Category Archives: genomics

FISHing for molecules, a link between form and function in animal–bacteria symbioses

Posted on 15 Mar, 2020 by Laetitia Wilkins

I am posting a blog post that was written by Benedikt Geier, a Ph.D. candidate who just handed in his Ph.D. thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany. In my eyes, these last couple of … Continue reading →

Posted in Coevolution, community ecology, ecology, evolution, genomics, methods, microbiology, natural history, Symbiosis, transcriptomics | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How to handle the burden of deleterious mutations

Posted on 4 Mar, 2020 by Patrícia Chrzanová Pečnerová

With the increasingly pressing matter of populations being threatened by fragmentation and isolation, and with progressively more efficient sequencing technologies and analytical tools at hand, conservation genetics is starting to turn the spotlight on the topic of genetic load. It … Continue reading →

Posted in conservation, demography, ecology, evolution, genomics, mammals, population genetics | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Inbreeding and the cougar genome

Posted on 21 Feb, 2020 by Kathleen Grogan

This week, some of my favorite #scicomm games on Twitter are teaming up with March Mammal Madness to reveal this year’s #2020MMM contestants in my favorite “battle of the fittest.” Specifically, today (2/21/2020) at 12:30 pm EST, Dr. Michelle LaRue … Continue reading →

Posted in conservation, genomics, mammals | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The world through the senses of a pangolin

Posted on 14 Feb, 2020 by Patrícia Chrzanová Pečnerová

This Saturday, February 15, is World Pangolin Day, and thus it is a good time to do some PR for these fascinating animals. Continue reading →

Posted in ecology, evolution, genomics, mammals, RNAseq, transcriptomics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The genomic & physiological basis of high altitude adaptation in North American deer mice

Posted on 31 Jan, 2020 by Kathleen Grogan

In biology, there are many ways to solve evolutionary ‘challenges’ so it always amazes me when organisms solve them in similar ways. And I love a good paper that adds to our attempts to dissect multi-trait adaptations. Recently, Schweizer et … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, association genetics, evolution, genomics, mammals, population genetics, RNAseq, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Molecular ecology highlights at the American Naturalist 2020 meeting

Posted on 15 Jan, 2020 by Jeremy Yoder

Even-numbered years are distinguished by Olympic Games (summer or winter), U.S. Congressional elections, and the American Society of Naturalists biennial meeting at Asilomar, a retreat center embedded in a California state park near the northern tip of the Monterey Peninsula. … Continue reading →

Posted in community, conferences, evolution, genomics | Tagged | 1 Comment

Genomic data reveal links between demography and adaptation in experimental host-virus coevolution

Posted on 25 Nov, 2019 by Jeremy Yoder
Posted in adaptation, Coevolution, ecology, evolution, genomics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Loki and behold: one microbial culture that brings us one leap closer to understanding the origins of eukaryotic cells

Posted on 23 Aug, 2019 by Kelle Freel

What were you doing 10 years ago? Can you remember? Were you, perhaps, trying to sort out the origins of eukaryotic life? A pre-print (yet to be peer-reviewed) was released earlier this month by Imachi et al., describing a 12 … Continue reading →

Posted in ecology, evolution, genomics, metagenomics, microbiology | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Hybridization in the depths of the last glacial period created a world-conquering clover

Posted on 30 May, 2019 by Jeremy Yoder

Plants’ flexibility with the structure of their genome — able to cope with proliferating transposons, whole-genome duplications, or even acquisition of complete sets of chromosomes from another species — is a big source of evolutionary novelty. Duplication of a single gene … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, evolution, genomics, hybridization, speciation | Tagged | 1 Comment

Move or adapt to changing climate? These chipmunks have had to do both

Posted on 13 May, 2019 by Jeremy Yoder

Climate change threatens to land many, many species in conditions for which they’re not adapted — too warm, too dry, too stormy, too flood-prone — and traditionally the ways that living things might respond to this are framed as a … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, comparative phylogeography, genomics, mammals | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment