Infrared radiation may be one of the most ancient plant signals to pollinating insects Harvard researchers have discovered that cycads—one of the oldest living lineages of seed plants—heat up their reproductive organs to attract beetle pollinators and the insects possess infrared sensor...

Before flowers evolved with attractive colors and scents, what did plants use to attract insect pollinators? Heat may be one ancient strategy.

Valencia-Montoya and colleagues report their study of cycads in Science. Journal link in first comment.

🧪🌍🌱🐝

phys.org/news/2025-12...

#pollinators

“It is not too late to take another path.”

— David Suzuki

Government of Canada launches new initiative to recruit world-leading researchers

🇨🇦 Canada will invest $1.7 billion to attract top global talent 🧪
www.canada.ca/en/innovatio...

New in #GENETICS: @dortizba.bsky.social and colleagues developed Retriever, a novel method that enables high-quality genotype imputation for species lacking external reference panels, such as non-model organisms. buff.ly/2GX9Bu4

Morphometric variation of Mesolithic-Neolithic morphological dogs.

The emergence and diversification of dog morphology 🏺🧪
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

This study looked at more than 640 canid crania over the past 50,000 years (see the Perspective by Fillios) and found that by the beginning of the Holocene, dogs already displayed extensive variation.

This is figure 5, which shows global hotspots and coldspots of non-native mosquito introduction and establishment, and their socio-economic and environmental drivers.

Globalization has accelerated the spread of mosquito species that transmit human diseases. An analysis in Nature Communications shows that 45 disease-vector mosquito species have been introduced to non-native regions worldwide. go.nature.com/4hn6ogW 🧪

Large-scale mining of plant genomes unlocks the diversity of oxidosqualene cyclases | Nature Chemical Biology The differential cyclization and rearrangement of 2,3-oxidosqualene controlled by oxidosqualene cyclases (OSCs) represents one of the most complex single enzyme transformations in nature and gives rise to a vast array of triterpenoid diversity in the plant kingdom. Here we systematically mine 599 plant genomes representing 387 species and investigate OSC diversity across different plant lineages. From the OSC sequences identified, 20 were selected for functional evaluation. Through analysis of these enzymes, we discover product profiles within clades previously believed to be functionally conserved and OSCs producing triterpenes for which no enzymatic source was known. We also discover OSCs with product profiles that yield mechanistic insights into the control of specific reaction pathways. Our study reveals lineage-specific blooms of OSC subgroups suggestive of adaptation to different environmental niches, opens up previously inaccessible chemistry and provides a framework for systema

Exploring 599 genomes from 387 plant species, 20 OSCs were functionally evaluated, revealing immense triterpenoid diversity. PMID:41053430, Nat Chem Biol 2025, @nchembio https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-025-02034-8 #Medsky #Pharmsky #RNA #ASHG #ESHG 🧪

A fluorescent confocal microscopy image of a butterfly wing scale showing the surface and internal structures

We are looking for a physics/maths graduate with an interest in biology, or a biology graduate with strong computational/mathematical skills/interests, to join us as a PhD student working on biomechanical modelling of butterfly wing scale structure formation www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Origins and genetic legacy of prehistoric dogs Ancient dog genomes elucidate diversification and a complex genetic history relative to that of humans.

Origins and genetic legacy of prehistoric dogs | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The genetic basis of natural variation in sociability Abstract. Sociability, defined as individuals’ tendencies to affiliate with conspecifics, is widespread among animals, including species not traditionally

genetic basis of natural variation in sociability url: academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...

Hi Needhi - I was pointing out that there’s is not such a thing as species survival. I should have been more explicit, apologies.

This is extended data figure 1, which shows photographs of different families of scleractinians.

Some ancient stony corals were able to survive extreme environmental changes, which suggests that some modern species could possess some resilience to the effects of climate change, according to research in Nature. go.nature.com/4hrpLpi 🌊 🧪

Cool paleo-🧵about the last dinosaurs from 66 mya in what's now New Mexico, & how their fossil record points toward diverse communities during the last few hundred-thousand years before a demise-inducing meteorite impact. Article in @science.org at the link: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧪🦖🦕☄️

Illustration of Edmontosaurus walking through a muddy substrate, leaving footprints behind. A dead Edmontosaurus is in the background on its side.

Just in time for spooky season: DINOSAUR "MUMMIES!"

