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Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · 2d

Mad

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Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · 6d

Yup

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Reposted by Kevin Bennett

Arc Institute @arcinstitute.org · 13d

For decades, human genome editing has been limited to small, localized modifications.

Today, in a new paper published in @science.org , researchers from Arc's Hsu lab show that bridge recombinase technology is capable of large-scale genomic rearrangements in human cells.

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Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · 18d

Spring in Washington, Louis Halle

Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · 27d

Great contribution to the field! I wonder though for those of us studying vertebrates if we should still expect this to hold? Most of your animal species were invertebrates, right?

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Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · Sep 4

Question: why do birds in the east appear to be going north?

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Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · Sep 3

I feel like a lot of organizations decided it was more convenient to just not go back to doing things in person after the pandemic. The police dept. in my town was still claiming COVID restrictions as a reason for not inspecting my infant car seat in 2022!

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Reposted by Kevin Bennett

Andre Moncrieff @andremoncrieff.bsky.social · Aug 25

🐦🔬 Recruiting PhD students! 🌎🧬
I’m looking for 1–2 PhD students to join our team starting Fall 2026 at the Sam Noble Museum & University of Oklahoma.

Our research: 🐦 birds • 🌍 biogeography • 🌴 Neotropics • 🧬 population genomics • 🌱 speciation

👉 Learn more: www.moncriefflab.org

Please share!

Moncrieff Lab | Bird Evolution

The Moncrieff Lab is a research lab based at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History on the campus of the University of Oklahoma. Research in the lab involves museum specimens, fieldwork, and...

www.moncriefflab.org

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Reposted by Kevin Bennett

Nick Mason @nick-mason.bsky.social · Aug 21

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good review / synthesis of the evolution of DNA sequencing technologies over the last 40-50 years? Looking for something to read as a lab group with folks who are newer to the field. TIA

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Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · Aug 21

Looks like it has some Ardea genetics. Tricolored-GREG?

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Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · Aug 16

Saw this and thought to myself "Oh no we got scooped!" Nope. This is the preprint of our manuscript. Fun collab with Laura Céspedes Arias.

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · Aug 16

Diversification and divergence in Myioborus warblers: insights into evolutionary relationships and plumage genetics https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.12.669906v1

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Reposted by Kevin Bennett

David Toews @davetoews.bsky.social · Aug 11

#AOS2025 don't miss @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social's talk at 11:15am on Wednesday in the Genomics 2 session (Ballroom C). We're cooking up some cool stuff with @mbtoomey.bsky.social on warbler carotenoid processing enzymes! 🦉🧪

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Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · Aug 7

Al, you got et al.-ed! But seriously, nice work!

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Reposted by Kevin Bennett

Matthew Hahn @3rdreviewer.bsky.social · Aug 6

This looks like an amazing tool
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Phyling: phylogenetic inference from annotated genomes

Phyling is a fast, scalable, and user-friendly tool supporting phylogenomic reconstruction of species phylogenies directly from protein-encoded genomic data. It identifies orthologous genes by searchi...

www.biorxiv.org

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Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · Aug 4

I'll be there

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Reposted by Kevin Bennett

Rafael Marcondes @rafamarcondes.bsky.social · Jul 21

Yes our learning management system is ClassWorks, but to manage your roster you have to go to Socrates. But students register through Einstein+. And to enter grades you have to go to Gradify. Except if the student is graduating, then you have to use Gradly. Oh and classrooms are managed through Bluo

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Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · Jul 9

Not every bird lives up to both its common and scientific names.

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Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · Jul 8

#evobio #popgen 🧪

Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · Jul 8

Thanks Jess!

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Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · Jul 8

So what does this mean for plumage introgression? It could mean that we’ve caught this situation as gene flow is temporarily slowed at the river before it continues. Or it could point to geographic variation in female preference or some other unusual scenario. Either would be pretty interesting.

A photo from the bank of the Changuinola River in a hilly area, rainforest on both sides.

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Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · Jul 8

Finally, we ran demographic models to estimate gene flow and found a similar result. Higher gene flow upriver than downriver. But in both areas, there is plenty of gene flow across the river.

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Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · Jul 8

Second, population structure showed a river effect, but only in the lower reaches of the Changuinola where it is widest. Upriver, there was hardly any population structure. This general pattern mirrors findings from some of the world’s largest rivers, but on a much smaller scale.

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Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · Jul 8

What did we find? First, across all sites there was an isolation-by-distance effect, but opposite-bank populations were significantly more divergent than expected given their distance.

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Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · Jul 8

We used RADseq data from ~200 birds along the river to look at population structure and gene flow, testing the hypothesis that the river is a strong barrier, thus preventing introgression.

Pie charts on the map show mostly yellow males east of the river and mostly white males west of the river.

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Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · Jul 8

I posted a thread on the genetic basis of the trait last year (see below). Now we wanted to look at a longstanding mystery: if it is selected for, why has it not crossed the river? Color forms are almost completely restricted to opposite riverbanks. bsky.app/profile/kevi...

Kevin Bennett @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · Nov 20

Published today, plumage color genomics! We trace the evolutionary history of a trait under sexual selection in a genus of dancing manakins. Co-led with H.C. Lim. #evobio #birds 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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