#molecularevolution — Public Fediverse posts

And another preprint! 4/3
Barua et al show that a shared genetic program of fish metamorphosis evolves with ecological and morphological traits
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.29.741460v1
#EvoDevo #MolecularEvolution #FishEvolution

New preprints! 3/3
OK this one is an update, but we have new evidence for near-panmixia between Mediterranean and Atlantic populations of amphioxus. Led by Marina Brasó-Vives
#Amphioxus #MolecularEvolution #PopulationGenomics
https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.01.13.699254

New preprints! 2/3
Convergent gene family expansions and births with the evolution of metamorphosis in Pancrustacea. Led by Giulia Campli and @rmwaterhouse, with Ariel Chipman #EvoDevo #MolecularEvolution #ArthropodEvolution #Metamorphosis
https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.05.06.723392

New preprints! 1/3
Spider venom glands are modified salivary glands which have recruited appendage and myogenic programs from other the developmental programs of other organs. Led by Giulia Zancolli, with @yehumoran
#EvoDevo #MolecularEvolution #ArthropodEvolution #Venom
https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.07.10.737832

Here this sum over organs/tissues shows a strong excess of positive selection on regulatory sequences in human nervous system evolution 😎. And to a lesser extent in male reproductive system. #MolecularEvolution #EvoDevo

Congratulations to @nextstrain for this great paper! Studying the evolution of moulting beyond insects has been challenging, and we are starting to see how moulting is both deeply conserved and evolving differently in pancrustacean lineages. #EvoDevo #ArthropodEvolution #MolecularEvolution
https://bsky.app/profile/nextstrain.bsky.social/post/3mfc344teo22w

@alice #molecularEvolution #PopulationGenetics #EvolutionaryBiology

The next step in a great scientific adventure led by Marina Brasó Vives on amphioxus evolution: population genomics of a species with 3% heterozygosity! Read the thread and the preprint 😁 #amphioxus #EvoDevo #PopulationGenomics #MolecularEvolution
https://bsky.app/profile/mbrasovives.bsky.social/post/3mctuhgks7k2q

I'm excited to present this new model to detect positive selection on regulatory sequences, which has been 3 years in the making!
Thanks to Alexandre Laverré and @Phylogenetrips for their amazing work on this project. 😃
https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.11.26.690685

Thread! #bioinformatics #molecularEvolution

🧩 What if the diverse functions of a single protein all trace back to one structural superfamily?

🔗 Evolutionary and structural bioinformatics identifies GPR89 as a conserved member of the LIMR protein superfamily. Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csbj.2025.11.003

📚 CSBJ: https://www.csbj.org/

#StructuralBiology #ComputationalBiology #MolecularEvolution #ProteinScience #Genomics #Proteomics #AlphaFold #MembraneProteins #Genetics #Bioinformatics

Update of our preprint on Inter-individual gene expression variability in fishes! We improved statistical analyses of continuous variables, and especially added machine learning on promoters which confirms cis-regulation of organ-specific expression variability, under stronger sequence constraint in the organs 🧠 whose genes have lower expression variability.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.11.623020v3
#EvoDevo #MolecularEvolution #GeneExpression #RNAseq

Starting #ESEB2025 a bit late, with an exciting symposium on whole genome duplication. They couldn’t fit all of the talks in, I’ll be talking on “Gene expression variability and evolutionary outcomes after whole-genome duplication in fishes” tomorrow in the Genetics symposium. #GeneDuplication #GenomeDuplication #MolecularEvolution

Experimental evolution in an era of molecular manipulation

Monod, J. Chance and Necessity: an Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology (Vintage Books, 1972). Blount,…
#NewsBeep #News #Genetics #Agriculture #AnimalGeneticsandGenomics #Biomedicine #CancerResearch #Experimentalevolution #GeneFunction #general #HumanGenetics #Molecularevolution #Science #UK #UnitedKingdom
https://www.newsbeep.com/uk/14338/

Experimental evolution in an era of molecular manipulation

Monod, J. Chance and Necessity: an Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology (Vintage Books, 1972). Blount,…
#NewsBeep #News #Genetics #Agriculture #AnimalGeneticsandGenomics #AU #Australia #Biomedicine #CancerResearch #Experimentalevolution #GeneFunction #general #HumanGenetics #Molecularevolution #Science
https://www.newsbeep.com/au/11663/

