Novabrowse: A Tool for High-Resolution Synteny Analysis, Ortholog Detection, and Gene Signal Discovery https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.27.714371v1

Seems like a pretty important result; title says it all. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

While bowfin are represented by predatory marine taxa, the weirdest members of the holostean clade here are macrosemiids, a group of stem gar trying to be wrasses. The living clade of holosteans is limited to just nine taxa— without the fossil record, strange forms such as this would be lost.

My first cyclostome in the wild! Least brook lampreys noodling along at Hocking Hills State Park.

New barracudina just dropped 🎉 We see a LOT of these long, toothy deep sea fishes in our swordfish stomachs - exciting to be able to ID them more accurately in the future! www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-stor...

Hey y'all. I'm a month late to this, but I wanted to share that one of my PhD chapters was published in Systematic Biology with my advisor, Frank Burbrink. Here, we explore how ecological opportunity influences phenotypic evolution in North American natricid snakes. 🧵/8

Did someone order a fish burrito chock full of gobies?

LongcallR for competitive SNP calling and haplotype phasing, and simplified allele-specific analysis with long RNA-seq reads. Found ~100 junctions affected by SNPs per sample with most junctions novel. Developed by Neng Huang. Published in @natmethods.nature.com. Read at rdcu.be/faKhL

Linking genotype to longevity under genealogical discordance in Sebastes rockfishes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.26.714443v1

Ten years ago, I predicted that Google Scholar would never fix their preprint bug. Here we are, a decade later, and the bug is still there, and now it's causing Google Scholar to claim that a preprint of mine is not publicly accessible. 🤦 blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/the-google...

Epigenomic methylome landscape of promoters in vertebrate genomes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.29.715150v1

Pleased to announce two new publications, in Current Biology and PNAS, from outstanding postdoc Delai (Dylan) Huang, just a week before he leaves to start his new faculty position at Zhejiang University.

#MondayMood 🐠 Museum technology is shifting how specimens are processed, providing more accessibility for research, education, outreach and collaboration. Explore our online exhibit: Inner Beauty 🩻 Skeletons Revealed from the Museum’s Fish Collection www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/exhibits/onl...

I am thrilled to share that I have accepted an offer for Assistant Curator of Fishes at the Sam Noble Museum/Assistant Professor at University of Oklahoma! I will be starting this August and looking forward to more fishy research. 🐟🐠🐡 Thanks to all who've helped me get this far!

You know what all teams in the men's Final Four (and both women's teams in so far) have in common? HERBARIA. UConn is threatening to cut the staff of our nat history collections (plus many other awful budget cuts). If only we cared as much about biodiversity as we do about buzzer beaters!

The Galaxid fish I worked on for my postdoc. One of the most endangered fish in Australia. Recovered from the last 35 individuals to thousands in 2 translocated populations. #SundayFishSketch

Updating undergrad student readings on environmental impact of AI. What do you have for me? #academicsky

Gorgeous, colored up male Etheostoma caeruleum from the Huron River today. Picture credit: James Andrews.

William Beebe says: "To be a Naturalist is better than to be a King."

How do we obtain the correct frequency dependent formula for random effects in linear mixed models? We introduce a principled procedure on how to dump population genetics to linear mixed models. (1/n)

New feature for PearTree - root-to-tip plots. Web version at peartree.live | desktop apps to follow at github.com/artic-network/peartree/releases/latest

anyway if you write bioinformatics software and include in your documentation any examples of the input and output file formats, I will buy you a beer if we ever run into each other IRL

We recently had a conversation here about reproducible data analysis pipelines. I put my thoughts into a longer-form article. Whatever you do, it's critical you save and archive your final processed data right before plotting. blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/creating-r...

Why phylogenies compress so well: combinatorial guarantees under the Infinite Sites Model https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.18.712055v1

Scaling and Generalization of Discrete Diffusion Models for Tumor Phylogenies https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.23.713822v1

While the situation is grim at NIH, it's closer to catastrophic at NSF. They're just not able to move any money out the door. It appears OMB has them on lockdown. www.science.org/content/arti....

My student has cleaned, examined, and sorted 60 brachiopods with encrusting organisms. Now for the fun part, taxonomy of tiny Devonian encrusters!

