Ohno also understood the importance of rediploidisation! A reminder that powerful ideas in books can spark new scientific journeys! 📖🧪

Image of the book "Evolution by gene duplication” by Susumu Ohno.

Happy #worldbookday!📚
#WGDip was inspired by Susumu Ohno’s "Evolution by gene duplication”, published 56 years ago, before the modern era of genomics. His book argued for the central importance of duplicating both individual genes & whole genomes as 'fuel' for great leaps in biological evolution...

Happy #EarthDay! 🌍

As evolutionary biology researchers, we’re reminded every day that the diversity of life on Earth is the result of millions of years of evolution, adaptation, & resilience. Today we acknowledge the importance of protecting the natural world that makes this research possible! 🐌🐟🌱

Image of post docs (top left) Emily Haley, Morgane Milin, Kevin Bird, Drew Larson, (bottom left) Dearbhaile Casey, Zoe Vance. Group is standing in front of Glendalough.

Image of post docs (top left) Emily Haley, Morgane Milin, Zoe Vance, Drew Larson, Kevin Bird, (bottom left) Dearbhaile Casey.

Image of Dearbhaile Casey exploring Glendalough and celebrating standing on top of a rock!

Scenery around Glendalough. Grassy forefront with treats and mountains in the background. A cloudy and sunny day.

Our ECRs recently travelled to Dublin for two fantastic days filled with science, collaboration, and a bit of well-earned fun!
#WGDip #ECR

International Polyploidy Conference 2026, Crossover in theory and application Wageningen, the Netherlands. 6-13 September 2026

📢Join us at the International Polyploidy Conference!

#WGDip will be present with two invited speakers: Project Lead Prof. Dan Macqueen & Project Partner Prof. Aoife McLysaght.

www.pe-rc.nl/events/inter...

@w-u-r.bsky.social @pe-rc.bsky.social #IPC2026 🧪

Image of MRes Student Annabelle Knutson.

This parasitic plant, Lathraea clandestina, is being studied by MRes student Annabelle Knutson, as part of our work on genome duplication in #WGDip.

Lathraea experienced a genome duplication🧬 & this may have facilitated its parasitic adaptations!

#wildflower #parasiticplant #WildflowerHour 🧪

Image of Lathraea clandestina (Purple Toothwort). A small purple plant with no leaves.

Image of Lathraea clandestina (Purple Toothwort). A large cluster of small purple plants with no leaves at the base of a tree.

Can you identify this unusual purple-flowered plant in bloom at the @thebotanics.bsky.social?🔎🪻

This plant has no leaves & cannot photosynthesise. It's an important early spring flower, especially for bees🐝. Its nectar is high in ammonia, making it unsavoury for other pollinators & nectar robbers.

This time last year marked the beginning of the #WGDip project! 🥳

Are you interested in eukaryotic evolution & whole genome duplication? So are we!

Find out more about who we are and what we are doing on our website: www.rediploidisation.org

🧪🧬 @ukri.org #BBSRC #sLoLa

Want to hear more from the #WGDip team members?

Head over to our website to watch the full video series. 🎥🗣️💬
www.rediploidisation.org/video-files

@ukri.org #BBSRC #sLoLa

Hmmm... perhaps a Hazel? 🔍👀

Either way, very cool, thank you for sharing!

...paper production📃, & medicine💊. Ecologically, they’re powerful allies in environmental restoration, helping absorb pollutants & stabilise riverbanks.

From practical uses to protecting ecosystems, willows show how vital woodlands are to both people & the environment.

🌱🧪#InternationalDayofForests

🌳🌲Today we celebrate #InternationalForestDay & their incredible diversity!🌲🌳

Willows (Salicaceae) are a remarkable family - with a well-documented ancestral WGD event - that includes trees with huge value for people & the planet. For centuries, willows have been used in basket weaving🧺, ...

Hear from Jack, a Science Engagement Manager at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. He hopes that #WGDip will engage the public with the DNA data revolution & explain why large-scale datasets are key to answering some of science’s toughest questions! 🧬🌍

@sangerinstitute.bsky.social

Hear what impact Peter hopes #WGDip will have on the science community and on our understanding of what happens following a whole genome duplication!

@peterhox.bsky.social

Hear why Aoife is excited to be working as part of the #WGDip team. Aoife is a project partner lead from Trinity College Dublin.