Exciting work led by Giulia Zancolli on the venomless Uloboridae spiders. They lost their venom glands and venom injecting duct, but wrap their prey in toxic digestive fluids.
The paper: https://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12915-025-02248-1
The press release (in 🇫🇷) https://www.unil.ch/news/1749727639234 #Venom #Spiders #EvoDevo #MolecularEvolution

Nice highlight of our recent work on the evolution of venom production in marine predatory snails
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-025-02763-y
#EvoDevo #MolecularEvolution #Venom

You can still apply: Postdoc job opportunity! We're looking for early career researcher in evolutionary genomics to study the relation between intra-specific gene expression variability, polymorphism, and macro-evolutionary rates. We have all of the data in 3 fishes and amphioxus, just waiting for your expertise and enthusiasm!
https://tinyurl.com/3aewk286
#EvoDevo #MolecularEvolution #bioinformatics #PopulationGenomics #RNAseq #PostDoc

Postdoc job opportunity! We're looking for early career researcher in evolutionary genomics to study the relation between intra-specific gene expression variability, polymorphism, and macro-evolutionary rates. We have all of the data in 3 fishes and amphioxus, just waiting for your expertise and enthusiasm!
https://tinyurl.com/3aewk286
#EvoDevo #MolecularEvolution #bioinformatics #PopulationGenomics #RNAseq #PostDoc

Nice RNAseq atlas of small but important crustacean Daphnia pulex, and study of "selection operating on genes expressed in different tissues" https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.01.651673v1 #EvoDevo #MolecularEvolution #RNAseq #Daphnia #Crustacean

Great to see this out in society journal @molbioevol @officialSMBE!
Cone snails are venomous 🐚🍽️🐟 and have evolved from non venomous marine snails. We show how their venom gland evolved from homologous glands, and how this affected the evolution of their digestive system.
https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf095 #MolecularEvolution #EvoDevo #Venom

This is the best explanation I've ever seen for lungfish genome sizes
https://xkcd.com/3064/
#XKCD #Genomes #MolecularEvolution #lungfish

Ah now for something lighter: a horseshoe crab genome, whole genome duplications, and a cartoon:
https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf021
https://tapas.io/episode/3123425
#EvoDevo #MolecularEvolution #Genomics

Like sex chromosomes and supergenes, the non-recombining region accumulates transposable elements, nonsynonymous substitutions, and gene presence/absence polymorphisms—a hallmark of recombination suppression. #MolecularEvolution
5/5

Intriguing: modeling and empirical data support that after whole genome duplication (autotetraploids) genetic variation rises, and mutation load increases because deleterious mutations are masked by additional chromosome copies
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01.12.632621v1
#WholeGenomeDuplication #paralog #MolecularEvolution #PopulationGenetics #Arabidopsis

#AnyaPlutynski - #Evolution and the Nature of #Chance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCyvfhPsasM

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfScience #Science #PhilosophyOfBiology #Biology #Probability #Indeterminism #Darwin #Darwinism #NaturalSelection #DNA #MolecularEvolution #MolecularBiology #Phenotype #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

Nice perspective preprint following @officialSMBE symposium, led by Marina Braso Vives @dee_unil:
Unlocking the hidden dimensions of genomic diversity within species
https://ecoevorxiv.org/repository/view/8225/ #EvolutionaryBiology #MolecularEvolution

Very interesting preprint by @jkpritch lab on non monotonous relation between phenotype and gene expression, relevant to #MolecularEvolution and #EvoDevo (and human medicine I suppose 😉)
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.11.24317065v1

New lab preprint! I'll write a thread about it as soon as I have time, but we show that gene expression variability between outbred fish is under organ-specific selection
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.11.623020v1
@dee_unil #EvoDevo #MolecularEvolution

Very nice preprint on most-diverged vs. less-diverged ortholog among paralog pairs: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.10.29.620890v1 @dessimoz #ortholog #paralog #MolecularEvolution

Our latest paper https://elifesciences.org/articles/87335
directly measures the #EffectivePopulationSize that matters to #NearlyNeutralTheory / #DriftBarrier theory, as the degree to which #CodonBias differs from expectations from GC content. Surprisingly, stronger #NaturalSelection -> higher #IntrinsicStructuralDisorder proteins
#MolecularEvolution #PopulationGenetics #EvolgenPaper 1/