Very happy to announce that the next POPGROUP meeting will take place in Lille on 7-9 January !

Follow ‪@popgroup2026.bsky.social for all updates.

📢 Please share widely ! 📢‬

Exciting news!
The next #PopGroup meeting will take place in Lille 🍟, France, 7–9 January 2026 – just 1 hour by train from London, Brussels, and Paris.

This year, PopGroup will also host ALPHY, the annual meeting of Evolutionary Genomics.

More info: populationgeneticsgroup.org.uk

See you there !

Come and join our team! A 2-year postdoc position is available in our "Genome Evolution" department at Univ Paris Saclay. We want to play with phylogenetic models accounting for horizontal transfers of transposable elements. Application& details on the official portal: emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U...

If you’ve heard about our study on ants producing two different species but are still confused about how it works (and don’t have time to read the paper), this 10-minute video made by @bengthomas.bsky.social is very informative:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-O4...

Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thanks!
The study looked at 20 vertebrate pairs and 41 invertebrate pairs. In the original paper focused on animals (2016, time flies...), the comparison showed no effect based on whether they were vertebrates or invertebrates, or on their r/K ecological strategy.
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

For those who don't have access, the last bioRxiv version is largely similar to the final printed version
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

This allowed us to link molecular divergence with genetic connectivity in plants and animals. (A) Gene flow stops sooner between plant species than between animal species. (B) Genomic barriers emerge faster in plant genomes than in animals.

Using population genomic approaches, we measured (A) average genomic divergence and (B) the probability that each plant or animal pair corresponds to: (2) two populations of the same species, (3) a complex of semi-isolated species, or (4) two fully isolated species

In this study, we analyzed the demographic histories of 280 plant pairs and 61 animal pairs using genomic data describing both intraspecific polymorphism and interspecific divergence

Hybridization and introgression are major evolutionary processes. Since the 1940s, the prevailing view has been that they shape plants far more than animals. In our new study (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
), we find the opposite: animals exchange genes more, and for longer, than plants

Check out this cool work from @crouxevo.bsky.social and others, congrats!!! 🥳
Rapid establishment of species barriers in plants compared with that in animals | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Why do speciation rates vary across the tree of life?
Some of the best yet most underappreciated places for this investigation are natural hybrid zones.
This preprint takes you to the hybrid zones in the origin of species to find a clue. 👉 shorturl.at/N7FXE
#Speciation #Evolution #hybridization

Such distinct demographic and evolutionary processes in mitochondrial and nuclear genomes have significant consequences for the origin of species boundaries, which we have discussed in a recent review. #speciation #genomics #evolution onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

To account for the independent & interactive effects of mitochondrial & nuclear substitutions on the selection against hybrid DNA, we propose to refine the three speciation rate models into the Endosymbiotic Speciation Rate Models to have Kn and Km explicitly. #speciation #evolution

SINGER, our ARG inference method, is finally published and freely available online:

doi.org/10.1038/s415...

It was a long journey – 16 months from initial submission to acceptance. Is it just me, or has peer review gotten more arduous lately? 4+ rounds of review isn't so unusual these days...

You may have missed this #ant poster at #ESEB2025, but be sure not to miss the article just published in #openacess in @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Genome architecture and speciation in plants and animals. I learned a lot writing this with @dortizba.bsky.social, Silu Wang and Loren Rieseberg! doi.org/10.22541/au....

The consequences of polyploidy are... well, complicated. A deep dive into polyploidy in a massively successful tribe of grasses. A masterpiece led by Michelle Stitzer, representing the work of a lot of folks on the PanAnd project over last 7 years. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

[please share widely!]

We have two PhD positions available at the Swedish Museum of Natural History:

[Position 1] Birds, hybridization, genomes, island biology, biogeography, sexual selection 🦚, w/ me, Knud Jønsson, Martin Iredstedt and @stelkens.bsky.social et al
recruit.visma.com/spa/public/a...

Thanks Nico !

Hello BlueSky!
Who wants to be my friend?
Cheers,
Camille Roux

@couplingdmi.bsky.social