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Reposted by Chris Kyriazis

Kirk Lohmueller @klohmueller.bsky.social · 22d

In the midst of the darkness, I am pleased to announce that UCLA will be hosting the upcoming Southern California Evolutionary Genetics (SCalE) conference on November 1! Registration & abstract submission is here: www.scalemeeting.org/home Deadline is October 13! Hope to see you at UCLA!

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The SCalE Meeting is a free, one day regional academic meeting focused on evolutionary genetics and genomics. This year's SCalE Meeting is hosted by UCLA, sponsored by the Institute for Quantitative ...

www.scalemeeting.org

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Reposted by Chris Kyriazis

Dr. Arun Sethuraman @arunsethuraman.bsky.social · 23d

New manuscript out today in @ecol-evol.bsky.social, led by my grad student Anais. We collated data from thousands of recent animal pop-gen studies to test 3 simple hypotheses: does genomic (1) diversity decrease (yes), (2) differentiation increase (yes), both with increased IUCN-endangerment?

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Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra @jrossibarra.bsky.social · Sep 3

Save the date! #PEQG26 June 9-12 2026 in Asilomar, CA. Happens only every 2yrs, but is my favorite conference. Full website coming soon, and registration and abstract submission opens November 14, but I'm allowed to tease that keynotes will be @jnovembre.bsky.social @jennytung.bsky.social and me!

Homepage - Population, Evolutionary, and Quantitative Genetics Conference

Visit our website to learn more.

genetics-gsa.org

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Aryn Wilder @arynwilder.bsky.social · Aug 21

Excited to share our new paper on genetic rescue in the Pacific pocket mouse! To conserve this endangered species, we sought to understand whether small populations at risk of outbreeding depression are better managed in isolation or with gene flow. @science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Fitness benefits of genetic rescue despite chromosomal differences in an endangered pocket mouse

Two-thirds of Earth’s species have undergone population declines, leaving many vulnerable to genomic erosion and inbreeding depression. Genetic rescue can boost the fitness of small populations, but p...

www.science.org

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Reposted by Chris Kyriazis

Peter Sudmant @psudmant.bsky.social · Aug 13

The Sudmant lab at UC Berkeley is seeking a postdoc to work on a fully funded NIH project to understand differences in DNA repair and somatic mutation across the primate tree of life. Please spread widely to those who may be interested aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05052

Postdoctoral Scholar – Genomics, Aging, Somatic Mutation, Structural Variation, Evolution , Cancer – Integrative Biology

University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!

aprecruit.berkeley.edu

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Reposted by Chris Kyriazis

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · Aug 11

SLiM 5: Eco-evolutionary simulations across multiple chromosomes and full genomes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.07.669155v1

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Ryan Gutenkunst @ryangutenkunst.bsky.social · Aug 11

Our manuscript describing the first Genomic History Inference Strategies Tournament is now on bioRxiv! Enjoy reading about the 2024 competition as you prepare your entries for the 2025 competition! ghi.st

GHIST 2024: The 1st Genomic History Inference Strategies Tournament

Evaluating population genetic inference methods is challenging due to the complexity of evolutionary histories, potential model misspecification, and unconscious biases in self-assessment. The Genomic...

doi.org

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Chris Kyriazis @ckyriazis.bsky.social · Aug 8

Absolute insanity

Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · Aug 8

I see they’ve chosen UCLA to be their whale.

www.cnn.com/2025/08/08/p...?

Trump administration seeking $1 billion settlement from UCLA | CNN Politics

The Trump administration is seeking a $1 billion settlement from the University of California, Los Angeles, CNN has exclusively learned, marking the latest effort by the White House to shape higher ed...

www.cnn.com

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Chris Kyriazis @ckyriazis.bsky.social · Aug 6

congrats!!

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Reposted by Chris Kyriazis

Chris Kyriazis @ckyriazis.bsky.social · Aug 4

I am thrilled to share this paper outlining some ideas I’ve been thinking about for a little while on a simple but powerful approach for predicting risk of inbreeding depression from long runs of homozygosity and non-ROH heterozygosity. 1/n @klohmueller.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

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Reposted by Chris Kyriazis

Moi Expósito-Alonso (MOILAB) @mexpositoalonso.bsky.social · Aug 4

*ALERT! GLOBAL GENETIC DIVERSITY TREND RE-ANALYSIS*

"Signals of consistent genetic diversity decline are not yet measurable in global meta-analysis" doi.org/10.1101/2025...

