📣New paper from DeepBio@Leeds researcher @barankarapunar.bsky.social 📣
"The Permian-Triassic Transition in Türkiye: New Insights and 3D Outcrop Models for Accessible, Reproducible and Sustainable Fieldwork" in The Depositional Record
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
🚨 Out today: our Editorial in @jvertpaleo.bsky.social on an important issue in science - the reproducibility crisis in phylogenetic analyses.
In it, we analyze several years of editorial data to ask a simple question: are things improving?
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
New study led by Sean McHugh (@phyllurus.bsky.social) now out in @systbiol.bsky.social!
Sean's approach models how species gain and lose biome affinities over time, both in terms of where they *do* live (e.g. movement) and where they *could* live (e.g. adaptation)
doi.org/10.1093/sysb...
Figure of historical timeline for ideas in the manuscript. Caption reads: "An evolving view of phylogenetic biogeography. Each period (arrow) corresponds to one of the four periods discussed in the main text. The ordering of themes within each period does not precisely correspond to when key ideas were introduced or popularized."
New preprint on the recent history of phylogenetic biogeography, with co-authors Isabel Sanmartín and Joel Cracraft, now up on EcoEvoRxiv: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...
How much information is there for inferring species trees? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04...
Postdoc in Macroevolution - Deadline April 12th -
Join a team of Stuttgart botanists & myself to test drivers of Angiosperm diversification! Fully open process
Submit cover letter, CV, 3 referees & publication list in a single PDF to postdoc-botany@smns-bw.de + 3 key papers (if possible) as PDF
Postdoc position available at SMNS in Stuttgart focusing on macroevolution and angiosperm traits. Applications are open until April 12, 2026. More info: https://bsky.app/profile/jclarkepaleo.bsky.social #postdoc
Six postdoc positions in Earth system science are available in Germany, focusing on climate-driven plant extinctions and Bayesian phylogenetics. Applications deadline: 09.04.26. Details: https://fau-earth-system-science.github.io/index.html #postdoc
Ancestral state reconstruction with discrete characters using deep learning www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...
I’m looking for a post doc (up to five years) interested in phylogenetics and earth systems - please spread the word!
Cool study. On a separate note, wow we need more (and larger) phylogenies of invertebrate clades
The @herbariumcurators.bsky.social SE USA Chapter is pleased to invite you to Coffee with a Curator:
Demetra Kandalepas will present a tour of the Glen N. Montz Herbarium at Southeastern Louisiana University (SELU) on Friday, March 20th at 1pm CT/ 2pm ET. (Note this is not our typical time.)
📢 Including fossil tips in your phylogeny can double your continuous trait model fitting accuracy!
Updated preprint out now on @ecoevorxiv.bsky.social.
🔗 doi.org/10.32942/X27...
with @pedrolgodoy.bsky.social @macroecoevoale.bsky.social and @bethanyjallen.bsky.social
New paper out from @hoehna.bsky.social Lab, led by the brilliant @bjorntko.bsky.social! We applied the Pesto software (Kopperud & Höhna, 2025) to look at lineage-specific shifts in diversification rate on large, densely-sampled phylogenies across the Tree of Life doi.org/10.1093/evle...
Applications are open for a 3-year funded PhD position at the Finnish Museum of Natural History, focused on dung beetle evolution. Deadline: March 16. … jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki-Doctoral-Re... #gradstudent
The first two articles of Volume 5 of the Bulletin of the Society of Systematic Biologists are now published at ssbbulletin.org.
Morning.
Thank you! You're totally right, it felt like the methodological pieces and the software framework finally aligned perfectly. So excited for you to give it a spin. Let me know if you hit any snags!
Khakurel & Höhna (2026-02, Systematic Biology)
A covarion model for phylogenetic estimation using discrete morphological datasets
doi.org/10.1093/sysb...
@lmugeoumwelt.bsky.social
Accounting for these shifts offers a robust framework for morphological phylogenetic inference. Try the covariomorph model right now in RevBayes!
Huge thanks to @hoehna.bsky.social and the whole lab for the support and feedback along the way!
Here's the updated pre-print: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Three scatter plots comparing clade posterior probabilities for different models (Mk, ACRV, Covariomorph). Black circles indicate clades without significant differences, while blue triangles show clades sampled with significantly different probabilities between the compared models.
Results? ~Half of the empirical datasets showed patterns compatible with covarion-like dynamics (switching between rate regimes). This impacts the resulting tree topology and branch lengths. Check out the clade support differences:
A schematic of the 3-rate binary covariomorph model showing shark tooth silhouettes. It displays 'Slow', 'Medium', and 'Fast' rate categories with colored horizontal arrows for state transitions, and black vertical/curved arrows indicating the switching rate between these regimes.
Beyond among character rate variation, we can now account for among character and lineage rate variation (heterotachy)! The covariomorph model allows traits to switch between multiple rate regimes during evolution. Tested via extensive simulations & empirical datasets.
Our new paper 'A covarion model for phylogenetic estimation using discrete morphological datasets,' is out in SysBio!
We introduce the "covariomorph" model in RevBayes to capture character and lineage specific rates of morphological traits.
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/sysb...
Benchmarking of software for Bayesian sampling of divergence times using genomes
We have a new Bayesian sampler of divergence times that is smoking fast! Benchmarking by the exceptional @lauramulvey.bsky.social
Want to learn the ins and outs of diversification, trait and biogeographic evolution models? I will be giving another edition of "Dive Deep into Probabilistic Phylogenetic Comparative Methods" in Oct! @tscourses.bsky.social www.transmittingscience.com/courses/evol...
Becoming a part of the @systbiol.bsky.social community is one of my greatest scientific achievements. I am happy to celebrate this today with a journal cover and a nomination to the editorial team
Applications are now open for the 2026 Workshop on Molecular Evolution (MOLE)!
www.mbl.edu/education/ad...
Claudia Solis-Lemus and I will be holding an informational session on Zoom next Wed (1/21) from 10:30-11:30 AM Central for those interested:
lsu.zoom.us/j/4968115684
Deadline to apply: 1/26
Systematic Biology’s January 2026 issue (75.1) is out! It launches our 75th anniversary series, debuts the new Invited Review article category, features a Tillandsia Spotlight, along with a nice mix of empirical & methods papers. Check it out: academic.oup.com/sysbio/issue...
@systbiol.bsky.social
Evolving RevBayes into an Open-Source Ecosystem
Had a great post-SSB hackathon with the RevBayes crew! Got tons of work done on both RevBayes and RevGadgets! Special thanks to @trayc7.bsky.social @jembrown.bsky.social for organizing and hosting!