Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Journal of Molecular Evolution

Aurora Ruiz-Herrera @aruizherrera.bsky.social · Sep 3

🚨 We are hiring!
🧬 PhD Position – Genomic Architecture & Evolution
Join our team at UAB (Barcelona) in an international project
🔬 4-year FPI contract
🎓 Biology/Genetics background + Master’s + English
📅 Apply by Sept 30, 2025
📧 [email protected]
🔗 grupsderecerca.uab.cat/evolgenom

1 11 11

Reposted by Journal of Molecular Evolution

EvodevogenomeUB- Cañestro’s lab @evodevogenomeub.bsky.social · Aug 26

Thanks @jmolev.bsky.social !! For more on our science, please follow us here at @evodevogenomeub.bsky.social

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 22

@criscanestro.bsky.social gives a lovely, thoughtful talk on this theme, on a tunicate species with very a scrambled genome; then reflects on what the patterns of scrambling can tell us about the underlying regulatory architecture. #eseb2025

1

Reposted by Journal of Molecular Evolution

Bornberglab @bornberglab.bsky.social · Aug 25

Erich and Marie travelled to Barcelona for #ESEB2025. Erich gave two talks: one exploring de novo and random proteins, and another discussing gene family losses in slave-maker ants. Marie presented her work on neORF emergence in Drosophila at Symposium 29, organised by @gevol.bsky.social. 🧬🪰🐜

3 3

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 25

Then came his scientific talk on evidence for different models of structural and functional divergence of paralogs following duplication, using salmon, whose extra whole genome duplication makes them a great choice of model system.

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 25

Our EIC David Liberles kicks off the meeting with a reminder of our journal's storied history - some of the many seminal papers published here. #JME2025
My personal favorite: Felsenstein 1981: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

1

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 25

Overview and program can be found here: www.mncn.csic.es/en/investiga... #JME2025

Journal of Molecular Evolution: A European Meeting | Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales

www.mncn.csic.es

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 25

Part two of our Spanish tour begins today, with the kickoff of our 2025 European meeting in Madrid! Follow here for coverage. #JME2025

1 1

Reposted by Journal of Molecular Evolution

Flo Débarre @flodebarre.bsky.social · Aug 22

Final words of the last #ESEB2025 plenary by @jmappes.bsky.social:
"Science moves forward when we keep both our curiosity and our humility"

Photo of the final slide of J Mappes's plenary at ESEB
Text on the slide:
Take-home
Natural history matters
Ecological reality is complex
Fresh ideas matter
Be ready to reject your favourite hypothesis
Science moves forward when we keep both our curiosity and our humility

1 14 52

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 22

@criscanestro.bsky.social gives a lovely, thoughtful talk on this theme, on a tunicate species with very a scrambled genome; then reflects on what the patterns of scrambling can tell us about the underlying regulatory architecture. #eseb2025

2 3

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 22

They also made new centromeres out of their local TEs. Genomes totally blown apart and stitched back together. Amazing.

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 22

Great to see @vargaschavezc.bsky.social give a talk on this in person. Stunning findings on the origin of non-marine annelids, whose genomes are utterly scrambled: a statistically random distribution of ancestral linkage groups around the genome. #eseb2025

Rosa Fernández @rosafernandez.bsky.social · Jun 18

Glad to see this paper finally out! An episodic burst of massive genomic rearrangements and the origin of non-marine annelids
@natecoevo.nature.com @ibe-barcelona.bsky.social @csic.es @erc.europa.eu www.nature.com/articles/s41...

An episodic burst of massive genomic rearrangements and the origin of non-marine annelids - Nature Ecology & Evolution

An analysis of annelid genomes reveals massive reshuffling of chromosomes in the ancestral lineage leading to clitellates, a clade composed of non-marine annelids, with potential implications for the ...

www.nature.com

1 6

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 22

Common theme this year is structural genome rearrangements coinciding with ecological or lifestyle changes.
@NGuiglielmoni
contributes high rates of rearrangements in cryptobiotic nematodes, in extreme environments, compared to close non-crytobiotic outgroups. #eseb2025

1 1 1

Reposted by Journal of Molecular Evolution

katja heuer @k4tj4.bsky.social · Aug 21

Great symposium on Craniofacial Evolution in Vertebrates at #ESEB2025 kicked off with fantastic talk by ‪@grumpydrfabre.bsky.social on the metamorphic blueprint,how life cycle type shapes salamander skulls. Is there an advantage of complex life cycle to create novel morphologies?
@r3rt0.bsky.social

1 2 9

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 21

The wild part: they find a facultative endosymbiont in aphids that protects against parasitoid wasps - but only because the bug itself has a phage that contributes the eukaryotic toxin. There's a bump in the log, and on the bump there's a frog, and....

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 21

Mind-boggling talk from Lee Henry on facultative endosymbiosis. Pitches as essentially a form of HGT - a source of adaptives genes that populations can pass around to deal as needed w/ common environmental challenges. Just another organism instead of only DNA. #ESEB2025

1 1

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 21

Must either be specifically transferred or specifically preserved while the rest of the genome is eliminated. Several histones/histone modifiers on the chromosome; hypothesizes that these are to mark it for special treatment. Cool!

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 21

#eseb2025 Hanne Griem-Krey finds accessory chromosome (AC) in a fungal insect pathogen that increases infectivity and can be horizontally transferred to other strains - solo, without the rest of the genome.

1

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 21

#ESEB2025 Several talks on mysterious germline-restricted chromosomes, which are eliminated from somatic tissue during development. In fungus gnats, @chodson.bsky.social finds that they look like they're derived from a hybridization event.

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 21

It seems to be targeting a neural "scramblase," which regulates lipid movement in cell membranes. Can't wait for the neural mechanism here.

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 21

A secreted peptide makes sense here, and they use omics to find a candidate, express it, and give it to the ants; it causes one component of the infected behavior, social self-isolation.

1

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 21

You may have heard of these fungi, but I didn't know that they're just a drop in the bucket. The phenomenon of small things controlling the brains of big things to their own benefit is literally a whole ecological niche.

1 1

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 21

#ESEB2025 Exquisite talk on the mechanisms used by fungi that parasitize ants into 'zombies,' controlling their behavior to make them move to a location optimal for spore dispersal, from Charissa de Bekker.

1 1

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 20

and b) in the back of my mind was sort of your paper with Nikos where you land on polyA/T tracts as the main source of bias toward yeast intergenic TMs - seems like a similar type of sequence idiosyncrasy could drive this? You're the expert.

1 1

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 20

I don't think I have much to suggest other than to ask a) if you look at a bunch of each set of sequences by eye, does anything jump out?

1

Journal of Molecular Evolution @jmolev.bsky.social · Aug 20

And fun facts kept coming in Q&A: elephants apparently have internal testes, and so did these mammoths, based on a female morphological ID for a sample but a clearly male genotype!
So cool.