Mick Westbury

Q&A: inbreeding and its implications for conservation - BMC Biology Inbreeding depression plays a role in the decline, endangerment, and extinction of small populations, and thus inbreeding has received much attention in conservation biology. The term inbreeding is us...

Our Q&A article on inbreeding for conservation is out in BMC Biology!

We discuss some important key concepts related to inbreeding in the light of new genomic tools and what it means for conservation when we want to improve species survival.

#consgen

bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

Deadline for this PhD position is coming on Friday. Please apply and/or share

Only one week left to apply

A fixed mutation in the respiratory complex I impairs mitochondrial bioenergetics in the endangered Apennine brown bear | PNAS Effective conservation genomics of endangered species requires realistic understanding of the fitness consequences caused by the accumulation of de...

Happy to share the latest publication from our labs on the Apennine brown bear, a relict population not far from Rome, Italy. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2504409122
Thanks to great co-auths, we moved beyond our "genomic" comfort zone incl. cellular experiments and molecular dynamics simulations.

🦴🧬🦴🧬🦴

Abstract submission is now open for the 1st International Conference on Palaeogenomics!

June 23–26 2026, in Stockholm.

Join researchers from across the field for 4 days and >100 talks (+ poster sessions)!

Submit abstracts here 👉
icp2026.palaeogenomics.org/abstracts/

Deadline: Nov 30th

Chimeric Reference Panels for Genomic Imputation Abstract. Despite transformative advances in genomic technologies, missing data remains a fundamental constraint that limits the full potential of genomic

Excited to share our new paper in
@GeneticsGSA
! We developed "Retriever," a novel method that enables high-quality genotype imputation in non-model organisms. 🧬 Congratulations to Charles on his first PhD paper!

Paper: doi.org/10.1093/gene...

A thread 🧵👇

Postdoctoral position in Population Genomics - Uppsala University Postdoctoral position in Population Genomics, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University

I have funding for a 2-year dry-lab postdoc to join our team @humanevouu.bsky.social 🧪 (Deadline Oct 21st)

The project will utilize modern and #aDNA data from humans and sheep to study environmental adaptation (including method development and simulations).

Please share!
www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

☠️🧬 2-yr Postdoc in in Genomic Simulations and Extinction Risk Modelling!
Let's figure out the Genomic signs of Extinction @DTU in Denmark.

Start: Feb 2026 (flexible)
Application deadline: 24 Oct 2025

For details click here: tinyurl.com/BioExtPD

Reposts appreciated 😁

🦣🍖🧬 Fully funded 3-yr PhD in palaeogenomics & bioinformatics! Help me push non-model palaeogenomes beyond their limits @DTU in Denmark.

Start: Feb 2026 (flexible)
Application deadline: 24 Oct 2025

For details click here: tinyurl.com/BioExtPhD

Reposts appreciated 😁

Thanks

Thanks

Cheers Love

Thank you

Thanks!

Excited to share that I’ve started as Associate Professor at the Technical University of Denmark! 🧑‍🎓

I also received an a NNF Emerging Investigator grant to use genomics + machine learning to study extinction.

👉 PhD & Postdoc positions coming soon — follow for updates!
Reposts appreciated 🙏

GhostParser: A highly scalable phylogenomic approach for the identification of ghost introgression https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.21.671585v1

Phyling: phylogenetic inference from annotated genomes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.30.666921v1

Accounting for population structure and data quality in demographic inference with linkage disequilibrium methods - Nature Communications Accurate estimation of effective population size is critical for understanding population history but is often confounded by structure and data quality. Here, the authors show that GONE2 and currentNe...

Accounting for population structure and data quality in demographic inference with linkage disequilibrium methods
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Open Positions Positions and vacancies at the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate

Would you like to come to work with us here at @Macroecology ? The Center is opening six new positions!

macroecology.ku.dk/people/posit...

