I am hiring a popgen postdoc!

Looking for a creative scientist to join us at USC to investigate recessive variation and complex traits in model or non-model species. The project is funded by a multi-year NIH grant, contract can be renewed.

Job add & details 👇🏽

usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-ange...

Photo of the base of a palm with a mass of dark, thick roots with red root tips emerging from the stem above the soil surface and growing downward. A small garden sign identifies the palm as C. harlandii. Photo by Scott Zona CC BY-NC 2.0.

A photo looking up into a very tall cone of aerial stilt roots. The crown of the pandan is obscured by nearby palm leaves. A baseball cap provides scale. Photo by Scott Zona CC BY-NC 2.0.

To see prop roots on a larger scale, look to the palms and pandans. 📷1: Clinostigma harlandii, a palm. 📷1: Pandanus sp (to get an idea of the scale of this giant, check out the green cap in the lower left). #Arecaceae #Pandanaceae #root #Botany 🌾🧪🌱

CIPRES is shutting down at the end of June: www.phylo.org .

It's been such a good resource for the phylogenetics community. Thanks to #NSF and Simons for funding it and for all the people who have worked to grow and sustain this for so long.

CAM photosynthesis may have conferred an advantage during the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event The end of the Palaeozoic Era approximately 252 million years ago (Ma) coincides with extensive volcanism from the Siberian Traps and was marked by global climate warming and environmental changes1,2,3,4. This led to the Permian–Triassic mass extinction (PTME) where oceanic species extinction rates exceeded 81%, while terrestrial tetrapod genera experienced 89% losses1. However, the nature of terrestrial vegetation response to this major environmental change is a matter of ongoing research and contrasting perspectives5,6,7,8,9. This lack of consensus is partly due to the taphonomic influence on plant fossil preservation9,10. Furthermore, precise dating of terrestrial sequences is difficult, making stratigraphic correlation of floras challenging; consequently, the PTME in terrestrial records is often discussed as the Permian–Triassic transition (PTT)5,6,10. However, what is apparent is that the occurrence of a large-scale floral turnover at the PTT was followed by a distinct, low diversity and low abundance lycophyte-dominated community (Fig. 1)5,6,11,12. Across a broad span of latitudes, from equatorial South China to high-latitude Siberia, the rise to dominance of the herbaceous lycophyte Tomiostrobus coincided with the extinction of the previously dominant Palaeozoic taxa, including Gigantopteris and Cordaites during the PTT (Fig. 1)5,6,12,13,14,15. For approximately 5 million years (Myr) after the PTME, the Earth experienced extreme...

CAM photosynthesis may have conferred an advantage during the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event
->Nature | More on "CAM photosynthesis mass extinction survival" at BigEarthData.ai | #Photosynthesis #MassExtinction

I am so excited to share our new findings with you! We provide the structural evidence for a direct protein-to-DNA information pathway, showing how a bacterial enzyme 'reads' its own structure to 'write' DNA. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Postdoctoral Scholar position in the Coaker group University of California, Davis We are seeking a Postdoctoral Scholar to join our research program focused on immune receptor engineering and spatial analyses of plant pathogens interactions using computational and imaging approaches. The position will involve integration of molecular, imaging, and computational approaches. Relevant publications from the laboratory include Nature Plants (2025, PMID: 40721669), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024, PMID: 38814867), and Cell Reports (2023, PMID: 37342910). https://www.coakerlab.org/ Qualifications: • Ph.D. in plant biology, molecular biology, genetics, computational biology, or a related field • Strong background in genomics and/or computational biology • First author publications in peer-reviewed journals • Ability to work both independently and collaboratively in a multidisciplinary environment • Experience in plant innate immunity is preferred Application Instructions: The position is initially available for two years, with the possibility of extension based on performance and funding. Salary is based on the University of California postdoctoral salary scale (https://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/2025-26/represented-oct-2025-scales/t23.pdf). The salary range for this position is $69,073-$82,836 US Dollars/year. Review of applications will begin June 1, 2026 and will continue until the position is filled. Please submit a CV, a brief statement of research interests (~1 page), and contact information for three references to glcoaker@ucdavis.edu. The research statement should describe your previous work, how your expertise aligns with ongoing research in the lab, and potential future research directions.

