Fernando Villanea

Interpreting supervised machine learning inferences in population genomics using haplotype matrix permutations Abstract. Supervised machine learning methods, such as convolutional neural networks (CNNs), that use haplotype matrices as input data have become powerful

Working link: academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-...

Do you want to support Hispanics and Native Americans in #STEM? If you said yes, become a member of @sacnas.bsky.social. You don't have to be a member of those communities to be a part of #SACNAS, but being a member helps you support and celebrate them.
👉https://www.sacnas.org/memberships

The most important paper in evolutionary biology I'd never heard of:

1/

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Do you know anyone with an interest in pursuing a PhD studying the genetics, development, and evolution of skeletal morphology and life history? If so please encourage them to apply to work with me through any of the University of Illinois' EEB or PEEC programs. 1/4 🧪🦷🦴🐭🐒

Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion

Hear! effing Hear!

[Gift link]

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...

🧬🧬🧬 🦣❤️🦣 🧬🧬🧬

New #CpgSthlm paper led by @maridehasque.bsky.social published in Biology Letters!

Genomic and morphological analysis reveals long-term mammoth hybridization in British Columbia, Canada
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

In 2016, Jane Goodall spoke at the International Primatological Society meetings. She closed her talk asking everyone to thank the primates we studied not with applause, but with their calls. And so a room full of Very Eminent Primatologists made delighted monkey noises to Jane Goodall. ⚱️🐒🧪🌍

💔

One of my favorite anecdotes from THE PREHISTORY OF THE FAR SIDE: "That doesn't sound like the Jane Goodall we know."

Do check out our new manuscript, now out in G3 on modelling theoretical expectations of ghost introgression in sampled genomes. Just in time for Halloween! 🎃 👻

Assistant Professor, Tenure-Track, Department of Biology, University of San Francisco Job Title: Assistant Professor, Tenure-Track, Department of Biology, University of San Francisco Job Summary: The Department of Biology at the University of San Francisco invites applications for a fu...

Tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Bioinformatics in the Department of Biology at the University of San Francisco
usfca.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/USF_Fu...

2nd year grad students are no longer eligible to apply. Currently enrolled grad students must be in their first year, whether in a MS, BS-MS, or Ph.D.

UR Biology is hiring an Assistant Professor in mathematical/computational evolutionary genetics. Join us!

apply.interfolio.com/173431

But does Tylenol PM cause Night Autism?

Tenure-track Assistant Professor in Computational Ecology and/or Evolution @columbiauniversity.bsky.social.
Deadline to apply September 30.
Reach out if you have questions.

apply.interfolio.com/172496

ecoevojobs.net 2025-26

UPDATE: The 2025-2026 list of faculty and postdoc positions in ecology and evolutionary biology is out! Be sure to check out this active and helpful community run resources! docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

We have a new paper out - spearheaded by the brilliant Madison Tripp and Kliti Grice at Curtin in Western Australia:

Biomarkers preserve exceptionally well in diagenetic carbonates rather than phosphates.
#paleontology #astrobiology #geochemistry

Link: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Our department of Plant Molecular Biology at the University of Lausanne @unil.bsky.social is recruiting a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in the field of Plant-Organism Interactions 🌱🐛🦠🍄! Application before November 30, 2025. See the official job ad for more details: tinyurl.com/mtxdcz6p

Hybridization and introgression are major evolutionary processes. Since the 1940s, the prevailing view has been that they shape plants far more than animals. In our new study (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
), we find the opposite: animals exchange genes more, and for longer, than plants

Robust and accurate Bayesian inference of genome-wide genealogies for hundreds of genomes - Nature Genetics SINGER is a method for creating ancestral recombination graphs to understand the genealogical history of genomes. The method has increased speed, and thus scalability, without sacrificing accuracy.

SINGER, our ARG inference method, is finally published and freely available online:

doi.org/10.1038/s415...

It was a long journey – 16 months from initial submission to acceptance. Is it just me, or has peer review gotten more arduous lately? 4+ rounds of review isn't so unusual these days...

I'm re-teaching an R class from four years ago and found out today qplot was deprecated to encourage me to learn ggplot, which like, fair point since I've had four years to improve the class and clearly didn't.

I hope this ishmael finds you whale

Ant queen lays eggs that hatch into two species Bizarre discovery of interspecies cloning “almost impossible to believe,” biologists say

“Just when you think you’ve seen it all, social insects reveal another surprise.” https://scim.ag/47sVFyS

Come and be our new Chair of Biology at @gtsciences.bsky.social! We are growing an incredibly exciting ecology and evolution group here at GT and would love a visionary eco-evo minded person at the helm to help us do that. Please spread the word!

biosciences.gatech.edu/chair-search

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...

This is insane! And cool! Most interesting paper of the year for sure.

Kleptogenesis to the max.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thank you Nate!

The gene from Denisovan to Neanderthal to modern mucus A “genetic sandwich” reveals how a block of DNA entered several populations successively and was affected by natural selection.

Thank you for the write-up @johnhawks.net in particular for dedicating space to explaining mucin structure and function.

The gene from Denisovan to Neanderthal to modern mucus
open.substack.com/pub/johnhawk...

Thanks Arun!

Thank you Caley!

I want to deeply thank all our co-authors @vvillaislas.bsky.social @kwittadna.bsky.social @paulvaldmanis.bsky.social
@paleogenomics.bsky.social, and the ones not on Bluesky Eli, Valeria, Elsie, Roberta, Davide, Priya, Flora, and also Emilia Huerta-Sanchez for putting our coalition together