So happy to see our work published in MBE after a helpful and constructive journey with Editors and Reviewers!! #wildpopulation #nonmodels #E-Ranticorrelation #evolutionaryresearch #Aptenodytes #largepenguins

The status, threats and conservation of Critically Endangered species - Nature Reviews Biodiversity Species classified as Critically Endangered are at greatest risk of extinction, and their preservation and recovery are crucial to meeting global biodiversity aims. This Review assesses the geographic...

New paper reviewing the world's 10,443 Critically Endangered species: their status, distribution threats and the actions needed for their recovery
www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Seeking a few Postdoctoral Researchers at Mathematical Genomics RIKEN ECL Research Unit (25-695)

Postdoc position in my group in Tokyo!
Please get in touch if you are interested.

And happy to discuss projects - these would range from developing new methods to analysis of new genomes that we are now sequencing in the lab.

Job Ad: www.riken.jp/en/careers/r...
Lab page: speidellab.github.io

Photo credit: Morten Tange Olsen

Interested in range-wide grey seal population structure and demographic history? See our new open access study! It was a fantastic international collaboration and special thanks to @tangeolsen.bsky.social and Kristina Cammen 🧬🦭.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
#MarineMammals #PopGen #consgen

A Guide for Developing Demo‐Genetic Models to Simulate Genetic Rescue Genetic rescue is a conservation management strategy that reduces the negative effects of genetic drift and inbreeding in small and isolated populations. However, such populations might already be vu...

A Guide for Developing Demo-Genetic Models to Simulate Genetic Rescue 🧬 #popgen #consgen onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Deer of the World This book is the first reference work ever published on the systematics, ecology, conservation status and management of all the world's deer species.

So nice to be a small part of this extensive reference book on deer!
🦌 🦌 🦌 🦌 🦌 🦌 🦌 🦌 🦌

#mammals #deer #RuminantsRule

link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Senior Research Associate in Population Genomics (RA2327) in University of East Anglia | UEA View details and apply for this Senior Research Associate in Population Genomics (RA2327) vacancy in University of East Anglia. Faculty of Science School of Biological Sciences Senior Research A...

A 4-year postdoc position in population genomics is available in my group at the University of East Anglia, to work on a project sequencing a thousand fox genomes across rural and urban environments in the UK.

vacancies.uea.ac.uk/vacancies/15...

New Science paper: 15,845 tracked individuals across 121 species to identify spatial conservation targets www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

led by @anammsequeira.bsky.social

SHARK: web server for alignment-free homology assessment for intrinsically disordered and unalignable protein regions Abstract. Whereas alignment has been fundamental to sequence-based assessments of protein homology, it is ineffective for intrinsically disordered regions

SHARK: web server for alignment-free homology assessment for intrinsically disordered and unalignable protein regions. #ProteinHomology #WebServer #Bioinformatics #Genomics 🧬 🖥️ @narjournal.bsky.social‬
academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...

A map of the Arctic Ocean where the four different management stock boundaries of bowhead whales are colored in (Sea of Okhotsk; Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort; East Canada-West Greenland; East Greenland-Svalbard-Barents). Also shown are arrows highlighting potential Holocene habitat connectivity routes between these different populations.

🐋 ANOTHER ONE 🐋 !!!

We have a hot new #bowhead #whale preprint out now on @biorxiv-bioinfo.bsky.social, co-led with @mick2474.bsky.social !

We show what is possible when you integrate genomic and ecological data to tell an insightful story about this charismatic #Arctic endemic! 🧬

Thread: 1/🐋

Cell Press: STAR Protocols STAR Protocols is an open access, peer-reviewed journal from Cell Press. We offer structured, transparent, accessible, and repeatable step-by-step experimental and computational protocols from all are...

Interested in measuring genetic load? We have a new paper out providing a modified version of GERP which is more user friendly in wildlife species and with scripts to automate making input files and pulling out derived alleles in your species #consgen #popgen star-protocols.cell.com/protocols/4202