How do species differ in their ability to #adapt to environmental change? This study by Lillith Zijmers, Adam Eyre-Walker &co estimates #evolvability from over 170 multicellular species, revealing that #plants exhibit greater adaptive potential than animals. 🧪#AcademicSky plos.io/4vk2TON

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!

Are you looking for a PhD on the intersection between evolutionary and ecological theory? Join us @univie. Fully funded PhD position in fundamental eco-evolutionary theory, open to international students. Apply by 13.7.2026: ecoevo.owlstown.net/search Reposting appreciated. #evolbio #evoeco #ecology

Why are leaves the shape that they are? What controls intraspecific, genetic variation in leaf shape? New from my lab, in collaboration with many others, led by PhD student Amanda Peake: mapping the leaf shape polymorphism in Ipomoea hederacea.

Exploring the Genotype-to-Phenotype Map Using Quantifiable Patterns in Metazoan Genomic and Morphological Data by Peterson et al. Available now ahead of print! www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

The SIRA Act is the latest effort by conservatives to halt all research interactions with China on the grounds that they pose an imminent threat to U.S. national security. https://scim.ag/4wYBXFu

For this month's GBE Highlight, SMBE Fellow Haoran Cai delves into Adey et al., who investigated the role of pervasive transcription in the human genome. @haorancai.bsky.social 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evag104 #genome #evolution #highlight

I assigned random gender/ethnicity labels to scientific abstracts from the literature and then asked Claude to do a thematic analysis. Claude identified a clinical versus computational split for female/male authors and a DEI focus for Black/URM authors. All in completely random data.

I'm presenting this study for the virtual meeting of @evolmtg.bsky.social on May 22 at 6:15 PM Eastern Time. Please come!

Be sure to read the Invited Commentary by Brian Charlesworth, "How is variation in fitness maintained?" academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...

First real post on the new blog! If you follow human genetics, you've likely of "missing heritability". If you look at twins to estimate heritability, you get values much larger than what molecular genomic methods produce. IQ, for example, goes from 50-80% heritability to 10-15%. Which is right?

This article is the focus of this month's GBE Highlight, written by SMBE Fellow Haoran Cai. @haorancai.bsky.social “Dark” or “Junk”? Functional Roles of Pervasive Transcription in the Human Genome 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evag104

I’m looking forward to presenting my project on the puzzles of fly wings evolution at the Evol-Mut-Circle seminar Tuesday, May 19th at 11:00 AM EDT/3:00 PM UTC molevol.org/2025/12/08/e... DM me for the Zoom info, or reach out to Arlin Stoltzfus ([email protected]) to sign up for the email list!

I'm looking for postdoc opportunities for the 2026-2027 academic year. If you're looking for a postdoc with a broad skill set spanning evolutionary genetics, bioinformatics, and various omics methods, feel free to reach out. Some recent pubs: (1) doi.org/10.1126/scie... (2) doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

I'm looking to hire a postdoc. Please share if you can!

New preprint: "A mathematical synthesis of genetics, development, and evolution". This work addresses the longstanding challenge of integrating these and finds a way. I think it has broad implications and offers exciting opportunities. Feedback welcome! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

This month's GBE Highlight by SMBE @haorancai.bsky.social focuses on the recent paper by Bastian, Enard & Lartillot on the nearly neutral theory. "Bridging Micro- and Macroevolution: Phylogenomic Evidence for the Nearly Neutral Theory in Mammals" 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evag074 #genome #evolution

Join us for a seminar by Dr. Francois Mallard (Institute de Biologie, École Normale Supérieure, Paris-France) about 'The genetic architecture of phenotypic plasticity' on 30th April, 2026, 3 pm CET. Zoom link here: polygenic-adaptation-network.org/seminars/

@haorancai.bsky.social and Des Marais investigated gene expression variability in duplicate genes, suggesting a mechanism facilitating gene expression divergence, functional gains, and duplicate retention following small-scale duplications. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evag077 #genome #evolution

Bastian, Enard & Lartillot tested predictions of the nearly-neutral theory of molecular evolution across time scales, confirming the role of effective population size in tuning selection efficacy in placental mammals. 🖌️ Léa Backory 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evag030 #genome #evolution

🚨 New Paper 🚨 Thrilled to share new work with @evodaveo.bsky.social eo.bsky.social! We dive into the evolution of gene duplicates and demonstrate how expression variability might contribute to retention following duplication. Read the full article here: academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...

We posted a new theory preprint. I am very interested to hear what the community thinks about it. We looked at the dynamics of evolution on several (simple) models of modular genotype-phenotype-fitness maps and found that populations approach a quasi-steady state we call "module-selection balance".

Our work as Editor's choice in @evolletters.bsky.social !✨️ Developmental biases & micro- to macroevution in the lizard skull 🦎 academic.oup.com/evlett/advan...

The Cooper lab is hiring a postdoc with a strong background in mouse genetics and molecular biology to advance.our gene drive work. Must be extremely organized, engineering-minded, and outcomes-oriented. Spread the word and have interested candidates email me directly.

