Evolutionary Ecology Group, Cambridge

Depth affects the population dynamics on a soft coral-dominated reef on the Great White Wall, Fiji - Coral Reefs Soft corals (order Alcyonacea) are an important component of tropical coral reefs, and often form locally abundance dense carpets. Some soft coral species are prone to bleaching and heat stress like s...

#newpaper showing how depth mediates the population dynamics of soft corals in Fiji, led by @nis38.bsky.social (with @huwiceandstuff.bsky.social‬, @rowanwhittlebas.bsky.social‬, and @egmitchell.bsky.social‬)
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

A multi-model approach to the spatial and temporal characterization of the African Humid Period During the last c. 20,000 years, African climates experienced temperature shifts related to the last period of global deglaciation and moisture availa…

#Newpaper: the African Humid period through the lenses of pollen-based and mechanistic-based #palaeoclimate reconstructions!

Thanks @ecologypast.bsky.social, @markuslfischer.bsky.social, @paleoclimategirl.bsky.social and all coauthors!

A multi-model approach to the spatial and temporal characterization of the African Humid Period During the last c. 20,000 years, African climates experienced temperature shifts related to the last period of global deglaciation and moisture availa…

New paper with a pollen and mechanistic model perspective on the African Humid Period – www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Pollen-based reconstructions and a mechanistic climate model tell a similar story on the Africa Humid Period; @mikleonardi.bsky.social‬ and Andrea contributed to a proxy-model comparison paper led by @ecologypast.bsky.social‬ in Quatern. Int.: authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

TODAY!!

We always try to be scientifically accurate, clear and inclusive in the way we present our research, but mistakes happen. This is why we are particularly grateful for constructive feedback such as yours! 2/2

We fully agree with this, and our group members are quite involved in discussing these topics with a wider public (see for example @ceciliapad.bsky.social and her work with @sapiens.org or @mikleonardi.bsky.social who created a free board game about evolution and climate change). 1/2

I see your point! As it was a sentence quoted from Andrea Manica (who is non-African) we thought it would work, but as you mention it may indeed lead to some misunderstanding!

Thanks for spotting this! You are right, it should read "we all non-Africans derive from a group of people that came out of Africa about 50,000 years ago".

Ancient proteins rewrite the rhino family tree — are dinosaurs next? Molecules from 20-million-year-old teeth are among the oldest ever sequenced.

Molecules from 20-million-year-old rhino's teeth are among the oldest ever sequenced. New @nature.com paper by Professor Andrea Manica and @mikleonardi.bsky.social @eegcam.bsky.social out now: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Phylogenetically informative proteins from an Early Miocene rhinocerotid - Nature Protein sequences from fossil tooth enamel of a rhinocerotid from Canada’s High Arctic are used to develop phylogenetic frameworks from a specimen too old to preserve ancient DNA.

Andrea and @mikleonardi.bsky.social contributed to a @nature.com paper recovering phylogenetically informative proteins from a ~21M year rhino: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New paper in collaboration with @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social and @jblinkhorn.bsky.social, with several of us involved (@mikleonardi.bsky.social @margheritac17.bsky.social @andreavpozzi.bsky.social) shows that downscaling palaeoclimate models doesn't necessarily improve coherence with proxy data.

New paper out, in collaboration with @jblinkhorn.bsky.social @elliescerri.bsky.social and @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social

Group photo from the EMBO Population Genomics Course in Naples, 2025

After a week of intense population genomics, lots of tired but still smiley faces. Thank you @embo.org for funding another edition of our Population Genomics course in Naples. And thank you to the trainers and participants for making this eight edition another success! #EMBOpopgen

Enza Colonna gives the intro lecture to EMBO PopGen 2025

Excited to kick off the 2025 EMBO Population Genomics course in Naples, Italy. #EMBOpopgen

Humanity's road to dominance began earlier than expected Getting sapient about sapiens...

Last week, Andrea sat down with Dr Chris Smith of Naked Scientists to talk about our paper on the expansion of the human niche 70k year ago: www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/int...

With tidypopgen, you can use R to read genotype data from all common formats 📖, filter data with a suite of functions for quality control, merge datasets 🔀, and run population genetic analyses, all within a single environment 🌐 See our vignettes at evolecolgroup.github.io/tidypopgen/a... 2/2

Tidy Population Genetics We provide a tidy grammar of population genetics, facilitating the manipulation and analysis of data on biallelic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). `tidypopgen` scales to very large genetic data...

