Every day, I write the same story: Russian strikes claiming lives. One person here, five there, a child, a grandparent... These tragedies have become so routine that the world is growing numb.
Looking forward to kicking off the seminar series of our special topic network on structural variants #SV in evolutionary biology. @eseb.bsky.social
Join us in listening to Pr. Rieseberg on April 29
New Evolution Digest out! 🎉
Does balancing selection maintain fitness variance? Yes, when drift and environmental fluctuations are in play!
I discuss why this matters for plant adaptation to climate change. 🌱🌡️
doi.org/10.1093/evol...
@sse-evolution.bsky.social
@journal-evo.bsky.social
Global genomic diversity of the selfing nematode Caenorhabditis tropicalis correlates with geography www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04...
🧵 1/5
I’ve been a bit less social this week. At first, I couldn't figure out why. But today, I realised. Today marks the 4th anniversary of the liberation of the Kyiv Region from russian occupiers. Today, 4 years ago, the world saw the horrors that russians are capable of.
#Ukrainianview
A model for background selection in non-equilibrium populations www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02....
Seasonal fluctuations in fitness result in severe reductions in effective population size www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...
To self or to clone? Southern European woodland strawberry genotypes self-fertilize, whereas eastern European genotypes clone in a pollinator-free common garden. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...
Effect of population structure and stabilizing selection on quantitative genetic variation www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...
Meiosis faces a fundamental problem:
It must repair hundreds of DNA double-strand breaks while executing a transcriptional programme essential for gamete development.
But many of these breaks occur in genes.
So how are these two processes reconciled?
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🧬 Funded GTA PhD in my lab at UCL @ucllifesciences.bsky.social !
Looking for a motivated student to work on how mismatches between mitochondrial & nuclear genomes shape health, ageing & evolution.
Experimental (Drosophila) | Computational genomics
The project is flexible & shaped around you.
New Heredity Podcast! 🎙️ 📻 🔊
In the second episode from @popgroup2026.bsky.social in Lille, plenary speakers @clairemerot.bsky.social & Denis Roze tell us about their talks and their experience at the conference.
👂 Listen here: shows.acast.com/heredity-pod...
@gensocuk.bsky.social
New paper alert! Along with members of @bugecology.bsky.social 's lab and other collaborators we found that immune defenses vary with the local environment across large spatial scales, as well as evidence for local adapation to parasite pressure nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
📣Our paper is out! 🤩 We found that local modification of H3K9me3 using CRISPR/dCas9 at hotspots changes crossover activity, bringing us closer to targeted recombination in plants.🌱
Huge thanks to @szymanskalejman.bsky.social, Wojtek, Ania, and Karolina!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
View of the old city of Fribourg from the "Pont du Milieu". © Ville de Fribourg
🚨 PhD position available ! 🚨
I am hiring a PhD student to work with me on the evolution of plant sexual systems 🌺 at @unifrbiology.bsky.social ! The position is funded for 4 years by @snsf.ch as part of my Ambizione fellowship. More info here: tinyurl.com/monoecy
🌱 Please RP and share widely ! 🌱
@pankajd.bsky.social & @darrenobbard.bsky.social show that immune genes overall evolve faster at the protein level, but are less prone to copy-number changes than other genes in Drosophila.
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evag034
#genome #evolution #drosophila
With @saramitri.bsky.social, @sonjalehtinen.bsky.social and L. Lehmann we’ve launched the UNIL Center for Theory in Ecology and Evolution @unil.bsky.social🇨🇭
To kick things off, we’re offering short visiting fellowships for theorists in ecology & evolution. Apply & pls RP 😀
tinyurl.com/2wem36zz
Similar tumors can often respond very differently to immunotherapy. Why? A simple mathematical model reveals the possibility of two alternative evolutionary strategies, dictated by mutational loads www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Latest paper of the @tanjaslotte.bsky.social lab now out as a preprint in bioRxiv ✨️😁 👇
The final part of the story: "The arduous path to obligate asexuality in Daphnia" is out in #ProcB 🥳 royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article.... 1. Instead of comparing long-established asexuals to sexuals, we generated new asexual lineages to observe the transition in action.
Many organisms, including humans, reshape their environments in ways that influence the conditions faced by future generations. We ask whether this can favour biological variation with @irisprigent.bsky.social in our new paper. Thanks to @dee-unil.bsky.social @snsf.ch
www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....
We are offering a fully funded two-year postdoctoral position focused on sex chromosome evolution and speciation in the *Jaera albifrons* species complex. Please find the advertisement attached. We welcome applications from interested candidates. Join us :-)
I thought about what to write today, but I am so tired of us all ignoring the twelve years that Ukraine is defending Europe. I remain in awe of the resilience of the people of Ukraine, and will keep supporting them. This artwork is by Ukrainian artist Bogdana Chilikina: ‘TUT LYUDY’ (‘PEOPLE HERE’).
Four years ago, Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine along the entire shared border and from Belarus. Millions have been affected, with cities and villages destroyed and families torn apart. Eternal memory to all the heroes who gave their lives for the country’s freedom. #Ukraine
Anna Colin Lebedev, spécialiste de la Russie, décrit la fragilité du pouvoir de Poutine : «Un arbre qui pourrit de l’intérieur tout en donnant une apparence extrêmement solide. Il suffira un jour d’une pichenette pour qu’il s’effondre, comme cela s’est passé pour l’URSS.» ➡️ bit.ly/4tLsmjP
The evolution of condition-dependent self-fertilisation www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02...
🌺 New preprint out with John Pannell and @charlesmullon.bsky.social ! 🌺
We show that selection broadly favours a form of plasticity for the selfing rate where individuals adjust their mating behaviour to their condition — their overall vitality owing to their genetic background and environment. ⤵️
⚡️ IOC banned Vladyslav Heraskevych, a Ukrainian skeletonist, from using a custom helmet featuring images of Ukrainian athletes killed by Russia at the 2026 Olympics.
📷: DW
