Ian Dworkin

Distinct genomic architectures but the same gene underlie the convergent evolution of a plant supergene https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.01.679701v1

Flexibility in Gene Coexpression at Developmental and Evolutionary Timescales Abstract. The explosion of next-generation sequencing technologies has allowed researchers to move from studying single genes to studying thousands of gene

Fischer et al. characterize differences in gene network connectivity and density, suggesting that flexibility in gene coexpression relationships could promote evolvability.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf194

#evobio #molbio

Continent-wide differentiation of fitness traits and patterns of climate adaptation among European populations of Drosophila melanogaster
#Drosophila

Redundant and Singular Regulatory Elements Underlie the Rapidly Evolving Pigmentation of Drosophila Abstract. A major hurdle in understanding the molecular changes responsible for metazoan diversity is the characterization of cis-regulatory elements (CREs

Brubaker et al. investigated the role of redundancy in cis-regulatory evolution in sexually dimorphic abdomen pigmentation of Drosophila melanogaster.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molb...

#evobio #molbio #drosophila

MBE | Influence of Gonadal and Chromosomal Sex on the Brain Transcriptome in a Mouse Species with Natural Sex Reversal

Heitzmann et al. compared brain transcriptomes of four sexual genotypes of the African pygmy mouse, showing how sex and neo-sex chromosomes impacted transcriptomes to reflect their transmission mode, evolutionary trajectories, and genomic conflicts.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf208

#evobio #molbio

Comic. [block quote] “Far better an approximate answer to the *right* question, which is often vague, than an *exact* answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise.” -John W. Tukey, The Future of Data Analysis (1962) [caption] Happy Approximate Birthday to John Tukey, author of my favorite statistics quote, who was born 110.000 years ago sometime this week.

Tukey

xkcd.com/3104/

MBE - Footprints of Worldwide Adaptation in Structured Populations of Drosophila melanogaster Through the Expanded DEST 2.0 Genomic Resource

@jcbnunez.bsky.social et al. present an expanded release of the community-generated resource Drosophila Evolution over Space and Time (DEST 2.0), and showcase it by studying the species' demographic history and signatures of adaptation.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf132

#evobio #molbio #drosophila

Footprints of Worldwide Adaptation in Structured Populations of Drosophila melanogaster Through the Expanded DEST 2.0 Genomic Resource Abstract. Large-scale genomic resources can place genetic variation into an ecologically informed context. To advance our understanding of the population g

doi.org/10.1093/molb...
Thrilled to share our new paper in MBE! 🎉 Presenting DEST 2.0: 530 pooled Drosophila populations spanning 12 years across 6 continents. We map genomic footprints of adaptation, from pesticide resistance to seasonal changes. #PopulationGenetics #Drosophila #Genomics #Evolution

Guelph Bug Day is happening THIS SUNDAY! 🐝🪲🐜

📅 Sunday, August 24, 2025
🕙 10 AM – 4 PM
📍 Summerlee Science Complex, Waasamowin Atrium – University of Guelph

This FREE, hands-on event is perfect for curious minds of all ages🐛🐞🕷️

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

Harvard University lays off fly database team The layoffs jeopardize this resource, which has served more than 4,000 labs for about three decades.

FlyBase, a Drosophila database, will lose a third of its team in early October because the Harvard grant that covered the employees’ salaries was canceled. Scientists warn that losing FlyBase could devastate fly research.

By @claudia-lopez.bsky.social

www.thetransmitter.org/community/ha...

Depends on the behaviours and physiological and neurobiological mechanisms at play. For some things, they are sufficiently conserved, and we see strong genetic links. For others, they are wildly different. But when it comes to the added effect of sex, I agree it get much harder to make connections.

Plotting phylogenetic trees in R: alternating clade highlights A guide to highlighting clades in phylogenetic trees in R

💬 "There’s already plenty of documentation out there for how to use #ggtree, but there is the odd thing I come up against that I haven’t seen explicitly demonstrated before." - @rowenahill.bsky.social.

A guide to plotting #phylogenetictrees in #R, and automating clade highlights
buff.ly/Vd5b61a

🧬💻

ln(😅) = 💧ln(😄)

Priceless! 😆
For all you #paleobiology parents.

The "reproducibility crisis" in science constantly makes headlines. Repro efforts are often limited. What if you could assess reproducibility of an entire field?

That's what @brunolemaitre.bsky.social et al. have done. Fly immunity is highly replicable & offers lessons for #metascience

A 🧵 1/n

Ontogeny of escape response and body shape in Threespine Stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus L.) https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.09.663780v1

The two Mesquite logos. At left, a mesquite tree leaf is against a black background. At right, a leaf is against a blue sky and sun.

Mesquite 4.0 released! A major update — many new features, small and large (phylogenomics, visualizations, workflow management, &c). Check out the trailer video: www.mesquiteproject.org.

Come discuss in our new Google Group (groups.google.com/g/mesquite-project). @bembidion.bsky.social ‬🧪 #evolbio

Drosophila Genetic Database The Drosophila Genetic Database, FlyBase, is on the brink of collapse due to the sudden termination of the FlyBase NIH grant, which includes salaries for 5 literature curators based at the University ...

European-based researchers can help support future #flybase curation by donating at this site: www.philanthropy.cam.ac.uk/give-to-camb...

Tidy Population Genetics We provide a tidy grammar of population genetics, facilitating the manipulation and analysis of data on biallelic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). `tidypopgen` scales to very large genetic data...

We are excited to announce that tidypopgen – a new package for rapid population genetic workflows in R – is now available at evolecolgroup.github.io/tidypopgen/ 🧬💻 Read more in the preprint describing its features here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #popgen #Rpackage #genetics 1/2

We currently have a call for support that has gone out to European labs, to support FlyBase-UK. We are asking our colleagues from labs in the US and other countries to wait for a similar call to them that will go out in the near future, to support the US sites. We thank you for your patience.

FlyBase funding squashed amid Harvard grant terminations The team behind the Drosophila genetics database is now requesting donations from labs to keep the resource afloat.

FlyBase, a crucial resource for drosophila research, has lost its funding because its grant is awarded to Harvard. The team is scrambling to find other sources of funds, including donations from labs. Read more: www.thetransmitter.org/community/fl... @flybase.bsky.social

Super excited to release a huge evolution project on the works for many years:

Evolution experiments synchronized across climates to understand rapid adaptation

Preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
All data available: www.grene-net.org/data

#MOILAB
@ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social
@hhmi.org

🧵👇

Multi‐response phylogenetic mixed models: concepts and application The scale and resolution of trait databases and molecular phylogenies is increasing rapidly. These resources permit many open questions in comparative biology to be addressed with the right statistic...

📢 New publication 'Multi-response #phylogenetic mixed #models: concepts and application' by Ben Halliwell, Barbara Holland and Luke Yates in Biological Reviews 🧪

doi.org/10.1111/brv....

It’s Mary Anning’s birthday, so time to share @katebeaton.bsky.social’s brilliant cartoon again.

Maybe I’m biased, but I really enjoyed this profile of superstar metabolic researcher Dr Lianna Wat 🤩

#MicroscopyMonday
We have #Drosophila flies that degrade their muscles prematurely. We looked at them with TEM and saw these membrane balls. Does anyone know what they are? Please, hivemind, help us out

Interested in Developmental biology? Imaging? Marine invertebrate body plans? Then this three year postdoc in my group @sotonbiosciences.bsky.social is for you! Join our team to decypher how signalling molecules shape skeletal phenotype in juvenile sea urchins. jobs.soton.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

#devbio 🇨🇦