DNAharvester's workflow.
We present DNAharvester 🎉🦴🚜🧬
A pipeline to process highly degraded ancient DNA data that integrates metagenomic filtering, competitive mapping, multiple alignment strategies, reference bias evaluation and much more.
GitHub: github.com/NBISweden/DN...
Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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...
Heatmaps of climate variables in southwestern United States
The endangered Pacific pocket mouse
Climate change is a huge challenge for endangered species because genetic variation needed to adapt is often lacking.
Our new study in Science Advances highlights the potential for conservation breeding and reintroduction to boost resilience to climate change. @science.org
doi.org/10.1126/scia...
Decision tree for the selection of the most suitable materials for passive sampling based on different matrices, targets and study conditions.
📖Published📖
Passive environmental DNA sampling: A review of current practices, limitations and future directions for biodiversity monitoring 🧬
buff.ly/fB6NKeH
![Figure 1 from the article, a summary of the IUCN Red List criteria for assessing species into one of the threatened categories: Vulnerable (marked in yellow), Endangered (marked in orange), and Critically Endangered (marked in red). The criteria are demarcated into five categories, with further subcategorization on the basis of each criterion:
"(A) Population size reduction. Population reduction (measured over the longer of 10 years or 3 generations based on any of A1 to A4)
(B) Geographic range in the form of either B1 (extent of occurrence) AND/OR B2 (area of occupancy)
(C) Small population size and decline
(D) Very small or restricted population
(E) Quantitative Analysis"
Figure text below:
"Figure 1. The IUCN Red List criteria summary sheet. This document, provided by the IUCN, summarizes the five criteria
(A–E) and the associated thresholds for assigning species to one of the ‘threatened’ risk categories: Vulnerable (VU), Endangered (EN), or Critically Endangered (CE). The full details for applying the criteria or assigning species to other threat classes can be found in the Guidelines for Using the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria (IUCN 2024)
. Use of this summary sheet requires a full understanding of the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria [11] and the Guidelines for Using
the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria
. Please refer to both documents for explanations of terms and concepts used here."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:bgxcxgp53ail6kazun2ewbvm/bafkreidjybtrp74myaoyt6hkjfldgmpaljbewd7agls36bvdq7dtt5mi6m)
Figure 1 from the article, a summary of the IUCN Red List criteria for assessing species into one of the threatened categories: Vulnerable (marked in yellow), Endangered (marked in orange), and Critically Endangered (marked in red). The criteria are demarcated into five categories, with further subcategorization on the basis of each criterion: "(A) Population size reduction. Population reduction (measured over the longer of 10 years or 3 generations based on any of A1 to A4) (B) Geographic range in the form of either B1 (extent of occurrence) AND/OR B2 (area of occupancy) (C) Small population size and decline (D) Very small or restricted population (E) Quantitative Analysis" Figure text below: "Figure 1. The IUCN Red List criteria summary sheet. This document, provided by the IUCN, summarizes the five criteria (A–E) and the associated thresholds for assigning species to one of the ‘threatened’ risk categories: Vulnerable (VU), Endangered (EN), or Critically Endangered (CE). The full details for applying the criteria or assigning species to other threat classes can be found in the Guidelines for Using the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria (IUCN 2024) . Use of this summary sheet requires a full understanding of the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria [11] and the Guidelines for Using the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria . Please refer to both documents for explanations of terms and concepts used here."
A big focus of the article is on the groundbreaking work of extending the IUCN Red List Criteria to assess parasite taxa while considering their unique ecological conditions, such as their reliance on one or more host species and their possible limited distribution compared to hosts.
A cover to the March 2026 edition of Trends in Parasitology, showing a yellow-brown snail infected with bright green Leucochloridium worms in its eyestalks, perched on the leaf of a plant. The background is black and speckled with droplets of rain or mist. "Trends in Parasitology A Cell Press Journal Parasite coloration Volume 42 | Number 3 | March 2026 | ISSN 1471–4922"
A screenshot of the header of the article as it appears on the Science Direct website. "Opinion Parasite conservation now: turning knowledge into action Skylar R. Hopkins, Chelsea L. Wood https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pt.2026.03.009"
The Parasite Specialist Group has published a new paper on assessing and conserving wild parasite species! The first link below is a DOI, while the second link will allow you to view and download the whole paper until May 23rd.
doi.org/10.1016/j.pt...
authors.elsevier.com/a/1mtNP5Eb1x...
New preprint! We sequenced 175 'Alalā (Hawaiian crow) genomes to understand why >50% of eggs fail to hatch in a species recovered from just 9 individuals. What we found was a both exciting and surprising. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Sobreiro, @sibellevilaca.bsky.social A. Vidal et al. present a chromosome-level genome assembly for the jaborandi, an endangered tropical American plant species with significant bioeconomic relevance.
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/...
#genome #evolution #PlantSky
Hello beautiful people, remember to send your abstracts before April 15th.
We are looking forward seeing you all in Peru.
In the High-level Segment at #CMSCOP15, Marina Silva, Minister of the Environment, Brazil, reiterated Brazil's commitment to working with all countries to conserve migratory species & their habitats, & called for making COP15 “a resounding defence of multilateralism.” #ConnectingNature @cms.int
Ne Does Not Provide Sufficient Information on Allelic Variation: Suggestions to Fill the Gap
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
"This observation supports the error hypothesis and suggests that metazoan transcript diversity is largely deleterious." Love this since it matches my priors :-) dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...