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Chris Kyriazis @ckyriazis.bsky.social · Aug 4

We think this simple ID_risk statistic could have a lot of practical utility in providing a simple and reliable means for identifying populations where ID is likely to be strong, which doesnt suffer from many of the same issues that genetic load proxies do (e.g., doi.org/10.1101/2025...) n/n

Genetic load proxies do not predict fitness better than inbreeding does in a wild population

A key goal in conservation is managing endangered populations in order to maximise individual and population fitness. Genetic management that reduces inbreeding and increases genetic diversity has bee...

www.biorxiv.org

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Chris Kyriazis @ckyriazis.bsky.social · Aug 4

We set out to explore the empirical behavior of the ID_risk statistic, and what we found I think is pretty cool! Specifically, it’s interesting to see that IR wolves and FL panthers have by far the highest ID_risk, which makes sense given the high severity of inbreeding depression in these pops 8/n

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Chris Kyriazis @ckyriazis.bsky.social · Aug 4

Our idea was perhaps we can devise a composite statistic for predicting risk of inbreeding depression in a population (ID_risk) simply by multiplying FROH and non-ROH het. As either of these quantities increase, so too should the threat of ID, so maybe there’s value in considering them together. 7/n

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Chris Kyriazis @ckyriazis.bsky.social · Aug 4

Another component that seemed relevant is the impact of heterozygosity in non-ROH regions, which should correlate with the inbreeding/masked load in a species. This is because more genome-wide hets = more recessive deleterious mutations as hets that can lead to inbreeding depression 6/n

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Chris Kyriazis @ckyriazis.bsky.social · Aug 4

This got me thinking…are we now at the point where it’s fair to assume a priori that, if long ROH are abundant in a population, it is likely suffering from inbreeding depression? Here, we argue that may now be the case. 5/n www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Long runs of homozygosity are reliable genomic markers of inbreeding depression

A long-standing goal in ecological, evolutionary, and conservation genetics is to identify genomic correlates of fitness and inbreeding depression. Ov…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Chris Kyriazis @ckyriazis.bsky.social · Aug 4

Paper after paper in species including wolves, dogs, humans, killer whales, etc all seem to tell a similar story. With this in mind, it was no surprise when we found a strong correlation between long ROH and survival/reproduction in ‘akikiki here: www.cell.com/current-biol...
4/n

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Chris Kyriazis @ckyriazis.bsky.social · Aug 4

Maybe my favorite is this paper on Soay sheep where they quantify these effects using SNP and mortality data for ~6000 sheep. For instance, they show that a 1% increase in long ROH reduces first year survival by 12.4%, whereas short ROH have no discernible impact. 3/n doi.org/10.1002/evl3...

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Chris Kyriazis @ckyriazis.bsky.social · Aug 4

The starting point for this paper is the growing body of research showing the large influence of long ROH on fitness and relatively minimal effects of short ROH. This literature is super exciting both because all these papers seem to tell the same story and agree with what we expect from theory! 2/n

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Chris Kyriazis @ckyriazis.bsky.social · Aug 4

I am thrilled to share this paper outlining some ideas I’ve been thinking about for a little while on a simple but powerful approach for predicting risk of inbreeding depression from long runs of homozygosity and non-ROH heterozygosity. 1/n @klohmueller.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

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Reposted by Chris Kyriazis

Silu Wang (she/her)🇨🇦 @siluwang.bsky.social · Jul 29

Check out our new special feature: Monitoring and Restoring Gene Flow in the Increasingly Fragmented Ecosystems of the Anthropocene www.pnas.org/topic/574 #biodiversity #evolution #ecology #popgen #ClimateEmergency

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Chris Kyriazis @ckyriazis.bsky.social · Jul 25

As well as this interview on Hawaii Public Radio from last month: www.hawaiipublicradio.org/the-conversa...

Research looks into how endangered honeycreepers are trapped in an 'extinction vortex'

Chris Kyriazis of the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance spoke with HPR's Maddie Bender about new work into the genetics of Hawaiian honeycreepers and what they reveal about their mating lives.

www.hawaiipublicradio.org

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Chris Kyriazis @ckyriazis.bsky.social · Jul 25

See also this CNN article discussing our work in the broader context of ongoing mosquito control efforts: edition.cnn.com/science/hawa...

Thousands of mosquitoes are being dropped by drone over islands in Hawaii. Here’s why | CNN

Native Hawaiian honeycreeper birds are being wiped out by avian malaria. Scientists think they can battle the problem by releasing more mosquitoes.

edition.cnn.com

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Chris Kyriazis @ckyriazis.bsky.social · Jul 25

Thanks to @evoisland.bsky.social for this nice Dispatch on our honeycreeper genomics paper: www.cell.com/current-biol...

Conservation genomics: Island birds on the brink

The Hawaiian honeycreepers are a striking example of bird evolution and a symbol of the biodiversity crisis. A genomic analysis of two critically endangered honeycreeper species reveals a bleak conser...

www.cell.com

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Reposted by Chris Kyriazis

Veronika Meduna @veronikameduna.bsky.social · Jul 11

My latest for @science.org looks into Colossal's claim that the plan to "resurrect" moa is "completely a Māori initiative" with Ngāi Tahu research centre, Te Tira Whakamātaki @nicrawlencenz.bsky.social
www.science.org/content/arti...

Effort to revive New Zealand’s extinct moa stirs controversy

Suggestions that nation’s Indigenous Māori wholeheartedly back project draws criticism

www.science.org

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