We are hiring! We’re excited to recruit a postdoc to our lab at UC Davis to work on plant immune engineering and single-cell analyses of plant pathogen interactions. Apply by June 1. Please repost. www.coakerlab.org/postdoctoral...

I'm hiring a postdoc (start date flexible) and a PhD student (for Fall 2027) to work in any area of computational phylogenetics! More info here:

mhibbins.github.io

I will be attending both PEQG and Evolution in June, so please reach out if you want to chat at these meetings!

Do you want to know how to build an organ from a single cell?

Check out our paper about phyllid development in moss by Weney Lin @irbv.bsky.social

Colaboration with Yoan Couder @ensdelyon.bsky.social and and Richard Smith @johninnescentre.bsky.social

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🚨Happening Tomorrow 🚨

Plant Science Postdocs, Senior Grad Students, and ECRs: don't forget to join us next TOMORROW, Tuesday, April 14th from 2-3 pm PT / 4-5 pm CT / 5-6 pm ET for our @plantpostdocs.bsky.social webinar "What's new with NSF?" 🌾 🧪 🌱

Registration: tinyurl.com/PlantPostdocsApril14

Hypothesized scenario for how ecological change (sensu Stebbins, 1970) may initiate evolutionary pollinator shifts, using colonization of novel environments with altered pollinator communities as stand-in for ecological change, and shifts from bee to hummingbird pollination as example for evolutionary pollinator shifts.

Ecological change may be a common initiator of evolutionary pollinator shifts

Agnes S. Dellinger @the-kunsze.bsky.social

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Examples of the new model organism shirts for sale on the SDB merchandise website

Excited to share that @socdevbio.bsky.social has a new and improved merch store! Rep your fav model organism in one of the Society’s new original designs 🤗 sdb-official-merch.printify.me

Cache updated with data up to today (April 11).

Still fewer than 10 #NSF grants in 2026 to each of: CO, WA, TN, DC, MN, OR, IA, LA, UT, CT, NM, OK, KS, NE, HI, KY, DE, ID, NV, NH, MS, AK, MT, ME, AK, WV, SD, VT, PR, WY, ND, VI, AS, GU: bomeara.github.io/rnsf/#table-...

#AcademicSky 🧪

The United States National Herbarium is seeking a Lead Collections Manager! For complete requirements and application procedures, please visit USAJOBS (www.usajobs.gov/job/864499200). Applications and all supporting documentation must be received online by 1 May 2026.

There is No Consensus on Biological Sex At this critical moment when misinformation about sex is being applied to policy globally, scientific clarification on the definition of biological sex is valuable. Here, we evaluate the primary…

"The fact that there is no current consensus of biological sex is not
antithetical to science... However, the field urgently needs an ethical
and reproducible approach for discussing sex"

There is No Consensus on Biological Sex

Our team appeared in The Daily Californian news!

Discussing our experimental evolution in Science Magazine www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... and a recent paper on the threat of genetic diversity loss in PNAS doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Check it out:

www.dailycal.org/news/campus/...

The header of the paper: PHYSIOLOGIA PLANTARUM, Vol. 15. 1962. The title “A Revised Medium for Rapid Growth and Bio Assays with Tobacco Tissue Cultures” is shown, followed by the author’s names Toshio Murashige, Folke Skoog. Their affiliation is Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 6, Wisconsin. The paper was received for publication on April 1, 1962. To the left of the paper header is a black and white headshot of a smiling Toshia Murashige, and to the right a black and white headshot of a serious looking Folke Skoog.

#PlantScienceClassics #21: MS Medium. In 1962 Toshio Murashige & Folke Skoog published their revised plant tissue culture medium @pplplantarum.bsky.social, arguably the most high-cited #PlantScience paper of all time.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
🧪 #PlantDevelopment #PlantMethods

Photo of a color polymorphic population of Anemone pavonina Lam. on Mt. Olympus, Greece.

