Great to see Gabriele's paper out in MBE. I was really interested that we found large differences in ancestry maintained across opposite sides of a single valley (presumably with high gene flow). Strong divergent natural selection on cool/wet N-facing vs. hot/dry S-facing slopes.
I tried replicating question 8 in chatGPT, and it got 5/5 correct (quiz reports getting it right 1/10). Didn't attempt any of the others yet
It would be interesting to have a review of all LOIs and provide a breakdown of topics and methods people proposed, to get a "state of the art" view of what people find important.
Nice, congrats!
Roll call on Simons Foundation Ecology & Evolution LOIs. Anyone get the nod? Here's an overview of our declined LOI on detecting repeated adaptation across 110,000 sequenced samples from >300 species of plants, animals, and fungi
Glad we have this kind of leader in Canada...sobering and realistic take on where we're at.
Just bumping this up again -- I'll be making a decision on who to nominate for the internal competition on Jan 21st, so please get in touch ASAP if you're interested.
Want to study the genomics of repeated adaptation with data from hundreds of species? New funding for non-Canadians @ grad or postdoc level. Internal competition at UCalgary with very short deadline so please get in touch ASAP!!
sshrc-crsh.canada.ca/en/funding/o...
I think some students will lean on AI as a crutch, but they will not shine in their oral exams or at conferences, AI won't magically make the research happen. If we help them learn how, motivated young scientists will still invest in learning these skills, while using AI as a tool
I actually tell them this -- use it as a study aid, and if you're not confident you can assess what AI is saying as correct/incorrect, that's a sign you need to study that more
Will it go away if we ignore it? We need to train them to think critically alongside it. Still trying to figure out how, but I don't see any viable alternative. Unfortunately, training them to use AI effectively requires small class sizes and lots of interaction, which nobody wants to pay for
I think we want to push students to use AI competently. So if they're presenting, reduce the presentation time and increase the time where we ask questions and the students need to demonstrate comprehension and synthesis.
I'm doing regular practice writing assignments (minor participation marks for completion) throughout the term where AI can be used, and then an in-class writing assignment towards the end of the year, where AI will not be available.
I'm declining to review for Nature Communications Biology. This is for-profit publishing attempting to control too much of the "market" and I'm not supporting it.
PhD advert
I recently moved my lab to Purdue University and am looking for graduate students. We are working at the interface of population genomics, quantitative genetics and functional genomics to understand how plants adapt to extreme environments. Reach out if you would like to discuss potential projects.
Wait, we're supposed to be reading them?
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
I'll be reviewing applications for this in a few days, so there's still time to get touch if you're interested.
It's always fun to work with Tom! In this one, we ponder how the answer to this question can tells us something about the kind of architecture underlying adaptation
We are searching for a Forest Ecophysiologist (tenure track Assistant or Associate Professor) to join the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, University of British Columbia Faculty of Forestry. Please share! Details are here: ubc.wd10.myworkdayjobs.com/ubcfacultyjobs
I'll start reviewing applications in a little over 3 weeks for this PhD position. You could be doing fieldwork here! (or focus only on dry lab work if that floats your boat)
University of Calgary is hiring a tier I CRC professorship in crop genomics. Come work in one of the most beautiful corners of the world!
careers.ucalgary.ca/jobs/1668764...
This infographic describes the main results from a survey of members of 14 scientific societies. There is a pie chart showing that both academic (58%) and non-academic (42%) responded to the survey. It lists statistics: 85% of respondents reported uncertainty about the future; 71% reported federal training programs were "very" or "extremely important"; 83% reported negative impacts or irreparable harm on their field of science. There is a word cloud summarizing open-ended responses with the largest words "student research fund federal grant". Eight major themes in the responses are listed: disruption of research with societal important; concerns of closure of the USGS Bird Banding Lab; Early Career Bottleneck; Restricted Freedoms including travel and speech; Decline in Government Efficiency and Expertise; Concerns about Biased/Removed Data and Data Gaps; Concerns about the Ability to Meet Legal Mandates; and From Positive Impact to Irreparable Harm. There are icons for each participating society and a QR code for website and data availability.
Today 14 scientific societies in #ecology #evolution and #marineScience are publishing the results of a survey that finds negative impacts of federal policies on food security, flood mitigation, infectious disease preparedness, and wildlife conservation: 🧪👩🔬 www.firsthandaccounts.org/impacts/2025...
The mobile one, yes!
Field work is so tiresome. I have to climb up every time to ski back down.
I'm looking to recruit a PhD student to study patterns of local adaptation and introgression across the spruce hybrid zone in the Rockies near Calgary. Projects can include field work, bioinformatics, pop gen theory, or comparison to plant/ conifer species
yeamanlab.weebly.com/uploads/5/7/...
Really great to see this out -- and so interesting to see strong signals of adaptation to North vs. South facing slopes across a single valley in spruce!
Miles gave a fantastic talk about this last year at SSE, I'm looking forward to reading the published version!