🌟Tell us what excites you about your work!🌟

@tcddublin.bsky.social

Hear what impact Ilia hopes #WGDip will have on the science community and on our understanding of evolution! She is a project co-lead from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

🌟How do you see WGDip impacting your research?🌟

@biggenomes.bsky.social
@rbgkew.bsky.social

Revisiting ancient whole-genome duplications in the seed and flowering plants through the lens of dosage-sensitive genes Dosage-sensitive genes suggest no ancestral angiosperm WGD.

🧪A recent article in Science Advances revisits long-debated WGD events during early seed plant evolution. Using dosage-sensitive genes as markers of WGD, the authors found little support for an angiosperm-specific WGD, and strong evidence for a single WGD shared by all seed plants.

buff.ly/W0hQYno

Hear about Dearbhaile's role in #WGDip, a Post-doc from the University of Oxford.

🌟Tell us what your typical day looks like!🌟

@dervc.bsky.social
@ox.ac.uk

Image showing the WGDip logo being projected from a film camera. With the title Vied Files below.

The #WGDip team has created videos spotlighting our amazing researchers and team members. We asked about their roles, what excites them, and the impact they hope WGDip will have. Stay tuned over the coming weeks and check in regularly to hear their stories!

This image shows 7 photos taken on during WGDip's tour of Wellcome Genome Institution campus. Photos include images of the team walking around campus (just before it rained!), looking at the public engagement room, reading part of the printed human genome, as well at looking at previous methods for sequencing.

As part of our sLoLa project meeting, the #WGDip team got a tour of the beautiful Wellcome Sanger Campus 🌿🧬Great science, great company, and an inspiring place to talk all things whole-genome duplication!

@sangerinstitute.bsky.social
@ukri.org

The #WGDip team kicked off 2026 with an in-person meeting hosted at the Wellcome Genome Campus✨. We had a fun, science-packed two days that strongly advanced our plans to work together across both our research and science outreach plans - it's going to be an exciting year!

Image of Andrea Mazgaleva

📢Meet the team!

Andrea Mazgaleva is a Project Coordinator in the Tree of Life Programme. For the #WGDip project, Andrea will be overseeing the production of 15 chromosome-level reference genomes through the ToL pipeline. 🧬💻

🧪New preprint from WGDip lead Dan Macqueen with collaborators from the AQUA-FAANG project www.aqua-faang.eu, including WGDip team member Manu Kumar Gundappa. Exploring regulatory evolution following the autotetraploid WGD ancestral to salmonids (featuring rediploidization!) doi.org/10.64898/202...

Home | rediploidisation.org Timeline: April 2025 to March 2029

We are 8 months into the sLoLa-funded #WGDip project!

Find out more about our project and the work we have been doing on our website:
www.rediploidisation.org

From all of us on the #WGDip team, we’re wishing you a joyful, restful, and cosy holiday season ❄️🎄

We can’t wait to see what the year ahead has in store! 🎉

Image of Finn McHale

📢Meet the team!

Finn McHale is a Research Assistant from the University of Oxford. His recent Master's project investigated WGD of snails and slugs!🐌 Now he's looking for signs of delayed rediploidisation in other invertebrate genomes with #WGDip

Read Finn's paper here:📝
doi.org/10.1002/jez....

Congratulations to team members @phil-donoghue.bsky.social, @tweethinking.bsky.social, & @ssolo.bsky.social for their newly published study on the process of eukaryogenesis.

We hope this framework will resolve historical events in individual gene families for the #WGDip project. 🧪🧬

Image of Dr. Andrew Lloyd

#WGDip hosted @andrewhmlloyd.bsky.social (U. of Aberystwyth), who discussed the evolution of meiotic stability after polyploidisation. Many cellular processes must coordinate so that each cell receives the proper chromosomes during division. Populations can evolve to get better at this over time!

Image of Dan Macqueen presenting at the EuroFAANG RI final conference.

WGDip project lead Dan Macqueen joined the #EuroFaang Research Infrastructure final conference (eurofaang.eu). He introduced #WGDip, explaining the importance of rediploidization in salmonids (and across the tree of life), and reflected on current opportunities and barriers in comparative genomics 🧪

Come and do a PhD on 'Genome duplication, extinction and diversification in the evolution of flowering plants' with myself @jameswclark.bsky.social and Ilia Leitch @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social and join the @wgdip.bsky.social studying rediploidisation. Apply: tinyurl.com/26pmfvvc by Jan 8