I am looking for a PhD student to start in my lab at UCSB in Fall 2026, studying evolutionary biology. See attached flyer for more information. Please also share with potentially interested students. Thanks!

New Preprint! This one led by Sam Gibbon, an outstanding undergrad I've worked with for the past year. We take a look at whether segregation patterns in tetraploids (disomic v polysomic) affects mut-sel dynamics. We found some surprising results, and some subtleties: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New Paper! In 2019, my first dissertation chapter revealed complicated polyploidies in the cotton family (Malvaceae) but we lacked the tools and genomes to truly understand it. Now with better genomes and improved methods, it's much more complicated than we thought. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

If you're new to demographic history inference from population genomics, try this webapp I created to illustrate how dadi fits bottleneck models to site frequency spectra: ryangutenkunst-dadi-two-epoch.hf.space . It even outputs files for submitting to the GHIST competition! ghi.st

The Conover Lab is open! I am so excited to join a group of talented, caring, and creative folks at the @danforthcenter.bsky.social, all in service of improving the human condition through plant science.

Thanks for everything, Tucson! I arrived in St. Louis today, and am incredibly excited to see what this city has in store for me. Only one month until the Conover Lab officially opens at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center!

New Article: "Comparative transcriptomics in ferns reveals key innovations and divergent evolution of the secondary cell walls" rdcu.be/eiWNF Fern transcriptomes reveal repeated whole-genome duplications, unique gene families and distinct lignocellulosic evolution... #PlantScience

Researchers pinpoint the genes responsible for the final three pea traits studied by Gregor Mendel more than 160 years ago https://go.nature.com/3EC3eqT

The tragic irony of nearly 2000 scientists, members of the National Academies, coming together to write a letter condemning the attacks on science: docs.google.com/document/d/1... www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/s... And then today: Mass cuts to federal health www.nytimes.com/live/2025/04...

Brilliant idea from a colleague. We need the NCAA to advocate on behalf of higher ed in America, b/c they can reach people suspicious of "elites" in higher ed. Imagine March Madness ending with a message about how admin is threaten unis and thus college sports... Any ideas how to make this happen?

After an extensive search, the Danforth Center has named Giles Oldroyd, PhD, its next President. @gilesoldroyd.bsky.social is a renowned plant geneticist & one of only a few hundred scientists elected to both the UK @royalsociety.org & the US @nasonline.org. www.danforthcenter.org/news/interna...

Our paper on fitting population genetic models to low-pass sequencing data is now out in Molecular Biology and Evolution! doi.org/10.1093/molb...

Short thread on my updated work with @gutengroup.mcb.arizona.edu "Detection of Domestication Signals through the Analysis of the Full Distribution of Fitness Effects", latest version at: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Here we simulate a kind of canonical and idealised domestication process.

First statistical test of the year was p=0.053. It's going to be a good year.

Second paper from the lab out today (woohoo!). This one led by Rachael DeTar. Check out what happens to mito+plastid translation machinery in plants that have lost photosynthesis! Published in @pnas.org: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Also available on bioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

If you happen to be interested in the coexistence of diploids and tetraploids given modern coexistence theory and stochastic population dynamics - Check out our #JustAccepted paper at @asn-amnat.bsky.social doi.org/10.1086/734411

We identified protein domains in LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor). Their distinctive amino acid usage reveals the order amino acids were added to the genetic code, based mostly on size. Older proteins hint at earlier alternative codes. 1/15 @seekingluca.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Final version of this out now in that beautiful Amnat typesetting! www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

another new preprint from the lab! Regina Fairbanks tackles the popgen of teosinte glume architecture 1 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1.... A 🧵

new preprint from the lab! Elli Cryan, coadvised but the inimitable @spicybotrytis.bsky.social, does a deep dive into the GA incompatibility loci in maize, finding complex haplotypes, overturning evolutionary origins, and discovering a paramutation system! A 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Here's the second starter pack of Early Career Evolutionary Biologists: go.bsky.app/j5DX3f Link to first starter pack: go.bsky.app/MzND7nX Follow these inspirational folks to support the next generation of evolutionary biologists #evobio Out of time for now! Will add more names this weekend

Here's a starter pack for early career researchers in evolutionary biology. I prioritized the most-junior folks, and this list quickly filled up with undergrads, grad students, and postdocs. Might do another list later, but I'm tired. Have fun everyone! 🐒 #evobio go.bsky.app/MzND7nX

We had a wonderful 2024 #Plantsgiving with @conjustover.bsky.social, @aast242.bsky.social, @skang.bsky.social, and @poppybot.bsky.social among others! Our final count for this year's dinner was 103 species from 42 families! docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Okay, gang. Are we ready for a little Bluesky #PlantsGiving action? A social media tradition since 2018: counting & reporting out the number of plant species consumed during your Thursday dinner. I've got a class doing it for homework. Excited to see what they share. #iamabotanist #bisonflowers

working on this unix redirects diagram today

My app for finding 🦋 accounts you may want to follow has had a make-over: it now displays names and bios, and allows adding an "app password" for direct follow buttons in the listing bsky-follow-finder.theo.io

Since #starterpacks have taken off, I couldn't find a great to way search for them within bluesky. But, you can you search all of the starterpacks here and follow as many as you like! blueskydirectory.com/starter-pack...

The Genomic History Inference Strategies Tournament closes on Nov 15! Analyze genomic data with your favorite demographic inference tool, and see if you can discover the true demography of the population to win the contest (and authorship). More info at ghi.st! Please re-skeet.

Join us on Wednesday, October 2, at 11AM PDT for the first #PolyploidyWebinar of the season! @shellygaynor.bsky.social and @pairoflogs.bsky.social will lead us off! The zoom link will be emailed out before the talks - sign up here if you have not signed up before! forms.gle/Bp3VUGeP9nAc...

I am ecstatic to share that I have accepted the Assistant Member and Principal Investigator position at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, MO! The Conover Lab will open June 1, 2025, and will be broadly interested in polyploid evolutionary genomics.

I am ecstatic to share that I have accepted the Assistant Member and Principal Investigator position at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, MO! The Conover Lab will open June 1, 2025, and will be broadly interested in polyploid evolutionary genomics.

Half a million models + many duck jokes later, I'm excited to share the preprint for nQuack: biorxiv.org/content/10.1... This project started as a paragraph in a paper with @jlandisbotany.bsky.social, Rob Laport, and Tim O'Connor But morphed into a new method and package. (1/n)

Also heads up, this change was implemented in GATK v4.2.3, which came out THREE YEARS AGO. All of the data I generated in the past year as been impacted by this 😭😭😭

As the culmination of a five-year project working with Dan Sloan, @jonathanfwendel.bsky.social, @conjustover.bsky.social, and Corrinne Grover, we’re super excited to put out this mini-review, summarizing the work we (and many others) have done over the past few years. Check it out if you have time!

Our perspective piece on the cytonuclear dimension of polyploid evolution in plants doi.org/10.32942/X2V...

New preprint! It turns out that analyzing polyploid genomes is difficult. One reason why is because duplicated chromosomes (homoeologs) can physically interact and recombine during meiosis, creating mosaic chromosomal. But how do you identify these regions? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...