New group website: www.noramartin-lab.com Get in touch if you are interested in joining the group, or know anyone who might be 📮

How does development shape the variation evolution can act on? In our new paper in @pnas.org , we bridge developmental dynamics and quantitative genetics, linking dynamical models of phenotype formation with the statistical parameters used to study evolutionary change www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Join us for this exciting seminar and hear about redundancy in genome-wide epistatic interactions!

How does development affect the evolutionary process? Join our symposium at www.evodevoconference26.com in Glasgow this June. We have a strong lineup of invited speakers, chaired by me and @milocco.bsky.social Submit your abstract before Thursday! ⏰

Now online ‪Communications Biology!‬ We showed that variation aligns across biological levels. We proposed that #macroevolution mould #developmentalbias with a cascading effect on variation. #Microevolution, then, may be a result—not a cause of—macroevolution. nature.com/articles/s42...

Weighted Gene Co-expression Network Analysis (WGCNA) has been the go to program for analysis of gene expression modules for nearly two decades but it is a difficult to implement. To make it easier to use WGCNA, I used Codex to build a human in the loop agentic workflow. github.com/lowrylab/WGC...

2 PhD & 1 postdoc available at BioM in Oslo www.uio.no/english/rese... Interdisciplinary methods to model and govern biodiversity under uncertainty. Re-post widely! Work with statistical ecologists Olav Skarpaas (Natural History Museum Oslo @uio.no) @t-ergon.bsky.social

Promises to be poppin (🍿) BUT SRSLY PLEASE REGISTER, WE ARE SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!

A pleiotropic hitchhiking model recapitulates alignments between fly wing divergence and variation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.19.706930v1

Don't miss this issue's Editor's Choice article: "Gene network topology drives the mutational landscape of gene expression" by Sylvain Pouzet & Arnaud Le Rouzic. Free to read here: doi.org/10.1093/evol...

In #GENETICS, a new model developed by @christianlandry.bsky.social and colleagues examines how molecular dominance determines total protein activity and contributes to phenotypic dominance. buff.ly/CfaTDp7

Apply for PhD Fellowships at the Centre for Planetary Habitability in Oslo! There are projects for geologists, paleontologists, paleobiologists, astrobiologists, stats-y folks, geoscientists and planetary folks! www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

Our paper is out in MBE! doi.org/10.1093/molb... We tracked TF binding site evolution across 589 grass species, and found that while binding preferences are pretty stable over 80 million years of evolution, individual binding sites have turned over a lot. Thread here: bsky.app/profile/char...

Fun news! @gcbias.bsky.social and I are teaching a 2-week online population genetics workshop this summer to raise money for the Center for Population Biology at UC Davis. We're trying to gauge interest -- please fill this out if you might be interested! And please share broadly!

The recent MBE Review on the evolution of dark skin in humans is the focus of January's Highlight. Highlight: Dark skin and cancer suppression in humans—an evolutionary spandrel? 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msag012 #evobio #molbio

This is a very special paper for me. I had the idea of combining transcription factor binding with chromatin in 2016/8. It took some time, but thanks to Fred and Vikas, we can finally share the story in @plos.org Genetics looking at chromatin states in Arabidopsis and Marchantia. #PlantScience

PEQG! My favorite conference ever*. Single session, fantastic talks, great discussions. Only once every 2 years. And in the best conference location too! Abstract deadline coming up Feb 5! *Disclosure: I am required to say it's the best conference because it is and I told my mom I wouldn't lie.

A genome-wide comparison of #gene regulatory sequences & embryonic gene expression in arachnids - new insights into the impact of the arachnopulmonate whole #genome duplication academic.oup.com/gbe/article/... #biodiversity #genomics

How do bacteria deal with double costs? And how costly are unusual levels of mistranslation anyway? In short - antibiotics are more of an issue than less/more mistranslation, but the latter changes how populations deal with antibiotics. For the long story, check out our new paper!

I am currently searching for a new postdoctoral researcher to study the evolution, genetics, and physiology of cold acclimation and freezing tolerance in switchgrass at Michigan State University. This work will be funded by a newly funded five-year DOE grant. careers.msu.edu/jobs/researc...

TWO curatorial positions at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, ON, Canada. Curator of Birds, and Curator of Plants and Sustainability... please pass the word and amplify! royalontariomuseum.applytojob.com/apply/XBR2Yc... & royalontariomuseum.applytojob.com/apply/Sf2iAO...

Ecology faces an accumulation of models but not an accumulation of confidence. Our new paper w/ Jonathan Levine www.nature.com/articles/s41... in @natecoevo.nature.com introduces a rigorous test rooted in queueing theory to falsify inadequate models and build confidence in useful ones.

We have an open PhD position (application deadline 9 January 2026) in "Theory of fitness landscapes" at @unibe.ch 🤓⛰️📊👩‍💻🎓: banklab.github.io/positions/ Please share widely! #QueerInSTEM #DisabledInSTEM #BlackInSTEM #WomenInSTEM #CarersInSTEM #AcademicSky #HigherED

I'm thrilled to be selected and grateful to be able to contribute to our community @official-smbe.bsky.social Looking forward to new connections and future initiatives! @official-smbe.bsky.social @molbioevol.bsky.social @genomebiolevol.bsky.social

Incredible new paper from @schacherer.bsky.social et al rdcu.be/eLcTH