Caenorhabditis becei recombinant inbred lines (beRILs) reveal the scope of heritable variation within a gonochoristic nematode population www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Reading Runciman’s sneery review of one of the best books I’ve read in the past few years has further lowered my opinion of Runciman

Clever approach from @astavoe.bsky.social for those pesky lines that were integrated with Rol -- edit them back to nonRol! I wonder what else we could build from all the existing integrated arrays. Switch colors?

Just came across this remarkable interview with Marjorie Grene at age 94: www.thebeliever.net/an-interview... Two of my favourite bits, when Grene is asked about Rorty and about Lakatos: Rorty is just witty, but doesn't have a philosophy and Grene is quick to say that she did not kill Lakatos!

mRNA-Scaffolded Cytoplasmic Compartments www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Caenorhabditis tropicalis followed a unique evolutionary path to self-fertility doi.org/10.1093/gene...

Shubin closes with a reminder of the vital importance of shared evolutionary history in basic biomedical research: we’re learning how to cure human disease thanks to work on fruit flies, worms, and even fish

Excellent welcoming squad for the #Evolution meeting!! Five stars! ⭐️

I think this was one of the best talks I’ve heard! Evolution 2026 starting amazingly! @neilshubin.bsky.social #Evolution2026

Helpful sign for people at convention center for #Evol2026

Our paper on the evolution of cellular miniaturization is now out in PNAS! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... A short recap 🧵

! "Moreover, transphyletic transplantation experiments show that the blastopore lip of M. leidyi leads to the generation of a secondary body axis in embryos of the cnidarian Nematostella vectensis."

The new OrthoFinder paper is out now! In this new work, we introduce major advances in accuracy and scalability, allowing analysis on much larger datasets www.nature.com/articles/s41... github.com/OrthoFinder/...

Brault et al. propose guidelines for standardized π estimation, systematic reporting of summary statistics, and the adoption of richer metadata to ensure that population genomic data remain comparable and reusable across a wide range of systems. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/... #genome #evolution

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.

🧨 New publication out (I think this one is 🌶️ ): Cerca & @stelkens.bsky.social - "The identity crisis of speciation genomics". academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a...

How do alternative reproductive modes arise? In this @pnas.org paper, we show that hybridogenesis -where a haploid set of chromosomes is transmitted clonally across generations- acted as an intermediate step between sexual and asexual reproduction in stick insects. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

How predictable is evolution? Replicated C. elegans experiments show environmental differences and population bottlenecks jointly shape the repeatability of adaptation doi.org/10.1093/evle... Image credit: Wikimedia

Comparative transcriptomics reveals an extracellular worm Argonaute as an ancestral regulator of LTR retrotransposons academic.oup.com/gbe/advance-...

Our paper unpacking "fitness" is out doi.org/10.1093/gene.... How to define fitness depends on what question you ask. Selection acts on organismal vital rates, longer-term outcomes make sense for genetic lineages, models link them. "Invasion fitness" = speed, but sometimes probability matters more.

😀 Actually, what is a gain-of-function mutation? doi.org/10.1093/gene...

Put simply: It coordinates action in more varied and context-dependent ways across more complex environments, AND it regulates a more complex internal environment. Highly recommend this chapter from Sterling and Laughlin! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

New book "A Primer for Experimental Evolution" with coauthors Michael Rose, Margarida Matos, and Joe Graves. www.worldscientific.com/worldscibook... A compact primer for students and colleagues interested in planning and designing experiments to address questions in evolutionary biology.

Microbial genetic screen identifies bacterial genes that compromise Caenorhabditis elegans reproductive fitness journals.asm.org/doi/full/10....

With Eugene Koonin, we wrote a rather comprehensive review on the origin, evolution and organization of the #virosphere. We describe all 10 viral realms and the logic behind them, and so much more. Check it out! comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/biologies/ar...

New work: Our earlier work showed that Foldseek characters could be adapted for phylogenetic alignment, treating each character as an evolutionary state. That part holds but there's a hidden assumption baked in that needed unpacking. So lets do that.🧵 #StructuralPhylogenetics #Evolution #Protein

Internalized Evolutionary Inertia on Body Plan Evolution onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Cathepsin B protease mediates high population density-induced mutagenesis to drive genome evolution and competitive growth www.nature.com/articles/s41...

WormTagDB: a systematic survey of endogenously tagged proteins in Caenorhabditis elegans and roadmap toward the tagged proteome academic.oup.com/g3journal/ad...

Differential Phoretic Vector Use Among Sympatric Caenorhabditis Nematodes and an Association With Invasive Nitidulid Beetles in Southwestern Germany onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

7 years ago I was incredibly lucky to join @hoosierflyman.bsky.social on the great #Seabattical Today, you can read in full print @genetics-gsa.bsky.social the description of a NEW SPECIES of Drosophila parasitoid and it's really unique biology. I just happened to be the guy who found it! 🐝🏝️🪰

! High-resolution global recombination mapping in C. elegans reveals sexual dimorphisms shaped by meiotic chromosomal features and structures www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

(1/15) Thrilled to share new Evo-Devo work where we address the molecular, cellular & morphometric basis of an extreme axis segmentation program in the Japanese eel — an animal that forms 120 vertebrae.

Here is a banger! Our new paper in @currentbiology.bsky.social is out! We have used museomics to sequence a 45yr old specimen of Drosophila enhydrobia, a rare and most unusual fly whose larvae are aquatic(!) and predatory(!). Very cool, big success. authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

!

Kinetochore proteins control microtubule dynamics in postmitotic neurons to regulate the formation of dendritic spines www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

Developmental constraints in the repeated evolution of male tail characters in rhabditid and diplogastrid nematodes journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

A Trojan horse pathogen breaking through partner-choice barriers in the insect gut doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Chromosome size as a robust predictor of recombination rate: insights from holocentric and monocentric systems academic.oup.com/genetics/art...

Happy to announce two-fold news! 1) The SCINKD paper is now published in @molbioevol.bsky.social - doi.org/10.1093/molb... 2) SCINKD [v2.2.4] release has reduced runtimes (about 2x) and the revitalized mode for genomes >5Gb is now live and tested on genomes up to 21Gb! 🐸 github.com/DrPintoThe2n...

We are happy to share our new bioRxiv pre-print on A-P axis patterning. A great collaboration with Felix Zhou (UT Southwestern) & the Yeomans group (Physics, Oxford) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

✨A central mission of PASEDB is to foster networking, discussion, and a sense of community We want to highlight new #EvoDevo labs in Pan-America. In our first newsletter issue, we highlight: - Roberto Márquez - Anyi Mazo-Vargas @anyimv.bsky.social - Bruno Vellutini @bruvellu.bsky.social

Looking at the EvoWorm 2026 abstracts--I'm getting excited about this meeting!!

Transgenerational inheritance is variable across Caenorhabditis worms www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Global genomic diversity of the selfing nematode Caenorhabditis tropicalis correlates with geography www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

! Epigenetic constraints and enhancer innovation link neuronal plasticity to evolutionary adaptation www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

WAT www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The abstract submission deadline for EvoWorm 2026 is today! Don't forget to submit an abstract!! Share your exciting science at *the* best meeting!!! evoworm.org

Are you ready for *the* meeting about the evolutionary biology of Caenorhabditis and other nematodes? The abstract deadline is Wednesday! EvoWorm 2026 will be held at McMaster University from June 16–19 Abstract deadline: April 15 Registration deadline: June 1 Details can be found at evoworm.org

Optimal male fertility and fecundity in Caenorhabditis elegans requires Microprocessor and Argonaute gene function academic.oup.com/g3journal/ad...