Unlike Egyptian mummies, these don't have squishy bits preserved, but the rock around these carcasses had clay capturing texture of scales, a midline crest w/ keratin spikes, &, brand new, feet w/ hooves! 🧪⚒️🦕🦖

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Species survival?

Learn to create and publish a professional, data-focused website in “Create an Online Presence with Quarto Websites” on October 16-17, with @andrew.heiss.phd‬! Discover how to use #Quarto to build a variety of websites like personal portfolios, research compendiums, and interactive dashboards.

On ARGs, pedigrees, and genetic relatedness matrices Abstract. Genetic relatedness is a central concept in genetics, underpinning studies of population and quantitative genetics in human, animal, and plant se

Our paper (Brieuc Lehmann is the first author) is now online in Genetics.

academic.oup.com/genetics/adv...

Sperm sequencing reveals extensive positive selection in the male germline - Nature A combination of whole-genome NanoSeq with deep whole-exome and targeted NanoSeq is used to accurately characterize mutation rates and genes under positive selection in sperm cells.

Now published! Our paper on:
(1) Accurate sequencing of sperm at scale
(2) Positive selection of spermatogenesis driver mutations across the exome
(3) Offspring disease risks from male reproductive aging
[1/n]
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A high-coverage genome from a 200,000-year-old Denisovan Denisovans, an extinct sister group of Neandertals who lived in Eastern Eurasia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene, are known only from a handful of skeletal remains and limited genetic data, incl...

A new high-coverage #Denisovan genome, chock-full of fascinating new information. Must-read study by @stephanepeyregne.bsky.social @janetk.bsky.social and colleagues
On @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social: 🧪🧬
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Worth checking out if you do statistical analysis in your research. statcheck.io

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. Over the past several years, a growing body of theor...

Long runs of homozygosity are reliable genomic markers of inbreeding depression 🧬 www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

Taming the reference genome jungle: the refget sequence collection standard. #ReferenceGenomes #Transcriptomes #SequenceCollectionStandards #GA4GH @biorxiv-genomic.bsky.social 🧬 🖥️
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Quantitative Genetics in Natural Populations Phenotypes evolve under natural selection if, and only if, they are genetically variable. While evolutionary ecologists have long studied natural sele…

Myself and Alastair Wilson wrote an updated version of our 2016 primer to quantitative genetics in the wild: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti.... Happy to share a copy if interested. It is also on research gate

This collaboration was so much fun!! I’m excited to see it online! www.cell.com/trends/genet...

Estimation of demography and mutation rates from one million haploid genomes Samples of millions of genomes provide substantial information about recent demography and mutation, but standard population-genetic methods make assumptions not met in these data. We introduce DR EVI...

📣Online NOW!
📄Estimation of demography and mutation rates from one million haploid genomes
🧑‍🤝‍🧑 @jgschraiber.bsky.social @jeffspence.github.io @docedge.bsky.social

figure illustrating the concept of an ARG, including recombination events that create no-change, vs. tree-change, vs. topology-change

alignments are mosaics of autocorrelated genealogies... nearby bases share ancestry until recombination alters the local tree. We derived the distributions of waiting distances for tree-change and topology-change events, extending prior single-population results to arbitrary species tree models.

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

Introgression and Parental Conflict Underlie Repeated Occurrences of Postzygotic Isolation Postzygotic reproductive isolation is often thought to accumulate as a byproduct of neutral divergence. Yet, it frequently evolves rapidly, in line with non-neutral evolution. A major driver of intrin...

I'm so proud of this work!!! It was an incredible amount of effort that started when I was trapped in a greenhouse during the pandemic and is only now seeing the light of day. Kudos to Megan, Hagar, & Pia!

We'd love to hear your thoughts!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Read the full open-access paper to learn more. A huge thank you to Charles for his brilliant work, and to
Maddie James and Jan Engelstädter for making a great team! We also thank the reviewers for their valuable feedback. #Genomics #Bioinformatics #Imputation #Genetics

The impact: Retriever provides an accessible, cost-effective, and accurate solution for any researcher, especially those working on ecologically and evolutionarily important non-model species. It broadens the scope of what's possible in genomics.

The results are excellent. When the Retriever-constructed panel is used with standard imputation software (Beagle), it consistently achieves >95% accuracy. We tested this across a diverse range of organisms, including plants, animals, and fungi.