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Reposted by Margherita Colucci

marilou boddé @mariloumercedes.bsky.social · 20d

Our paper Genomic diversity of the African malaria vector Anopheles funestus was published in Science today! It features inversions, selection in action, museum specimens and putative new ecotypes. doi.org/10.1126/scie...

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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · Sep 8

News in the history of molecular biology. The Science History Institute in Philadelphia has acquired a huge archive of correspondence and other scientific material from the pioneers of molecular biology (Franklin, Klug, Perutz, Delbrück etc, with items from Crick and Watson, too). 1/n

History of Molecular Biology Collection

This unparalleled collection includes Rosalind Franklin's historic 'Photo 51,' which revealed the double-helix structure of DNA.

www.sciencehistory.org

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Lucy Timbrell @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social · Aug 27

Today! Don’t miss it 😊

Lucy Timbrell @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social · Aug 25

Join us on Wednesday for our final webinar of series by @jcsvenning.bsky.social on:

“Deep-time, large-scale perspectives on biodiversity and ecosystems: implications for biosphere stewardship in the Anthropocene.”

More information and link to register here: www.gea.mpg.de/168423/deep-...

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Margherita Colucci @margheritac17.bsky.social · Aug 22

Thank you @prelights.bsky.social & Alejandra Leffer's group for choosing our preprint on @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social and for this chance to talk about human- #malaria coevolution!🦟
@eegcam.bsky.social @elliescerri.bsky.social @MPI_GEA

preLights @prelights.bsky.social · Aug 20

The distribution of early human settlements in Sub-Saharan Africa might have been influenced by avoidance of mosquitoes that spread malaria

A new #prelight of Alejandra Leffer's group talks about the preprint by @margheritac17.bsky.social , and the team.

Malaria shaped human spatial organisation for the last 74 thousand years - preLights

The distribution of early human settlements in Sub-Saharan Africa might have been influenced by avoidance of mosquitoes that spread malaria

prelights.biologists.com

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Lucy Timbrell @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social · Jul 10

Very pleased to see our paper published online at Climate of the Past: cp.copernicus.org/articles/21/...

We present model-data comparisons of Late Quaternary climate across the Northern Hemisphere, showing that increasing model resolution has little net effect on coherence with pollen proxies 😊

More is not always better: delta-downscaling climate model outputs from 30 to 5 min resolution has minimal impact on coherence with Late Quaternary proxies

Abstract. Both proxies and models provide key resources to explore how palaeoenvironmental changes may have impacted diverse biotic communities and cultural processes. While proxies are thought to pro...

cp.copernicus.org

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Evolutionary Ecology Group, Cambridge @eegcam.bsky.social · Jul 10

New paper in collaboration with @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social and @jblinkhorn.bsky.social, with several of us involved (@mikleonardi.bsky.social @margheritac17.bsky.social @andreavpozzi.bsky.social) shows that downscaling palaeoclimate models doesn't necessarily improve coherence with proxy data.

Lucy Timbrell @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social · Jul 10

Very pleased to see our paper published online at Climate of the Past: cp.copernicus.org/articles/21/...

We present model-data comparisons of Late Quaternary climate across the Northern Hemisphere, showing that increasing model resolution has little net effect on coherence with pollen proxies 😊

More is not always better: delta-downscaling climate model outputs from 30 to 5 min resolution has minimal impact on coherence with Late Quaternary proxies

Abstract. Both proxies and models provide key resources to explore how palaeoenvironmental changes may have impacted diverse biotic communities and cultural processes. While proxies are thought to pro...

cp.copernicus.org

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Evolutionary Ecology Group, Cambridge @eegcam.bsky.social · Jun 23

Last week, Andrea sat down with Dr Chris Smith of Naked Scientists to talk about our paper on the expansion of the human niche 70k year ago: www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/int...

Humanity's road to dominance began earlier than expected

Getting sapient about sapiens...

www.thenakedscientists.com

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Evolutionary Ecology Group, Cambridge @eegcam.bsky.social · Jun 20

We are excited to announce that tidypopgen – a new package for rapid population genetic workflows in R – is now available at evolecolgroup.github.io/tidypopgen/ 🧬💻 Read more in the preprint describing its features here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #popgen #Rpackage #genetics 1/2

Tidy Population Genetics

We provide a tidy grammar of population genetics, facilitating the manipulation and analysis of data on biallelic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). `tidypopgen` scales to very large genetic data...

evolecolgroup.github.io

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Evolutionary Ecology Group, Cambridge @eegcam.bsky.social · Jun 18

