𝙱𝙰𝚂𝙰𝙽𝚃𝙰 𝙺𝙷𝙰𝙺𝚄𝚁𝙴𝙻

Assessing the impact of character evolution models on phylogenetic and macroevolutionary inferences from fossil data Understanding the evolution and phylogenetic distribution of morphologic traits is fundamental to macroevolutionary research. Despite decades of major advances and key insights from molecular systema...

🚨New paper out in Palaeontology! Check it out if you're interested morphological evolution, fossil phylogenetics, and macroevolution 🧪

"Assessing the impact of character evolution models on phylogenetic and macroevolutionary inferences from fossil data"

Beware giving this site your unpublished data Users noticed the website had fake testimonials and a domain name registered seemingly overnight.

The dark truth behind FormatMyPaper.com

We call this hypotheses the 'Zarathustran hypothesis', following Nietzsche’s idea that the maintenance of life does not merely follow from conservation, but rather from constant renovation, movement, and expansion. 3/3

I’m really happy to see Kat’s first dissertation chapter published! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Loss of macroevolutionary species fitness explains the rise and fall of clades - Nature Ecology & Evolution The interplay between speciation and extinction rates shapes clade diversity dynamics. Using a novel phylogenetic model that includes living and fossil lineages, the authors estimate speciation and ex...

Excited to share our new paper where we find that the rise, decline and fall of clades is not explained by the usual suspects (diversity-dependence, ecological opportunities) but rather by species' insidious loss of macroevolutionary fitness: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/3

Out now in Biology Letters, my latest paper tackles an apparently simple question: how many characters are needed to reconstruct a phylogeny? TL;DR: in most cases between 100 and 500, more than a substantial portion of morphological datasets, but the story is more complex... doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...

Our paper on perceptions of punctuated equilibrium - including suggestions for how to teach about this essential evolutionary concept - is now available online! doi.org/10.1017/pab....

We hope that our contribution will not only be a useful reference for all researchers wanting to perform a tip-dating analysis on their favorite group of organisms, but also a starting point of discussion to further improve this class of methods and its application to empirical data!

Non-exhaustive list of things you can find in our paper:
- A survey of all fossil tip-dating studies published until 2023
- A flowchart with all the steps to set up a tip-dating analysis
- Detailed discussion of all the elements making up a tip-dating analysis, from molecular alignment to FBD models

Ever wondered how to incorporate fossils as tips in a phylogenetic tree?
Our new paper provides a comprehensive guide!

#EarlyFossilFriday
#FossilFriday
#TipDating
#Phylogeny
#EvolutionaryBiology

Practical Guide and Review of Fossil Tip-Dating in Phylogenetics https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40990492/

Incredibly proud and also very emotional to see this new paper published in @systbiol.bsky.social. The study was lead by Pierre Cockx, who sadly passed away in July.
academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...

New from #BiologyLetters: Combining fossil taxa with and without morphological data improves dated phylogenetic analyses buff.ly/abJm5Zv | #Evolution #Palaeontology #Taxonomy

I am recruiting a PhD student this application cycle to explore questions on the evolution of morphological variation and phylogenetics. I'm especially seeking folks interested in fossil marine inverts. Please reach out to me if interested! Portal opens Nov. 1 eeb.utoronto.ca/education/gr...

Sorting of ancestral polymorphism and its impact on morphological phylogenetics and macroevolution Abstract. Intraspecific phenotypic variation provides the basic substrate upon which the evolutionary processes that give rise to morphological innovation,

Excited to share a new paper! "Sorting of ancestral polymorphism and its impact on morphological phylogenetics and macroevolution". Part of some work I've been doing on modelling the evolution of polymorphic traits in fossil echinoderms.

academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants - Nature In a case of obligate cross-species cloning, female ants of Messor ibericus need to clone males of Messor structor to obtain sperm for producing the worker caste, resulting in males from the same moth...

"Living organisms are assumed to produce same-species offspring. Here, we report a shift from this norm..."

Haldane was right. Nature is awesome in its capacity to get weird! 🧪

The Occurrence Birth-Death Diffusion Process: Unraveling Diversification Histories with Fossils and Heterogeneous Rates https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.26.672414v1

🥲

Impact of Partition Models on Phylogenetic Inference and Divergence Times of Lampyridae from Mitochondrial Genomes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.19.671050v1

Don’t threaten me with a good time!

Photo of the final slide of J Mappes's plenary at ESEB Text on the slide: Take-home Natural history matters Ecological reality is complex Fresh ideas matter Be ready to reject your favourite hypothesis Science moves forward when we keep both our curiosity and our humility

Final words of the last #ESEB2025 plenary by @jmappes.bsky.social:
"Science moves forward when we keep both our curiosity and our humility"

Know anyone looking for a funded MS thesis project focused on native fish conservation? Send them this ad. NDOW and U. of Nevada-Reno are going to be learning more about this newly described species. (Note that the application deadline is quickly approaching.)

YouTube video by Rosana Z-F Zenil-Ferguson. The importance of quantifying rate uncertainty

Unfortunately, I couldn't join in person #eseb2025, but the organizers kindly accommodated a video. Posted here in case you missed it!
youtu.be/n9Ls9-8p8x0?...

Extremely proud to be part of this project integrating stratigraphic paleobiology with phylogenetics. Go and chat to Nik if you’re at #ESEB25 or check out his poster via the link below!

Lauren's defense poster with an ABBA-BABA site pattern diagram in the background, and photos of Neotropical bellflowers in the foreground. There's a picture of her to the left along with text: "Inferring hybridization at shallow and deep timescales. Lauren Frankel PhD dissertation defense. Monday, August 25 10:00am CDT"

hi friends, let me know if you'd like a zoom link for my defense next week!

Registration is now open for #SSB2026!

I'm so excited to see many of you here in Baton Rouge in January! We're going to hear great talks, discuss the immeasurable value of natural history collections, and continue to strengthen our scientific community.

ssb2026.github.io

@systbiol.bsky.social

Modeling site-and-branch-heterogeneity with GFmix Phylogenetic trees are often inferred from protein sequences sampled from diverse taxa across the tree of life. The compositions of these amino acid sequences may be heterogeneous across both sites an...

Our paper describing our new improved GFmix models for phylogenetic inference that capture site-and-branch heterogeneity in amino acid composition.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Phylogenetic networks empower biodiversity research | PNAS Reticulate evolution has long been recognized as a key mechanism that contributes to genetic and trait diversity. With the widespread availability ...

Phylogenetic networks empower biodiversity research | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Registration for the SSB breakout meeting in Baton Rouge, LA in Jan. 2026 will be opening soon!

Registrants need to be SSB members, so make sure to check on your membership today and join/renew if needed: www.systbio.org

Check here regularly for updates: ssb2026.github.io

@systbiol.bsky.social

Percopsiformes phylogeny showing three independent cave colonization events

Check out our new paper! We find cavefish colonized caves 3x and global cooling events may have influenced these events.

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...