We are excited to announce that tidypopgen – a new package for rapid population genetic workflows in R – is now available at evolecolgroup.github.io/tidypopgen/ 🧬💻 Read more in the preprint describing its features here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #popgen #Rpackage #genetics 1/2

Cambridge University (my uni!) plans to axe Dr Chris Smith of Naked Scientists. Without him, we would lose an important channel to explain our research to the broader public. If you don't think this is a smart way to cut costs, make your voice heard: www.thenakedscientists.com/sos-cambridg...

Human environmental niche changes in Africa >15,000 yrs ago

Major expansion in the human niche preceded out of Africa dispersal - Nature Analysis of species distribution models in a pan-African database comprising chronometrically dated archaeological sites over the past 120,000 years shows major expansion in the human niche from 70 ka...

Published today in @nature.com our new study on the drivers of the successful dispersal of modern humans out of Africa! A huge, interdisciplinary team effort long in the making, headed by @elliescerri.bsky.social . Glad to have contributed! www.nature.com/articles/s41... #archaeology #Evolution

When Humans Learned to Live Everywhere About 70,000 years ago in Africa, humans expanded into more extreme environments, a new study finds, setting the stage for our global migration.

About 70,000 years ago, a new study suggests, our species learned to live just about anywhere. Later, that ability helped our ancestors expand from Africa across the world. Here’s my story on the human niche [Gift link] nyti.ms/3ZBc7ID

Thank you @carlzimmer.com for this great piece covering our new @nature.com paper!

I could not be more proud of my lab, and my fantastic colleagues for the study they just published in @nature.com revealing a massive expansion of our species' niche before dispersing out of Africa. Have a read, because it's an amazing paper 🤩

Major expansion in the human niche preceded out of Africa dispersal - Nature Analysis of species distribution models in a pan-African database comprising chronometrically dated archaeological sites over the past 120,000 years shows major expansion in the human niche from 70 ka...

after 6 years, finally out in @nature.com!
‪Huge expansion of the human #niche in Africa ~70kya likely equipped later #outofAfrica dispersals with unique ecological flexibility

co-led with Emily Hallett @eegcam.bsky.social & @elliescerri.bsky.social
#prehistory #humanevolution #paleoecology #SDM

An elephant standing beneath large trees with text overlay that reads: 'How did humans become the most adaptable species on Earth?' Photo credit: Ondrej Pelanek and Martin Pelanek

Around 70,000 years ago, our ancestors in Africa began exploiting different habitats.

Flexibility to survive in deserts to rainforests enabled their successful spread ‘Out of Africa’.

Find out more about the study co-led by Andrea Manica @eegcam.bsky.social 👇
bit.ly/4e6i9H7

Major expansion in the human niche preceded out of Africa dispersal - Nature Analysis of species distribution models in a pan-African database comprising chronometrically dated archaeological sites over the past 120,000 years shows major expansion in the human niche from 70 ka...

1/5 Why do all non-Africans descended from a group that left Africa 50k ago? In @nature.com we model 120k years of human niche dynamics. From 70ka, a big expansion of the human niche in Africa likely equipped later OOA dispersals with a unique ecological flexibilty.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thanks to the funders @erc.europa.eu @leverhulme.ac.uk @maxplanck.de, reviewers, editor @endofthepier.bsky.social and coauthors Jacopo N Cerasoni, @manuelwill.bsky.social Robert Beyer, @mariokrapp.com, Andrew W. Kandel! 4/4

It looks more like a complex interaction between larger ranges, increased contacts between populations (note: at this time the full set of physical features that defines humans today becomes fixed), easier cultural exchanges and a higher likelihood of developing and maintaining innovations. 3/4

Following the niche: the differential impact of the last glacial maximum on four European ungulates - Communications Biology European megafaunal ungulates living in open habitats over the last 50,000 years showed evidence for niche change, possibly driven by climatic change and extinction of competitors and predators

We use #SDM to reconstruct the ecological dynamics of humans in Africa between 120 and 15kya (see link for original method) and find that from ~70 kya they increased their use of diverse habitats. As they pushed into very different environments, this is unlikely to be tied to a particular innovation