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Gustavo A. Ballen

@gaballench.bsky.social

660 followers 200 following 46 posts

Computational biologist 🖥️. (Palaeo)Ichthyologist 🐟🦴. Lutenist 🎶. FAPESP postdoctoral fellow at UNESP Botucatu. https://gaballench.com

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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 27d

Our paper (with @sreinales.bsky.social) finally out today in the Evolutionary Journal of the Linnean Society. It feels like a birthday present 🤪 academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a...

tbea: tools for pre- and post-processing in bayesian evolutionary analyses

Abstract. Estimating phylogenies in which branch lengths are expressed in units of absolute time is crucial for testing hypotheses in evolutionary biology.

academic.oup.com

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen

savin dos louvadeus 🦗 @savcavalcante.behind.camera · 20d

eu quero SITES das coisas, com contato via e-mail e telefone, especialmente lojas, serviços etc e não perfil de Instagram com preço inbox

also quero tutoriais e análises em escrito, que eu possa dar um control f, não em video que tu fica caçando o trecho de 5 segundos que te interessa

erika @yeeeerika.bsky.social · Jan 13

i don't want to hear your most boomer complaint. what's your most millennial complaint?

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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 27d

Our paper (with @sreinales.bsky.social) finally out today in the Evolutionary Journal of the Linnean Society. It feels like a birthday present 🤪 academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a...

tbea: tools for pre- and post-processing in bayesian evolutionary analyses

Abstract. Estimating phylogenies in which branch lengths are expressed in units of absolute time is crucial for testing hypotheses in evolutionary biology.

academic.oup.com

8 12

Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · Sep 6

It's not possible to use continuous in MrBayes at the moment despite the confusing information regarding this over the internet (been there some years ago). That's work in progress by Chi Zhang, so eventually it will be available.

Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · Aug 1

Our latest paper on Farlowella from Colombia in Journal of Fish Biology, the result of the undergrad dissertation by my former student Omar Melo. Supported by @agenciafapesp.bsky.social Universidad Javeriana, Museu de Zoologia da USP, and UNESP Botucatu. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen

Sungsik Kong @sungsik.bsky.social · Jul 29

Phylogenetic networks empower biodiversity research | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Phylogenetic networks empower biodiversity research | PNAS

Reticulate evolution has long been recognized as a key mechanism that contributes to genetic and trait diversity. With the widespread availability ...

www.pnas.org

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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · Jul 23

Colombian palaeontology

Jorge W. Moreno-Bernal @jwmorenob.bsky.social · Jul 23

Well, this came out today. Terror birds (Phorusrhacidae)were not friends, but food.

Bueno, hoy salió esto. Las aves del terror (Phorusrhacidae) no eran amigos, sino comida. #PaleoSky #Phorusrhacidae #Paleontology #Fossils

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · Jun 15

Multifaceted evolution of dental morphology during the diversification of the bat superfamily Noctilionoidea https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.10.658888v1

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen

Andrea Matranga @andreamatranga.bsky.social · May 29

The tragic landslide in Blatten gives me the excuse to tell you the story of how we found out Ice Ages existed. It's a cool story and the most important bit is rather similar to what's happening now.

Melaine Le Roy @subfossilguy.bsky.social · May 29

Aerial view westward over the Blatten deposit and the newly formed lake upstream! 🧊🌊

📷Via Christian Petit/Linkedin

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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · May 30

Fascinating thread! Thank you!

Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · May 17

💯

PHD Comics @phdcomics.com · May 15

Postdoc training

Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · May 7

“Massive numbers of students are going to emerge from university with degrees, and into the workforce, who are essentially illiterate…Both in the literal sense and in the sense of being historically illiterate and having no knowledge of their own culture, much less anyone else’s.”

Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College

ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project.

nymag.com

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen

Muthukumaran Panchaksaram, PhD @muthubioinfo.bsky.social · Mar 20

Happy to share that my PhD paper published in Systematic Biology. My paper explores the #Asymptotictheory of Bayesian rate model selection and explore how misspecified calibrations can affect this. Also test rate model selection with large #Phylogenomes

Link below:
academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...

Bayesian Selection of Relaxed-Clock Models: Distinguishing between Independent and Autocorrelated Rates

Abstract. In Bayesian molecular-clock dating of species divergences, rate models are used to construct the prior on the molecular evolutionary rates for br

academic.oup.com

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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · Feb 17

Ammonite art by the brilliant @jwmorenob.bsky.social who is always happy to take commissions!

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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · Feb 17

I'm happy to see my latest preprint out on stratigraphic intervals, a topic I've been interested in since my first year as PhD student. Available in the brand-new StratIntervals.jl (github.com/gaballench/S...) @julialang.org package. Preprint on @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social doi.org/10.1101/2025...

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · Feb 17

A flexible Bayesian method for estimating stratigraphic intervals and their co-occurrence in time https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.13.638199v1

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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · Feb 4

Fantastic analogy!

Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · Feb 4

🙋🏽‍♂️

Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · Dec 23

First time in four years that I don't ☺️

Neil Renic @ncrenic.bsky.social · Dec 15

Academic Christmas

Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · Dec 23

I'm happy to share our latest preprint on fossil fishes from Colombia, which represents the last piece of my PhD thesis that was still to be published. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @agenciafapesp.bsky.social @uspoficial.bsky.social @sbbe.bsky.social #cienciacriolla

Fossil Freshwater Fishes from the Pliocene of northern Colombia and the Palaeogeography of northern South America

Freshwater fishes from northern Colombia are reported from the Sincelejo and Ware formations, of Pliocene age. A total of ten taxa have been identified comprising two orders, five families, and nine g...

www.biorxiv.org

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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · Dec 23

Gracias!

Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · Dec 22

🙋🏽‍♂️

Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen

bioRxivpreprint @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · Dec 22

Fossil Freshwater Fishes from the Pliocene of northern Colombia and the Palaeogeography of northern South America https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.18.629252v1

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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · Nov 23

Honoured to have won the prize to best presentation in methods and software at the Congresso Brasileiro de Biologia Evolutiva

Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · Nov 20

Very excited to see the dissertation of my first undergrad student already available as a preprint (and submitted as well).

bioRxivpreprint @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · Nov 20

The taxonomic status of Farlowella colombiensis Retzer & Page 1997 with comments on species of the F. acus species group (Loricariidae: Loricariinae). https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.18.624099v1

The genus Farlowella has been historically challenging, in part due to the difficulty in defining di