André Marques

Great lab! Great PI! Great opportunity! Apply now!

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

Just new to bulesky and glad that the first post is to announce that I just finished my PhD defence with summa cum laude. Great appreciation to my supervisor @amarques.bsky.social. He is a very supportive mentor and gave me so much trust. I wouldn't have achieved what I have without his guidance.

Have you ever been asked from a journal to remove all your preprint citations from any type of article (review, mini-review, normal article) and remove all the content referring to them? I found that so nonsense 😐

#asking4friend

Aging drives a program of DNA methylation decay in plant organs Plants display a wide range of life spans and aging rates. Although dynamic changes to DNA methylation are a hallmark of aging in mammals, it is unclear whether similar molecular signatures reflect ra...

Absolutely delighted that our paper on epigenetic dynamics during plant aging is out today in Science!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Tree diversity is changing across tropical Andean and Amazonian forests in response to global change - Nature Ecology & Evolution This study examines long-term changes in species richness across tropical forests in the Andes and Amazon. Hotter, drier and more seasonal forests in the eastern and southern Amazon are losing species...

Hotter, drier and more seasonal forests in the eastern and southern Amazon are losing species, while Northern Andean forests are accumulating species, acting as a refuge for those that are climate-displaced 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

So proud to share that @meng-zhang.bsky.social has successfully defended her PhD with summa cum laude 🎉🎓

A fantastic achievement that reflects years of hard work, rigor, and creativity. Congratulations, Dr. Zhang! Very well deserved, and excited to see what comes next! 👏✨

"So much is happening (loss of crossover, preferential transmission, elimination of homozygous embryos) to ensure nothing happened (clonality)"

What the hell? No recombination no problem? "These findings challenge the boundary between sex and clonality, revealing a unique evolutionary strategy linking genome architecture, recombination loss, and transmission bias." www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

This is just so weird/cool.

Sci-fi writers, read this!

kinda, but this species still needs to make seeds... although they are all clonal-like

Thanks a lot Dorota for this great work!

I recently worked with @amarques.bsky.social to make illustrations and finalize figures for three scientific publications focusing on the evolution and function of holocentric chromosomes

I can also help you illustrate your research with effective figures, graphical abstracts, and infographics 🧪🐡

A new extreme of meiotic evolution:

✔️ 𝗻𝗼 crossovers
✔️ 𝗻𝗼 gene conversion
✔️ 𝗻𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹 meiosis & fertility

Sex mimics clonality without becoming asexual, in the holocentric multicellular eukaryote 𝘙𝘩𝘺𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢 𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘶𝘪𝘴.

more about it:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Please share🙏:

Our lab opens 2 PhD positions to investigate fungi's evolution: #Barcelona

Wet lab in Biochemistry/Structural Biology of cryo-tolerant fungi
www.upf.edu/documents/d/...

Computational in Physical Chemistry of cellular processes under extrem environments
www.upf.edu/documents/d/...

📣 Call for Abstracts!
Working on sex chromosomes? Join us at SMBE 2026 in Copenhagen (28 June–2 July). All taxa, systems, and approaches welcome!
⏰ Deadline: 3 Feb 2026
👉 smbe2026.org/abstracts/

Another beauty from our recent study!
𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 thousands of holocentromeres' synteny across 40 MY of evolution

Turns out holocentromeres can be stable in identity but wildly dynamic in structure. 🧬

If you want to read more about it, here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
#Centromeres #Pangenome

The beauty that DEEPSPACE can do! Thanks to @jotlovell.bsky.social

If you want to read more about it, here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres The evolutionary origins of the genetic point centromere in the brewer's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a member of the order Saccharomycetales, are still unknown. Competing hypotheses suggest that t...

It’s out! The evolutionary origins of yeast point centromeres uncovered!

“Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres”

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

Definitely! Thanks, will do it in the next version! Awesome study!

@duartedf.bsky.social

@amarques.bsky.social really knows how to tell a story graphically. Maybe the most information dense but visually appealing figure I've seen recently!

Without you that wouldn’t be possible! Thanks a lot John 🤩💥

Thanks Leo! Would love to get your feedback on them! Abs

Pangenome analysis reveals the evolutionary dynamics of repeat-based holocentromeres https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.17.700053v1

A holocentric pangenome links karyotype evolution to meiotic recombination https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.17.700048v1

🤩 thanks a lot Aurora and Laia for helping solving this puzzle 🤩

💥Huge shoutout to the @amarques.bsky.social team for an outstanding effort!

So excited to have joined forces to decode how karyotype evolution connects with recombination 🧬

🔗 Preprint here: 👇
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Thanks a lot, Needhi! I would love to get your feedback on them!

@vlothec.bsky.social