Aaditya Narasimhan

*ALERT! GLOBAL GENETIC DIVERSITY TREND RE-ANALYSIS*

"Signals of consistent genetic diversity decline are not yet measurable in global meta-analysis" doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Ancient hybridization underlies tuberization and radiation of the potato lineage Genomic and functional analyses reveal that the potato lineage originated from a homoploid interspecific hybridization event between the Tomato and Etuberosum lineages 8–9 million years ago. The alter...

final bonus: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... potato is (half a) tomato (4/4). really cool!

Six million years of vole dental evolution shaped by tooth development | PNAS Morphological change occurs over macroevolutionary timescales under the action of natural selection and genetic drift combined with developmental p...

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... - development explaining macroevolution in voles, see also similar work in primates www.nature.com/articles/s41... (3/n)

Radiation with reproductive isolation in the near-absence of phylogenetic signal Phenotypic diversification and reproductive isolation may unfold in the near-absence of phylogenetic signal.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... - interesting case of radiation without phylogenetic signal (!). only one genomic region seems to be responsible, and the authors discuss whether the hamlets are different species - they have strong phenotypic diff and reproductive isolation (2/n)

Behavior drives morphological change during human evolution Dietary shifts and corresponding morphological changes can sometimes evolve in succession, not concurrently—an evolutionary process called behavioral drive. Detecting behavioral drive in the fossil re...

Some really interesting papers in the last few weeks:

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... - behavioural drive related to C4 plant consumption drove morphological change in hominins. really cool use of isotope data (1/n)

Volume 38 Issue 6 | Journal of Evolutionary Biology | Oxford Academic Journal of Evolutionary Biology

⭐Issue 6 of JEB is now online!⭐

This issue is headlined by a Target Review from @josselin-clo.bsky.social et al. on #matingsystems evolution, accompanied by several #invitedcommentaries expanding on this key discussion comparing concepts in plants and animals:

academic.oup.com/jeb/issue/38/6

As Requested - A Starter Pack of PIs in Biology (or adjacent) fields who are recruiting POSTDOCS! Please don't hesitate to reach out if you wish to be added! go.bsky.app/4gbXXR3

My talk from this year's probgen is finally out.

Where do linear mixed models and random effects come from?

They emerge from *mutations* on Ancestral Recombination Graphs.

Are you a PI in a biology field looking for postdocs? Here is a Starter Pack of early career biologists currently seeking postdoctoral positions! (Also if you are searching for a postdoc, let me know if you want to be added!) go.bsky.app/8zZNEGV

Due to popular demand, I am creating starter packs for a) Biology PIs looking for PhD students and b) Biology PIs looking for POSTDCOCs! Please respond saying if which packs you would like to be added to (or if you want to be added to both).

I would like to be added!

So very excited for the magnum opus of my #PhD to finally be out in @pnas.org. 🎉🎉 We demosntrate that mutualistic co-mimicking tropical butterflies not only converge in light microhabitat but, as a consequence, have also converged in visual system morphology! 1/n😀
www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Gene regulatory networks and essential transcription factors for de novo-originated genes Nature Ecology & Evolution - A combination of computational methods applied to single-cell RNA sequencing data and genetic experiments shows that a small number of transcription factors are...

Our latest paper is out: rdcu.be/ev6Ym — one of my favorite projects. It began about 8 years ago when Nobel laureate Torsten Wiesel asked me: what transcription factors regulate new genes? I had no idea then. Now we have some answers.

Very excited to share the first chapter of my PhD thesis out in @elife.bsky.social : doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

We discovered how the gene "mirror" is necessary for specifying the “vannus”, a unique domain in the posterior part of butterfly wings. 🦋🦋 (1/6)

#CRISPR #butterfly #genomics

Trends in loss and retention of vision-related genes are similar between two trechine beetles independently colonizing caves Abstract. Whether evolution is predictable has been tested in evolutionary biology by comparing lineages that experienced parallel evolution. For example,

Two cave beetles lost the same visual genes after independent cave colonization. Why? Genes with fewer roles in the body (low pleiotropy) were more likely to be lost. Gene loss may not be so random after all:

Niida, Ashida and Koshikawa

doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

PhD Assisted Migration

*Job alert*
Within our recently funded collaborative project focusing on assisted migration of #mountain #plant species, we are looking for a #PhD candidate based at ETH Zürich. For further details and instructions, see the job ad:
jobs.ethz.ch/job/view/JOP...
Please repost!
🧪🏔️🌿

Gene loss associated with plasticity-first evolution in Heliconius butterflies https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.22.660914v1

pleasantly surprised to see that the footy stats community seems to rate him! hope he pops off, and def better to hold him than buy someone new for £50m+

Although I don't need this long term storage option right now, good to know of this option so thanks! I anticipate to U/D often (to update backups).

any recommendations on cloud options to store a few 100 gigs of data after you finish projects? I have a physical backup, but paranoid about losing it/disk failure. decent pricing/gb and security are important! looking for ~2TB for now #EvoSky 🧪

Was this meta-analysis presented at the conference? Would be interested to know if there's something out!

Depending on the sample size, you might need to apply a correction to estimating SD (i.e., division by n-1 instead of n). The standard deviation is also only meaningful if the variable is normally distributed; for other distributions the second moments are estimated differently.

Another cool new paper showing that developmental constraints likely connect micro- and macroevolutionary divergence
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....

A new paper in Nature Ecol & Evol by
@rosafernandez.bsky.social et al. shows a #punctuated burst of genome evolution in #annelids as they transitioned from marine to land and freshwater habitats.

Just hours before the end of the early bird, registrations are rapidly going up. We had an overwhelming response to the abstract. call (>2000) and the possibility of reaching the capacity limit is not so unlikely.

So better hurry up to secure your spot at #ESEB2025

eseb2025.com/registration/

maybe my favorite paper I've written, I have a synthesis out today early access in @asn-amnat.bsky.social today that attempts to answer a simple but slippery question: what is an elevational range? doi.org/10.1086/737130

Ok, I see that. He certainly has a pattern of not citing the OGs. I don’t know what his audience is (ig neoliberal elites?) but hopefully he reaches out to some of them. What a pity overall though!

x.com/RnaudBertran... and substack attached therein arnaudbertrand.substack.com/p/marx-was-j... (unfortunately paywalled)

What is the issue? I get that he should be critiqued for everything else (e.g., no idea about Marx yet writing about "Capital"), but from what I see the new paper seems to show something marxists and critics of neocolonialism have been saying. Could you point me to some sources?

Spinger Nature Discovers MDPI – The Strain on Scientific Publishing Home page for the paper ‘The Strain on Scientific Publishing’ by Mark A Hanson, Dan Brockington, Paolo Crosetto and Pablo Gomez Barreiro

A new open-access Springer journal brand Discover, has absolute resemblance to MDPI and its strategy. A shocking new analysis by @paolocrosetto.bsky.social and other members of the Strain Team the-strain-on-scientific-publishing.github.io/website/post...
HT: @deevybee.bsky.social