Predicting the effect of a #mutation on #fitness is hard. @oliviamghosh.bsky.social @petrovadmitri.bsky.social &co use fitness effects of adaptive yeast mutants to show that underlying genotype-phenotype-fitness maps are low-dimensional but context-dependent @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4dLy2Ez

Out today! Panzeri and Andrelino et al. (2026). MicroCT reinvestigation of the only articulated fossil anostomid fish reveals synonymy of Arhinolemur Ameghino, 1898 and Megaleporinus Ramirez et al., 2017. Thanks for including me! anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Wait, a new GAR Challenger from the Old World has entered this year's GARch Madness competition. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belonop...

I'm listening in on the DOE Office of Science Advisory Committee meeting and the current speaker (sorry, did not catch their name) said that researchers are often limited in their resources and facilities, and that we could be investing more....and that the solution is AI. I'm going to explode.

The jigsaw puzzle featuring my artwork that @nervousjessica.bsky.social sent me is a big hit in the family. It took 2 people 75 minutes-ish (I didn't help because that'd be cheating). You can buy one yourself here: n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/shop/line.ph...

It’s often claimed most fishes are “social” at some point in their lives. Try tracing that claim back and it gets a bit… thin. We’re building ShoalBase to categorise fish social behaviour across species & contexts. Info session + shoalathon (Apr 15, 14:00 UK) Register: forms.gle/iCixceceqr9Z...

I’m finishing my tenure as Chief Meeting Organizer for the Evolution Meetings. Apply to replace me! Without a doubt, this is my favorite service I’ve ever done. In trying times, it was a real balm to get together weekly with a group devoted to making the best meetings we can for students.

Phyling: phylogenetic inference from annotated genomes https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41885611/

Delighted to see our work on the cover of Systematic Biology!! We introduce an approach for analyzing pairwise-defined traits (e.g. 'strength of RI', 'diet niche overlap') in a phylogenetically informed context (R package 'phylopairs' now on CRAN). Read it here: academic.oup.com/sysbio/artic...

Systematic Biology’s March 2026 issue (75.2) is published! It features Laura Kubatko's 75th anniversary piece on species trees, along with a nice mix of empirical and methodological studies. Check it out: academic.oup.com/sysbio/issue... @systbiol.bsky.social

Finally hit chapter 9 in Evolution this term (with @carlbergstrom.com 's great textbook) and get to discuss the University of Illinois corn selection experiment (since 1896) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinoi... . @relenski.bsky.social has more generations, but this one started earlier 1/2

I don't think people fully appreciate how apocalyptic things are for US science. I haven't had any new funding since 2024, but I'm still ok since typical grants are for three years. This means next year I will be completely out of funding and will have to fire everyone in the lab. It's not great.

U.S. President Donald Trump has unveiled a set of scientific advisers heavily skewed toward #AI and quantum computing, topics his administration has emphasized. https://scim.ag/4lSZdPP

Who you got winning GARch Madness??? 🐟🏀😎 Credits (photos, illustrations, design): @garlab.bsky.social team & @zankurus.bsky.social

SFAAS' Dr. Andrew Rypel's comments here are a reminder that aquatic systems demand nuance. Decisions about hybridization and nonnative fish populations can affect ecosystem health, native species, and long-term outcomes. That's why SFAAS work matters. www.vox.com/climate/4831...

Time-calibrated relationships of a rare cave catfish (Trichomycterus rubbioli): Shedding light on troglobitic lifestyle origin in the Brazilian caatinga https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41878787/

It’s never been more important for scientists to break out of the ivory tower and engage with the public. I am excited to announce that I’m now booking professional development workshops focusing on public science engagement for summer and fall 2026! #Scicomm 🧪🦑🌎

Digest: Ecology shapes divergence during allopatric speciation in riverine fishes https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41874423/

Enrichment Probe Sets Combining Universal and Lineage-Specific Targets Help Resolve Recalcitrant Lineages https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.24.713849v1

This new #JWST image of Saturn is AWESOME

Hi all. I am very excited that after 6 years I finally got my phylogenetic comparative methods book and online exercises online. Feel free to use and share. The book is here: nhcooper123.github.io/pcm-primer/. Note that it is not finished, we had to abandon it before the sunk costs fallacy broke us

I've spent 2 weeks unsuccessfully trying to download Kraken2 libraries from NCBI.... Any advice? I remember before I had to change something about the NCBI path in the source code but I don't remember.

Are you (or something you know) looking for a PhD? Like trait macroevolution but also yearn for an applied topic? Think plants are neat? Want to live in beautiful northeast Scotland?! 🌊🐬⛰️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 I'm advertising a PhD in my lab! Deadline April 22, email me any questions. www.findaphd.com/phds/project...