Can you believe that until now there were more genomes sequenced for the woolly mammoth than for living African elephants?
Today, we bring you the first genomic, continent-scale analyses of 232 high-quality genomes of both species, the savanna and forest elephant.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Katja sampling a gorilla skull.
ICP2026 flyer
Meet our keynote speakers 💁♂️
KATERINA GUSCHANSKI (@kguschan.bsky.social)
Katerina is expert in using genomics of museum collections to explore primate evolution, conservation genetics, and the historical impact of environmental change.
Conference info & registration 👉 icp2026.palaeogenomics.org
SMBE Graduate Student Excellence Award - Oya Inanli
Our next GSEA winner is Oya Inanli, postdoctoral researcher @ucph.bsky.social, using biomolecular methods to explore the history of fermentation and domestication.
More on Oya ⬇️
#society
Two upcoming events with one sign up!
AaRC Online Conference – Tuesday, May 19 (virtual)
ICP In-Person Meet-Up – Monday, June 22 in Stockholm (in person)
Here is a link to register/submit an abstract forms.gle/Kse1kPYnpsVg...
Join us Friday 27th March at ** 9am GMT ** for our AaRC TikTalk seminar, given this month by two exciting Australian-based researchers Loukas Koungoulos (dingos!) and Siobhan Evans (cave sediment!) #adna @aarc-community.bsky.social
Still time to sign up! Join us in this 3-hour workshop led by @jolijnerven.bsky.social to hear about methods and approaches to explore relatedness in #aDNA datasets.
Still time to send an abstract! Deadline is February 3rd. #aDNA
📢 Announcing the speakers for the @aarc-community.bsky.social TikTalk seminar for January 2026! Look forward to hearing from @tatianafeuerborn.bsky.social and Arianna Weingarten, presenting on their work on Greenland Sled Dog 🐶 and Middle Pleistocene (!) horses 🐴 respectively. Exciting! Join us!
SMBE2026 Symposium L03 | Beyond limits: unlocking the potential of ancient animal genomics
SMBE2026 Symposium L03 | Beyond limits: unlocking the potential of ancient animal genomics
📨 Abstract submission
smbe2026.org/abstracts
📋 Programme details
smbe2026.org/programme
#SMBE2026
MBE | Coexisting With Humans: Genomic and Behavioral Consequences in a Small and Isolated Bear Population
Fabbri et al. studied the Apennine brown bear population, which has coexisted with humans in Central Italy for millennia, showing these bears have reduced genetic diversity and selective signatures at genes associated with reduced aggressiveness.
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf292
#evobio #molbio
Our paper in the PNAS Special Feature on 🐕 is out!
We demonstrated the accuracy of imputing ancient canid genomes, looked at inbreeding levels over the past 10,000 years and found genomic regions resistant to ROH which were enriched for immunity and chemosensory genes.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
🚨 New paper alert 🚨
Our research, published today in Science, reveals remarkable concordance between human and dog genomes through time, highlighting how deeply intertwined our evolutionary histories have been over the past 11,000 years.
🔗 Read the full paper here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Just over a month left to apply for scholarships on this project. We will run internal pre-selection interviews end of November, so if you consider applying, please reach out now. I can guarantee amazing scientific and intellectual environment at the Institute for Eco Evo @edinburghup.bsky.social
Western chimpanzees in Guinea-Bissau are at threat. Study shows a critically low population size (~500), signaling high extinction risk. Coastal groups are most vulnerable, while inland populations are a key stronghold. Urgent, targeted conservation is needed 🧬🌍
doi.org/10.1111/eva.70162
Career highlight being interviewed and featured in Science news 👩🏼🔬🧬
Fate of the last female great auk is finally solved | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...
Really cool study led by Emily L. Cavill about the last female great auk specimen!! 🕵️ 🔍🐧
doi.org/10.1093/zool...
Excited to share that I’ve started as Associate Professor at the Technical University of Denmark! 🧑🎓
I also received an a NNF Emerging Investigator grant to use genomics + machine learning to study extinction.
👉 PhD & Postdoc positions coming soon — follow for updates!
Reposts appreciated 🙏
🚨 The #SMBE2026 website is live! 🚨
The call for symposia is now open ➡️ smbe2026.org/symposia/
📅 Opens: Sept 1, 2025
📅 Closes: Oct 15, 2025
📢 Results: Nov 3, 2025
We can’t wait to welcome you to beautiful #Copenhagen 🌍✨
@official-smbe.bsky.social
#evolution #science
More about the West African rock doves, including what could be the first "official" picture of these birds alive!! 🕊️
doi.org/10.25226/bbo...
New rock dove paper!🕊️
Bit by bit, we are disentangling their evolutionary history and adding evidence to recognise the elusive West African rock doves as a different species
*please ignore the little typo in the title, livia should be lowercase
@trstngnthr.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1002/ece3...
Shameless promotion from #isba11 - I'll be hiring PhDs to start early 2026 (plus postdocs starting later), using #adna to study livestock and pathogen coevolution, particularly looking at inbreeding and immune gene evolution!
Contact me at kevin[at]palaeome.org, full ad to come. Please share!
Examples of dental calculus in different mammalian species ranked by amount from 0 (no calculus) to 3 (full incrustation)
Fantastic dental calculus and where to find it
Johnny Richards and team (@markella-morait.bsky.social + curators from 5 museums) survey >140 mammalian species with >1,600 specimens to understand what factors determine dental calculus formation. #aDNA #museomics
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
