Chloee McLaughlin

Very happy to share our preprint on sorghum strigolactone diversity! 🌱

Sorghum naturally varies in strigolactones, plant hormones that can sometimes protect against the parasitic plant Striga.

We asked if this diversity could be connected to potential trade-offs in host resistance strategies.

Delivering trait-enhanced varieties to African smallholders through a pangenomic breeding network Pangenomics has been promoted to accelerate breeding of orphan crops, but smallholder farmers in developing nations have seen little benefit so far. To address this gap, we built a global pangenomic b...

Excited to see our pangenomic breeding network preprint out www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

This began as a @jgi.doe.gov Community Science Program (CSP) project in 2017 with the goal of uniting the diverse sorghum breeding and mapping populations in the framework of a 'pangenome'.

Thanks to a huge efforts across many stakeholders, the article was preprinted today. A 🧵 w/ what we found:

Mammoths and Ants Look at the fragile mushrooms. Look at the Black Widow. Pause with me a moment, and hear the cicadas humming. Here is where I'm home, among the Mammoth Redwoods. When I was lost, the ants absorbed me, calling me to the smallness of Earth. There I heard the Song of Silence. Come with me through the minuscule. Listen. The Cicadas are humming.

I'll never get over this poem a child wrote with one of my poetry prompts.

Schematic diagram showing strigolactone (SL) synthesis from carlactone precursor via distinct pathways to produce canonical or non-canonical SLs; with the latter product produced by CYP722A1, and required for flowering regulation. To the right is an image of the first author, Masaki Kuno.

Branching out...🎋🌼

Kuno et al. show that #Arabidopsis CYP722A1 synthesizes a noncanonical SL that specifically regulates floral transition, suggesting structural diversification of #strigolactones are required for specialized functions in #plantdevelopment
🆓🔗 doi.org/10.1093/pcp/...

#PlantScience

Talking Biotech 459 - where did the key domestication mutations in corn come from? Were they present in resident gene pools waiting to be selected, or new mutations? I discuss with @jrossibarra and his student Regina Fairbanks.
@aspb @ASHS_Hort @UF_IFAS share.transistor.fm/s/bed2ffa6

We also showed that within-country genotype substitutions (swapping varieties) can improve climate matching to novel conditions. Countries with greater climatic diversity were more likely to have better substitutions - highlighting the value of current diversity for agricultural resilience. (🧵 2/2)

We combined crop models with genomic data to explore genotype-environment (GxE) associations in native varieties of cereal crops. Using our GxE associations, we predicted maladaptation following changes to climate and identified genotypes more suitable for novel climate conditions 🧬🌱 (🧵 1/2)

Very excited to see this PhD project get published in @natcomms.bsky.social!

Our paper on modeling maladaptation in cereal crops following a scenario of rapid climate change is out! 🌾

🧵👇

Wow, the cover looks great!
Nice work Patrice and @roederlab.bsky.social

The GENESPACE plot uses our new @jgi.doe.gov Pennycress and Brassica rapa genomes built in collaboration with @spicybotrytis.bsky.social & Katie Greenham, hosted on phytozome

It's all in the timing: vegetative phase change alters selection under drought and contributes to local adaptation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.13.653704v1

Ancient pangenomic origins of noncanonical NLR genes underlying the recent evolutionary rescue of a staple crop https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.11.648396v1

"Artist’s impression of John Edmonstone teaching Darwin to preserve birds." A Black man appears to work on a piece of cardboard that will become a preserved bird's wing. He wears a workman's apron, and Darwin, young and also wearing an apron, stands nearby with a tool in one hand a dead bird in the other. CREDIT: State Darwin Museum

In 1825, a skilled Black artisan taught a young medical student, Charles Darwin, how to preserve animal specimens via taxidermy, a skill he used in his exploration of the Galapagos.

John Edmonstone was born a slave in Guyana, but freed when the family who owned him moved back to Scotland.

Happy International Day of Women in Science. The National Science Foundation’s list of flagged words includes both “Women” and “Female.”

Abandoning trans people is 'fascist logic', says leading feminist philosopher Leading feminist philosopher Judith Butler has declared that abandoning trans people or any minority is operating within 'fascist logic'.

“Once you decide that a single vulnerable minority can be sacrificed, you’re operating within a fascist logic,” they said. “That means there might be a second one you’re willing to sacrifice and a third, a fourth. Then what happens?”

On top, five Andropogoneae grass species, from left to right Zea mays subsp. mays, Hemarthria uncinata, Miscanthus sinensis, Sorghum bicolor, Andropogon gerardi. On bottom, a map of the world, with collection sites of Andropogoneae grasses in points. A green background shows the distribution of Andropogoneae grasses throughout tropical and temperate latitudes

On left, a phylogeny of Andropogoneae species, with 14 independent polyploidy origins noted. On right, genome size and repeat content of each assembly. Across all assemblies, average assembly size is 1.9 Gb, and average repeat size is 1.5 Gb.

New preprint featuring my favorite maize-relatives, the Andropogoneae! We sequenced the genomes of 27 species, including lemongrass, kangaroo grass, little and big bluestem, and more -- key species that shape grasslands and prairies worldwide. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Evolution of species' range and niche in changing environments https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01.16.633367v1

Redlisting genetics: towards inclusion of genetic data in IUCN Red List assessments - Conservation Genetics Genetic diversity is critical for adaptation in response to changing environments and provides a valuable metric for predicting species’ extinction risk. The International Union for Conservation of Na...

Redlisting genetics: towards inclusion of genetic data in IUCN Red List assessments link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Redlisting genetics: towards inclusion of genetic data in IUCN Red List assessments - Conservation Genetics Genetic diversity is critical for adaptation in response to changing environments and provides a valuable metric for predicting species’ extinction risk. The International Union for Conservation of Na...

Super happy to share that our perspective piece on why and how genetic data should be incorporated into IUCN Red List assessments is published! This was a passion project that came out of a grad-level class taught by @jillahamilton.bsky.social 🌿🦇🐞🪼🦧🌳🧬

link.springer.com/article/10.1...