Join us and our fellow European systematics associations in Uppsala, Sweden for the 4th BioSyst.EU meeting!
Dates: August 17-19, 2026
Abstract submission and early bird deadline: May 31st
Registration deadline: July 17th
Details: www.trippus.net/BioSyst2026
We hope to see there!
#BioSystEU2026
Hey folks! Mollusc of the Year just opened up! I'm part of a working group from around the world studying the mysterious and beautiful galeommatoids, and one of our beasties is up for the MOTY! Help us out and VOTE EPHIPPODONTA!! @oceanspecies.bsky.social www.unitasmalacologica.org/ephippodonta...
I might like hats a tad too much...
Spent longer than I care to admit staring at this tree, cataloguing ahem dubious decisions...
But the most egregious... Stetson is a brand not a hat type! And I'm fairly sure they don't (usually) make bicorns/tricorns... 🤔
Now back to actual phylogenies.
📢📢REMINDER LinneSys applications closes TOMORROW Friday, March 27th at 23:59 GMT+1!!!📢📢
Apply now! systass.org/linnesys/
Do remember to join the @systassn.bsky.social or the @linneansociety.bsky.social as a member first!
Also, we only fund taxonomy and systematics related projects!
Ooops, I spend so much time hassling @systassn.bsky.social members to renew their memberships and didn't realise I've been in arrears in another society for almost a year...
Oh, the shame!
📢📢REMINDER LinneSys applications close this Friday, March 27th at 23:59 GMT+1!!!📢📢
Apply now! systass.org/linnesys/
Do remember to join the @systassn.bsky.social or the @linneansociety.bsky.social as a member first!
Also, we only fund taxonomy and systematics related projects!
The deadline for this year's LinneSys approaches!
You have until Fri, March 27th at 23:59 GMT+1
If you're looking for a small grant for systematics work, get your application in ASAP systass.org/linnesys/
Just become a member of the @systassn.bsky.social or the @linneansociety.bsky.social first!
So you are using IQ-TREE to estimate a tree for "deep time" phylogenetics using amino acid alignments. There is a lot of confusion about how to test model fit. Here are some suggestions.
I have zero interest in French football teams but invariably know when PSG wins.
Why? Because the fans congregate at the nearby pub and make a racket...
Tonight, in additon to the usual football crowd noises, there's drums 🙄
Looking for a small grant for systematics work? Check us out! systass.org/linnesys/
Deadline is MARCH 27 at 23:59 GMT+1
All you need is to be a member of the @systassn.bsky.social or the @linneansociety.bsky.social
Caveat, legally, we cannot fund anyone in these countries:
tinyurl.com/wemwtfrz
It's #WorldBookDay. I did a #book. It's about #frogs. Buy it. *You'll like it: tell your friends (*phrase stolen from Huey Morgan)
Cover image of paperback edition of the Tree of Life book by Max Telford.
On world book day might you be tempted to preorder the paperback edition of The Tree of Life?
Out in pb on April 23rd.
www.amazon.co.uk/Tree-Life-So...
The omission of circular monstrosities is reason enough to add this to the ever growing list of 'new toys to try'.
Vessel tracking map for Globe40 regatta showing Cape Horn region.
If I ever drop off the map, this isn't a bad place to come looking. Weather permitting... ⛵
Do expect maniacal laughter, though.
To this day, I don't know if my skipper was more afraid of rough weather or my undisguised glee in said weather... (Beaufort up to 6/7, I do have some sense...)
Hmm, now I remember why I had stopped using Duoling (besides the gamified everything...). The bloody owl won't leave me alone! 😖
The 2026 LinneSys call is open!
Looking for a small grant for systematics work? Check us out! systass.org/linnesys/
All you need is to be a member of the @systassn.bsky.social or the @linneansociety.bsky.social
Caveat, legally, we cannot fund anyone in a country listed here: tinyurl.com/wemwtfrz
Something tells me you might enjoy this room. Well contents at least, from a curatorial point of view there might be plenty of silent screaming. (I know I had some with the fish and bird collections...)
Photo belongs to the Aquario Vasco da Gama, Dafundo PT
Indeed, they have. Rather baffling how our closing paragraphs were reintrepreted.
Thank you! It was quite interesting to see the results taking shape.
Ah, I might appreciate the quote more if some creationists hadn't latched on already....
And thanks!
Not extensively but we did look at quartet scores in Astral and most interphylum scores were close to a 1:1:1 ratio.
Unrooted phylogenetic tree showing (Brachiopoda,Mollusca,(Annelida,(Platyhelminthes,Nemertea)))
TLDR: We found very weak support for the (Brachiopoda,Mollusca,(Annelida,(Platyhelminthes,Nemertea))) tree. We do not know where the root of Spiralia goes. The spiralian phyla appeared in a very hard to resolve rapid radiation.
(7/7)
15-unrooted topologies showing Spiralian relationships with coloured barplots for the proportion of bootstrap and jackknife replicates supporting each unrooted tree.
This still left the question of the internal spiralian relationships.
A combination of bootstrapping, jackknifing and simulations generally preferred one tree (Brachiopoda,Mollusca,(Annelida,(Platyhelminthes,Nemertea))).
BUT this tree was NOT significantly preferred over alternatives.
(6/7)
Boxplots showing median per topology log-likelihoods. Top two plots show sloping distribution with all Platyhelminth-rooted topologies with the 15 top-scored topologies. Bottom two plots show all values near y = 0.
This suggests an LBA involving Platyhelminthes that affects the position of the root. Simulation confirmed misspecified models favour a platyhelminth root.
(5/7)
Under a site homogeneous LG model, taxon jackknife analyses strongly preferred trees rooted on Platyhelminthes. This preference was absent under a complex site-heterogeneous model.
(4/7)
Scatterplots showing branch lengths of interest. Platyhelminthes branch always above y-axis break and interphylum branches are the cluster of points closest to y = 0.
For all 15 possible trees, the internal branches (orange) were even shorter than the (maybe inexistent) Deuterostome branch.
The branch leading to Platyhelminthes was always considerably longer than branches leading to other phyla (blue).
(3/7)
15 possible 5-taxon spiralian phylogenetic trees with list of publications supporting each tree
We restricted our sample of spiralian taxa to its five largest phyla (Annelida, Brachiopoda, Mollusca, Nemertea and Platyhelminthes).
We found published studies supporting all 15 possible trees connecting these groups.
(2/7)
New paper on @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social: Are interphylum spiralian relationships resolvable? doi.org/10.64898/202...
@maxjtelford.bsky.social and I tried answering this question with two independent phylogenomic datasets.
(1/7) 🧪
If anyone spots a brain skittering about between Woburn Place and Gower St, please let me know.
I seem to have misplaced mine post lecture.
As someone who used to be in charge of the spinnaker, I confess to some unhealthy curiosity of how the all-spinnaker rig would behave (wind angle constraints aside).
Add to that, are they all symmetric, asymmetric, a combination? 🤔
I do doubt that a single bowman would suffice...