#Flower color polymorphism in the peacock #anemone (Anemone pavonina) reflects spatiotemporal variation in #pollinator abundance

Nw #AJB research by Jonathan Heinze, Casper van der Kooi, Gerd Vogg, Udo Jäger & Johannes Spaethe

doi.org/10.1002/ajb2...
#botany #plantscience #pollen #ecology

A botanist searches for the seeds of the rare Death Valley Sage For more than 15 years, botanist Naomi Fraga has been trying to collect seeds from the rare Death Valley sage, for safekeeping in a vault of native California seeds.

I have been hiding in the desert, clamoring on rocks while taking tips from lizards on the best way to collect seeds from the Death Valley Sage. @npr.org came along for the ride and it was amazing.

www.npr.org/sections/the...

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...

Structure and sequence evolution in the pennycress (Thlaspi arvense) pangenome Eukaryotic genomes harbor many forms of variation, including nucleotide diversity and structural polymorphisms, which experience natural selection and contribute to genome evolution and biodiversity...

Out now in @newphyt.bsky.social with @joannarifkin.bsky.social, @jotlovell.bsky.social, @spicybotrytis.bsky.social & more! Our high-quality pennycress pangenome is a striking example of genome architecture shaping different kinds of genomic variation, including some surprising centromeric movement

A botanist searches for the seeds of the rare Death Valley Sage For more than 15 years, botanist Naomi Fraga has been trying to collect seeds from the rare Death Valley sage, for safekeeping in a vault of native California seeds.

For more than 15 years, botanist Naomi Fraga has been trying to collect seeds from the rare Death Valley sage, for safekeeping in a vault of native California seeds. n.pr/4ttOsq4

Plant lovers ! Not only did we get a mock cover but the real cover!. Valentina did a phantastic job targeting all key stages of fruit development in the gooey Loranthaceae. Also stay tuned for the genetics of extreme ovule modifications. #non-modelplantsrock #parasitesbreakdevelopmentalrules

I'm hiring! I have 2 open positions:

🔬 Postdoc
🧪 Research associate

We study how animal multicellularity evolved by exploring the molecular logic of cell adhesion using cell biology, 'omics, and tool-building in non-model organisms.

Come join us!

Details and application links 👇

Please repost

Here are more details for our #AGA2026 President's Symposium, all about Polygenic Adaptation in a Changing World! This symposium will promote a broad, synthetic discussion of adaptive evolution for complex traits, bringing together theoreticians & empiricists working on diverse organisms.
1/2

I’m finishing my tenure as Chief Meeting Organizer for the Evolution Meetings. Apply to replace me!

Without a doubt, this is my favorite service I’ve ever done. In trying times, it was a real balm to get together weekly with a group devoted to making the best meetings we can for students.

SNP calling, haplotype phasing and allele-specific analysis with long RNA-seq reads Nature Methods - In this study, long-read RNA sequencing achieves accurate single-nucleotide polymorphism calling, haplotype phasing and allele-specific expression analysis.

LongcallR for competitive SNP calling and haplotype phasing, and simplified allele-specific analysis with long RNA-seq reads. Found ~100 junctions affected by SNPs per sample with most junctions novel.

Developed by Neng Huang. Published in @natmethods.nature.com. Read at rdcu.be/faKhL

There is nowhere else in the world (that I am aware of) where phenology has been recorded as regularly as in Kyoto, Japan. Records here of peak cherry blossom bloom go back to the year 812. Those blooms have been getting earlier in recent years due to climate change and urban heat island effects.

Stilt roots on their way! Stylidiums are so cool for this, this one is Stylidium dichotomum and it’s coming out of summer dormancy! Two ways these plants cope with heat, stilt roots and a dormant summer period where they reduce leaf size, or some species die back to roots completely!

New lab preprint from Maya Wilson Brown, with Adrian Platts & Rebecca Panko investigating genetic variation and introgression in NYC Capsella bursa-pastoris www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I am looking for short papers using phylogenetic trees to test alternative hypotheses regarding evolution that can easily be grasped by undergraduate students in biochemistry. Please RT and share your ideas.