Tyler Kent

Excited to share our new preprint! 🍇🧬

We analyzed 639 genomes across 48 grape species to understand how hybridization drives adaptation.

• ~14% of average Vitis genome is introgressed

• Most parallel adaptations are shared via gene flow

• Two "hybrid species" are actually hybrid swarms

So excited to share this manuscript led by the inimitable Cara Brand, who discovered that Topoisomerase II evolution causes hybrid female lethality in Drosophila.

Congrats to Cara, @nickbr0wn.bsky.social, Anirban, and
@buszczaklab.bsky.social!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Adaptive evolution of Topoisomerase II triggers reproductive isolation in Drosophila https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.20.707007v1

The Guerrero Lab at NC State University seeks a postdoc in computational evolutionary genetics. Ideal candidates have quantitative skills. Apply by March 10, 2026, via rfguerre@ncsu.edu. More info: rguerrer.org #postdoc

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.

Good lord

New paper! From Sam Snodgrass and @genomeofforrest.bsky.social, w/ @druncie.bsky.social, @gcbias.bsky.social, and a collaboration with Andres Moreno and @santiagogmm.bsky.social. Can we quantify the impact of humans on maize dispersal?

Plant yourself in a comfy chair and lend me your ear:

1/10

Check out this preprint. Tianlin Duan led this project during her postdoc with me and Mike Whitlock.

It’s got a lot of stuff in it for those who are interested in the genomics of adaptation

Rare variation in malaria parasites biases population-genetic inference Understanding how pathogens evolve is fundamental to disease control and is a basic question in evolutionary biology, yet pathogens with complex life cycles violate assumptions of classic evolutionary...

New preprint! and my first single-author paper, so bear with me.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Malaria population genetic studies have found some puzzling patterns: Ne estimates spanning orders of magnitude, genome-wide negative Tajima's D, and over a quarter of genes with πN/πS >1

1/n

The rights and wrongs of rescaling in population genetics simulations Computer simulations of complex population genetic models are an essential tool for making sense of the large-scale datasets of multiple genome sequences from a single species that are becoming increa...

We (with Fanny Pouyet and Brian Charlesworth) provide a theoretical perspective on rescaling forward simulations in population genetics, along with some guidelines:

arxiv.org/abs/2601.05367

Congrats @jeffgroh.bsky.social et al. Some avocado trees open female-phase flowers in the morning & then male in afternoon. Others show complementary pattern (m->f), to synchronize pollination of two types. Jeff show this to be a >45Mya polymorphism at a transcription factor across 100s of species.

The hidden threat: genetic load dynamics in tetraploids and diploids Polyploid organisms often display unique evolutionary dynamics compared to diploids. One unresolved question is how polyploidy affects the accumulation of

Do extra chromosome sets mask bad mutations? Simulations show tetraploids often carry higher genetic load than diploids, depending on dominance, demography, and drift—with important implications for fitness and conservation.
academic.oup.com/evlett/artic...

🧬 Just out in Bioinformatics Advances: “tskit arg visualizer: Interactive plotting of ancestral recombination graphs.” 

Read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.1093/bioadv/vbaf302

Authors include: @kitchensjn.bsky.social, @yanwong.bsky.social

Now out! How important is social experience in male mating behavior? @corrallopeza.bsky.social found that experienced males were more likely to coerce non-receptive females, but did not change overall preference onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... w/ @vdbijl.bsky.social @idarolti.bsky.social

Research Associate-Fixed Term - East Lansing, Michigan, United States Position Summary The Lowry Lab at Michigan State University is searching for a postdoctoral research associate to conduct molecular and physiological experiments to understand the causes of genetic va...

I am currently searching for a new postdoctoral researcher to study the evolution, genetics, and physiology of cold acclimation and freezing tolerance in switchgrass at Michigan State University. This work will be funded by a newly funded five-year DOE grant. careers.msu.edu/jobs/researc...

We have TWO post-doctoral fellowships in the Biodiversity Centre at UBC next year! Am happy to chat if you might want to be hosted in my lab. biodiversity.ubc.ca/training-and... Deadline January 15th!

Elevated mutation near crossovers inhibits the evolution of recombination https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.01.685904v1

Great to see that our mosquito cell atlas is now out in Cell. Amazing work from @oliviagoldman.net and @nadavshai.bsky.social to organise so much data and so many interesting stories into a single paper!

The Johri Lab has an open postdoc position. Please send me an email, if interested. Start date is flexible. Please do share! Thank you in advance.

Ichetucknee Springs State Park, a short drive from Gainesville, FL

The Hopkins Lab (hopkins-lab.com) at the University of Florida is looking to recruit a postdoc to work on the genetics of organ function and evolution across Drosophila and beyond. Please visit tinyurl.com/vcsjpmzz or email me for more info. And please RT or send to anyone who might be interested!

Hey Yaniv Brandvain is not on Bluesky but his most recent biostats ebook is live ybrandvain.github.io/biostats/. His stats resources have been so helpful to me as I develop my own stats course, so check it out. Github repo here: github.com/ybrandvain/b...

Separating selection from mutation in antibody language models https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.21.683652v1

The Genomic Architecture of Local Adaptation in Two Connected Populations of Three-Spined Stickleback. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.21.683682v1

Transposable elements drive much of naturally occurring genetic lethality in Drosophila melanogaster Recessive lethal mutations are widespread across studied species, with estimates suggesting that each individual carries at least one. Numerous lethal alleles persist in wild populations at higher fre...

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Massively parallel interrogation of the fitness of natural variants in ancient signaling pathways reveals pervasive local adaptation The nature of standing genetic variation remains a central debate in population genetics, with differing perspectives on whether common variants are almost always neutral as suggested by neutral and n...

One of the most exciting works of my career, years in the making. We used high-throughput precision genome editing to test the fitness effects of thousands of natural variants. Our findings challenge the long-held assumption that common variants are inconsequential.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

An early East Asian lineage with unexpectedly low Denisovan ancestry Yang et al. study Denisovan ancestry in ancient and present-day humans. In contrast to other East Asians, genomic comparisons suggest that the Jomon derived most of their ancestry from a deep lineage ...

In a new paper led by Jiaqi Yang we trace the distribution of Denisovan introgressed DNA in ancient modern human genomes over time.

www.cell.com/current-biol...

We're excited to be recruiting an NIH funded postdoc to work in the Coop lab at UC Davis. We're specifically interested in candidates who are want to work at the intersection of human genetics, GWAS, and population genetics modeling. Please RT

#PhD Position: Interested in the evolutionary and ecological impacts of whole genome duplication?

Join Dr. Tia-Lynn Ashman @drtialynn.bsky.social
and I at the U. of Pittsburgh, to test what drives the competitive outcomes between diploids and #polyploids

Details: shorturl.at/nQ8UW

They were flaring on Tuesday too. They’ve been flaring every few weeks at least throughout the summer in addition to some sort of spill a month or two ago

Distinct haplotypes and reversed dominance at a single-gene balanced polymorphism controlling heterodichogamy in two genera of wingnuts In most species within the walnut family, two genetically determined morphs alternate between male and female flowering phases in time. Groh et al. identify a distinct locus for this dimorphism in two...

Sharing our new paper, "Distinct haplotypes and reversed dominance at a single-gene balanced polymorphism controlling heterodichogamy in two genera of wingnuts". Genomics & evolution of a mating type system involving two morphs with alternating sexes in walnut relatives www.cell.com/current-biol...