🐳🧬8 years in the making! 🐳🧬
Our new paper in Cell explores how bowhead whales responded to past climate change - and how commercial whaling reshaped their future.
Check it out here: doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...
#aDNA #PopGen
Bugs in a box-an analogy We can make a physical analogy (if a somewhat fanciful one) by considering a box containing hyperactive, indiscriminate, voracious, and insatiable bugs. We put k bugs into the box. They run about without paying any attention to where they are going. Occasionally two bugs collide. When they do, one instantly eats the other. Being insatiable, it then resumes running as quickly as before. It is obvious what will happen. The number of bugs in the box gradually falls from k to k - 1, to k-2, as the bugs coalesce, until finally only one bug is left. The analogy is actually fairly precise. The number of pairs of bugs that can collide is k(k - 1) /2. If there are 2N "places" in the box that can be occupied, the probability of a collision will be proportional to k(k - 1)/4N. The size of the population corresponds to the size of the box. A box with twice as many "places" will slow the coalescence process down by a factor of two. So a simpleminded physical analysis of the bugs-in-a-box process will have the Kingman coalescent distribution as the probability distribution of its outcomes.
Thought I would share this famous analogy from Felsentein’s book I just re-stumbled on. Just in case you’re bug in a box and missed it 😜
Genomic estimates of inbreeding with runs of homozygosity often outperform pedigree-based F, even from long-term datasets. They integrate occasional gene flow and are less sensitive to underlying pedigree assumptions.
Congrats @marcofesta.bsky.social and co!
#consgen
A widespread gap in U.S. Endangered Species Act implementation: Risk of genetic erosion within populations
doi.org/10.32942/X2K...
interested in Conservation Genetics ? #consgen
Then this is THE place to go in 2026 - August in Antwerp
www.zooscience.be/en/7th-europ...
Did you know that Evolution Letters now publishes reviews?! Our inaugural one is fantastic! Deep learning is opening new doors for evolutionary genomics, especially for nonmodel organisms with sparse or uncertain genomic data. doi.org/10.1093/evle...
Check out Endemixit's latest paper! The 🦎 Aeolian wall lizard 🦎has the lowest genome-wide heterozygosity observed in wild eukaryotes (one polymorphic site every 300 kb!), but comparable realized genetic load to a large population!
📣 If you are interested in processes, #biodiversity science, policy & implementation related to the Convention on Biological Diversity (UN CBD) - join CO-OP4CBD’s dedicated UN CBD expert database!
📝 Register here: coop4cbd-expert-database.limesurvey.net/236295?lang=...
#Science4Biodiversity
Thank you, Anil for this excellent summary of the two @pnas.org papers on #biodiversity measurement and monitoring that came out this week. I love your rallying call to the computer science community to help build the federated system we need. This is firmly in the realm of the doable.
Pangenomes, really?
Most early “pangenomes” = oligogenomes (oligo, Gr., few).
More recent “pangenomes” generally = poligenomes (polis, Gr., many).
True pangenomes (pas, Gr., every/all) would be rare indeed.
🙏🏼 @zbao.bsky.social for pointing out his review.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
2026 Annual Review of Animal Biosciences now online! Most read article - Conserving Genetic and Genomic Diversity in Accordance with the Global Biodiversity Framework arevie.ws/3MLGitv
@jess-dasilva.bsky.social @lauradbertola.bsky.social @testeeves.bsky.social @sibellevilaca.bsky.social
Leipzig U and the MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) have an open faculty position (W2) in evolutionary population genetics! This position is tenured and comes with generous core funding. We are eager to welcome a new colleague! Deadline March 11.
www.uni-leipzig.de/en/newsdetai...
So I pleased to announce the conceptual spawn of FigTree: PearTree (acronym still to be finalised). If you want to dive right in it is hosted as a web app here: artic-network.github.io/peartree (click the “Example...” button for immediate candy and then click every button you can find).
The deadline for applying to be an Associate Editor has been extended to the 8th March!
MEE are looking for expertise across a range of topics, including stable isotopes, ecophysiology, mark-recapture methods and modelling, and more!
Find out more and apply here 👇
buff.ly/MzIXj6U
Comparison of read mappings at HG002 chr4:40,294,825-40,295,700, showing conventional (pbmm2) read mappings (above) and portello mappings (below). The same set of unaligned input reads were input into each mapping process.
What if you could improve small variant accuracy, CNV inference, and interpretability of your HiFi WGS data by taking a different approach to read mapping? Our new preprint describes portello, a method which demonstrates the potential for such improvements. (1/5)
Photo of nesting sea turtle on a beach with the title of the special superimposed on it.
🐢🦤🧪 ESR Special #26. Initiated at the end of the 20th century, many #MarineTurtle monitoring programs have been ongoing for two or more decades and provide valuable insights into population dynamics and conservation. Contribute now! bit.ly/esr_special26
@brendangodley.bsky.social
This recently-accepted study highlights the critical need to incorporate genomic erosion—the loss of genetic diversity, accumulation of harmful mutations, maladaptation, and introgression—into conservation assessments.
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