Paulo Sampaio & Ana Pontes review the biology of #yeast domestication www.cell.com/current-biol...

Yay! @genomeofforrest.bsky.social work published today in PLoS Genetics. Forrest took a large maize common garden dataset and asked whether Environmental GWAS was actually useful for predicting which individuals would have highest fitness. Turns out, the answer is no. 1/2

🧬🌽 Happy Transposon Day! 🌽🧬 Today we celebrate the birthday of Barbara McClintock - scientist extraordinaire and discoverer of jumping genes. Still the only woman to have an unshared Nobel Prize in the biomedical sciences #TransposonDay2025

❗🦟 Info @leparisien.fr : deuxième cas autochtone de #chikungunya en France hexagonale, cette fois à Prades-le-Lez dans l'Hérault (le premier était dans le Var). Ils vont vraisemblablement se multiplier cet été, au vu du grand nombre de cas importés - notamment de La Réunion. 1/n

Here we used population genomics to investigate a well-known case of allochronic divergence, reconstructing demographic history, assessing inbreeding and genetic load, and identifying loci associated with allochrony. @cbgpmontpellier.bsky.social

Nucleotide diversity 🧬 and k-mer-based metrics of genetic diversity across 112 plant 🌱 species, amounting to over 205 terabases of DNA sequencing data from 27,488 individuals academic.oup.com/evlett/advan... #biodiversity #genomics

Legendary singer, songwriter, and musician Sly Stone has died

We currently have a call for support that has gone out to European labs, to support FlyBase-UK. We are asking our colleagues from labs in the US and other countries to wait for a similar call to them that will go out in the near future, to support the US sites. We thank you for your patience.

The rest of Mendel's alleles characterized! So, out of 7 traits, 3 caused by TE insertions!!! (though apparently there are two different green alleles, one cause by a TE insertion, but another a promoter deletion allele) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Fun collaboration with Mélodie Bastian and Nicolas Lartillot. Pi_S and Pi_N/Pi_S extracted from genome assemblies follow nearly neutral predictions across 150 mammals. Getting closer to getting the constraint controls needed to detect ancient epidemics mammals-wide. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Annotation of 200 insect genomes. Work driven by @stepbystepsolution.bsky.social and Mario Stanke within @gevol.bsky.social : www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Comparative gene annotation of 304 species of Drosophilidae https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.14.648771v1

Excited to see our article on the cover! @drk-lo.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/17550998...

Awesome new paper by @lucalivraghi.bsky.social et al. doi.org/10.1016/j.cu... in @currentbiology.bsky.social on the evo-devo of a butterfly color variation enjoy the show!

🚀 A new version of BayPass (v3.0) is now available for GEA/pGWAS analyses. This update brings support for Genotype-Likelihood data, hybrid datasets (allele counts and/or Pool-Seq and/or GL), or local-score computation (see updated manual). 🔗 forgemia.inra.fr/mathieu.gaut... #BayPass #popgen

Our study analyzing the DNA of ~7ky-old Pastoralists from the "Green Sahara" is out! Who were these people, and how did herding spread into the region when the present-day desert was dotted with water bodies? 🧬🦴🏜️ (1/7) #PopGen #GreenSahara #aDNA www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🚨 Postdoc Opportunity in Quantitative & Population Genetics! We’re hiring a 2-year postdoc at CBGP (INRAE, Montpellier, France) to work on quantitative and population genetics applied to Drosophila biarmipes. 📍 More details: umr-cbgp.fr/rejoindre-le... #Postdoc #Genetics #Drosophila

In a new Science study, researchers introduce GAIA, a statistical approach that seeks to learn the geographic position of every genetic ancestor of individuals included in a genome dataset. Learn more: scim.ag/3XFo0wb #SciencePerspective

Témoignage. 🗣️ Pierre Alessandri, syndicaliste corse, a été assassiné après avoir alerté sur les fraudes aux subventions agricoles. Président de Crim’Halt, association de lutte contre le crime organisé, le politologue Fabrice Rizzoli lance un cri d’alarme auprès de nos autorités.

I wrote about how population stratification in genetic analyses led to a decade of false findings and almost certainly continues to bias emerging results. But we are starting to have statistical tools to sniff it out. A 🧵:

23andMe just went bankrupt — which means everyone’s whole genome is about to be sold off to the highest bidder. If you’ve ever used 23andMe, delete your data ASAP. Instructions below. #youarebeingwatched oag.ca.gov/news/press-r...

Incorporating genetic load contributes to predicting Arabidopsis thaliana’s response to climate change @naturecomms.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Hey fellow Drosophila researchers - if you haven't heard, the UMGC is offering ultra low-cost genome sequencing! See here to learn more: z.umn.edu/UMGC-MOSS #Dros25

It actually exists! A few copies of my new book just arrived. Nice to see it in person, finally. If you've ever wondered about the ecology or evolution of an invasive population, this one's for you. #evobio 🌏 #bioinvasions #ecoevo

Why academia is sleepwalking into self-destruction. My editorial @brain1878.bsky.social If you agree with the sentiments please repost. It's important for all our sakes to stop the madness academic.oup.com/brain/articl...

Our new #OpenAccess paper How can long-term #ecology studies survive & resist political & social change, authoritarianism, war, but also embrace positive change? The Białowieża Forest as an example of the resilience of long-term studies in a changing world: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 1/

L’étude génétique de cette population a permis de répondre à plusieurs questions : d’où venaient ces vaches ? Comment ont-elles pu s’établir sur une île déserte ?

🌹 🧬 Proud to announce that our preprint on the history of rose breeding is now recommended by @peercommunityin.bsky.social Evolutionary Biology ! Manuscript: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Recommendation: evolbiol.peercommunityin.org/articles/rec... Dedication: www.biorxiv.org/content/bior...

PRDM9 driven recombination now demonstrated in salmonid fish. By Marie Raynaud and the HotRec consortium. dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

How population stratification makes environments look like genes. A short 🧵:

Our miRNA story is now in @science.org ! We found a microRNA, not a protein, that finally solved a long-standing evolutionary mystery of wing coloration in butterflies and moths. (1/n) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I am running my statistical rethinking course again starting in January. But this time just for Leipzig locals, so I can work with a smaller group this year and track individual progress better. I think that will help me tune the material, espeically homework, better. Materials still open however.