Chris Kyriazis

Selection-driven color variation in the aposematic strawberry poison frog, Oophaga pumilio Aguilar-Gómez et al. use exome sequencing of 347 strawberry poison frogs to uncover the genetic basis of color variation. They identify that kit, ttc39b, and bco1 underlie blue-red, yellow-red, and gr...

The last chapter of my PhD is finally out !!!! In the same species, on neighboring islands, we see radically different warning colors emerge. Evolution in action:
Selection-driven color variation in the aposematic strawberry poison frog, Oophaga pumilio: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...

I am seeking a postdoc to join my group at UCLA -- ideally the candidate would have some experience in either population genetics or microbes/microbiome (computational background needed). We have a range of projects and are happy to tailer to your interests. Please dm/email me if interested.

SLiM 5: Eco-evolutionary Simulations Across Multiple Chromosomes and Full Genomes Abstract. Evolutionary simulations of multiple chromosomes, even up to the scale of full-genome simulations, are becoming increasingly important in populat

Slim 5 can now simulate genomes with multiple chromosomes like autosomes, sex chromosomes, mitochondria and chloroplast dna academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

Portrait of Brenna Henn next to an open freezer of samples.

Here's my latest contribution to the @nytimes "Lost Science" series. Brenna Henn's sweeping study of African genetics has been frozen. Gift link: nyti.ms/3Ypmm1A

Special Issue: CONSERVATION GENOMICS ‐ MAKING A DIFFERENCE: Molecular Ecology: Vol 34, No 23 Molecular Ecology is an international journal for research using molecular genetic techniques to address questions in ecology, evolution, behavior and conservation.

New special issue in Molecular Ecology on Conservation Genomics #popGen #evolution 🧪🧬🖥️ onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/1365294x...

The Influence of Demographic History and Genetic Architecture on Complex Traits via Runs of Homozygosity Runs of homozygosity (ROH) are contiguous genomic regions where all sites are homozygous, inherited from identical haplotypes due to shared ancestry. The number and length of ROH in individuals varies...

Happy to share my work with my advisor Zachary Szpiech! Why are associations between ROH & complex traits inconsistent across studies? We use realistic simulations to show how demographic history and genetic architecture interact to shape the phenotypic impact of ROH. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The registration deadline is fast approaching for probgen 2026! Abstracts due by January 15, registration by January 31

probgen2026.github.io

Determining the driving factors shaping genetic architecture of complex traits in recently admixed populations Understanding the genetic architecture of complex traits in admixed populations remains challenging due to heterogeneous genetic backgrounds and demographic histories. Mischaracterizing admixture can ...

Preprint online right before the holidays! Excited to share the first piece of work from the Zhang Lab, led by my absolutely stellar postdoc Michelle Kim! In this work, we ask how admixture, selection and demography shape complex trait genetics and GWAS performance www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Figure with a photo of a member of then Solomons Monarch complex, a map of the Solomon Islands (divided into four island groups, Makira being the most isolated), and a principal component analysis highlighting the distinct between-island-group structure, with moderate structure within the New Georgia Group and weaker structure within the Bukida group (highlighted in an inset).

Just out in Systematic Biology, we explore the role of gene flow in island phylogeography of the Solomons Black-and-white Monarch complex. doi.org/10.1093/sysb...

Up first, strong genetic structure between islands groups and weak (but present!) structure between Pleistocene-connected islands (🧵)

very cool! congrats Ethan

For population genetics and evolutionary biology folks in the Bay Area: the next BAPG will be hosted by Stanford CEHG and the Petrov lab at Stanford on 12/6.
Registration is free but required. The deadline for talk submission is Nov. 16. Hope to see you soon! Pls RT!
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Apply for our PhD program on Evolution Ecology Organismal Biology (Integrative! Biology)

Dec 1 2025 deadline

Check out the Flyer below for more information on our #MOILAB!

Link to Flyer
docs.google.com/document/d/1...

@ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social
@hhmi.org

Home The SCalE Meeting is a free, one day regional academic meeting focused on evolutionary genetics and genomics. This year's SCalE Meeting is hosted by UCLA, sponsored by the Institute for Quantitative ...

In the midst of the darkness, I am pleased to announce that UCLA will be hosting the upcoming Southern California Evolutionary Genetics (SCalE) conference on November 1! Registration & abstract submission is here: www.scalemeeting.org/home Deadline is October 13! Hope to see you at UCLA!

New manuscript out today in @ecol-evol.bsky.social, led by my grad student Anais. We collated data from thousands of recent animal pop-gen studies to test 3 simple hypotheses: does genomic (1) diversity decrease (yes), (2) differentiation increase (yes), both with increased IUCN-endangerment?

Homepage - Population, Evolutionary, and Quantitative Genetics Conference Visit our website to learn more.

Save the date! #PEQG26 June 9-12 2026 in Asilomar, CA. Happens only every 2yrs, but is my favorite conference. Full website coming soon, and registration and abstract submission opens November 14, but I'm allowed to tease that keynotes will be @jnovembre.bsky.social @jennytung.bsky.social and me!

Fitness benefits of genetic rescue despite chromosomal differences in an endangered pocket mouse Two-thirds of Earth’s species have undergone population declines, leaving many vulnerable to genomic erosion and inbreeding depression. Genetic rescue can boost the fitness of small populations, but p...

Excited to share our new paper on genetic rescue in the Pacific pocket mouse! To conserve this endangered species, we sought to understand whether small populations at risk of outbreeding depression are better managed in isolation or with gene flow. @science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Postdoctoral Scholar – Genomics, Aging, Somatic Mutation, Structural Variation, Evolution , Cancer – Integrative Biology University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!

The Sudmant lab at UC Berkeley is seeking a postdoc to work on a fully funded NIH project to understand differences in DNA repair and somatic mutation across the primate tree of life. Please spread widely to those who may be interested aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05052

SLiM 5: Eco-evolutionary simulations across multiple chromosomes and full genomes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.07.669155v1

GHIST 2024: The 1st Genomic History Inference Strategies Tournament Evaluating population genetic inference methods is challenging due to the complexity of evolutionary histories, potential model misspecification, and unconscious biases in self-assessment. The Genomic...

Our manuscript describing the first Genomic History Inference Strategies Tournament is now on bioRxiv! Enjoy reading about the 2024 competition as you prepare your entries for the 2025 competition! ghi.st

Absolute insanity

congrats!!

I am thrilled to share this paper outlining some ideas I’ve been thinking about for a little while on a simple but powerful approach for predicting risk of inbreeding depression from long runs of homozygosity and non-ROH heterozygosity. 1/n @klohmueller.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

*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...

Genetic load proxies do not predict fitness better than inbreeding does in a wild population A key goal in conservation is managing endangered populations in order to maximise individual and population fitness. Genetic management that reduces inbreeding and increases genetic diversity has bee...

We think this simple ID_risk statistic could have a lot of practical utility in providing a simple and reliable means for identifying populations where ID is likely to be strong, which doesnt suffer from many of the same issues that genetic load proxies do (e.g., doi.org/10.1101/2025...) n/n

We set out to explore the empirical behavior of the ID_risk statistic, and what we found I think is pretty cool! Specifically, it’s interesting to see that IR wolves and FL panthers have by far the highest ID_risk, which makes sense given the high severity of inbreeding depression in these pops 8/n

Our idea was perhaps we can devise a composite statistic for predicting risk of inbreeding depression in a population (ID_risk) simply by multiplying FROH and non-ROH het. As either of these quantities increase, so too should the threat of ID, so maybe there’s value in considering them together. 7/n

Another component that seemed relevant is the impact of heterozygosity in non-ROH regions, which should correlate with the inbreeding/masked load in a species. This is because more genome-wide hets = more recessive deleterious mutations as hets that can lead to inbreeding depression 6/n

Long runs of homozygosity are reliable genomic markers of inbreeding depression A long-standing goal in ecological, evolutionary, and conservation genetics is to identify genomic correlates of fitness and inbreeding depression. Ov…

This got me thinking…are we now at the point where it’s fair to assume a priori that, if long ROH are abundant in a population, it is likely suffering from inbreeding depression? Here, we argue that may now be the case. 5/n www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Paper after paper in species including wolves, dogs, humans, killer whales, etc all seem to tell a similar story. With this in mind, it was no surprise when we found a strong correlation between long ROH and survival/reproduction in ‘akikiki here: www.cell.com/current-biol...
4/n

Maybe my favorite is this paper on Soay sheep where they quantify these effects using SNP and mortality data for ~6000 sheep. For instance, they show that a 1% increase in long ROH reduces first year survival by 12.4%, whereas short ROH have no discernible impact. 3/n doi.org/10.1002/evl3...