#newpaper now out in @nature.com!
A huge expansion of the human niche in Africa ~70 kya likely equipped later #outofAfrica dispersals with a unique ecological flexibility.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
led by Emily Hallett, @mikleonardi.bsky.social, Andrea Manica, @elliescerri.bsky.social 1/4

Major expansion in the human niche preceded out of Africa dispersal - Nature

Analysis of species distribution models in a pan-African database comprising chronometrically dated archaeological sites over the past 120,000 years shows major expansion in the human niche from 70 ka...

www.nature.com

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University of Cambridge @cam.ac.uk · Jun 18

Around 70,000 years ago, our ancestors in Africa began exploiting different habitats.

Flexibility to survive in deserts to rainforests enabled their successful spread ‘Out of Africa’.

Find out more about the study co-led by Andrea Manica @eegcam.bsky.social 👇
bit.ly/4e6i9H7

An elephant standing beneath large trees with text overlay that reads: 'How did humans become the most adaptable species on Earth?'

Photo credit: Ondrej Pelanek and Martin Pelanek

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Michela Leonardi @mikleonardi.bsky.social · Jun 18

after 6 years, finally out in @nature.com!
‪Huge expansion of the human #niche in Africa ~70kya likely equipped later #outofAfrica dispersals with unique ecological flexibility

co-led with Emily Hallett @eegcam.bsky.social & @elliescerri.bsky.social
#prehistory #humanevolution #paleoecology #SDM

Major expansion in the human niche preceded out of Africa dispersal - Nature

Analysis of species distribution models in a pan-African database comprising chronometrically dated archaeological sites over the past 120,000 years shows major expansion in the human niche from 70 ka...

www.nature.com

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Eleanor Scerri @elliescerri.bsky.social · Jun 18

1/5 Why do all non-Africans descended from a group that left Africa 50k ago? In @nature.com we model 120k years of human niche dynamics. From 70ka, a big expansion of the human niche in Africa likely equipped later OOA dispersals with a unique ecological flexibilty.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Major expansion in the human niche preceded out of Africa dispersal - Nature

Analysis of species distribution models in a pan-African database comprising chronometrically dated archaeological sites over the past 120,000 years shows major expansion in the human niche from 70 ka...

www.nature.com

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Eleanor Scerri @elliescerri.bsky.social · Jun 18

Gift article about our work that also mentions our recently published paper in @nature.com on rainforests as well! Thank you @carlzimmer.com!

Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · Jun 18

About 70,000 years ago, a new study suggests, our species learned to live just about anywhere. Later, that ability helped our ancestors expand from Africa across the world. Here’s my story on the human niche [Gift link] nyti.ms/3ZBc7ID

When Humans Learned to Live Everywhere

About 70,000 years ago in Africa, humans expanded into more extreme environments, a new study finds, setting the stage for our global migration.

nyti.ms

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Anahit Hovhannisyan @anahit19.bsky.social · Jun 18

Massive congrats to the team on this amazing paper!
So happy for everyone involved!!👏

Evolutionary Ecology Group, Cambridge @eegcam.bsky.social · Jun 18

#newpaper now out in @nature.com!
A huge expansion of the human niche in Africa ~70 kya likely equipped later #outofAfrica dispersals with a unique ecological flexibility.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
led by Emily Hallett, @mikleonardi.bsky.social, Andrea Manica, @elliescerri.bsky.social 1/4

Major expansion in the human niche preceded out of Africa dispersal - Nature

Analysis of species distribution models in a pan-African database comprising chronometrically dated archaeological sites over the past 120,000 years shows major expansion in the human niche from 70 ka...

www.nature.com

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Dr Huw Groucutt @huwgroucutt.bsky.social · Jun 18

"When Humans Learned to Live Everywhere" www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/s...

When Humans Learned to Live Everywhere

www.nytimes.com

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Margherita Colucci @margheritac17.bsky.social · Jun 9

#HumanEvolution #Malaria #coevolution #pastdiseases #tidysdm 🦟

This is the result of incredible collaborations and hard work, thank you to all the people involved!

Margherita Colucci @margheritac17.bsky.social · Jun 9

🚨 NEW preprint🚨 Our latest study @HPS MPI-GEA @elliescerri.bsky.social & @eegcam.bsky.social models #malaria risk over the past 74,000 years revealing its powerful role in shaping human habitat choice and dispersal since the late Pleistocene in sub-Saharan Africa 🦟🌍 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Malaria shaped human spatial organisation for the last 74 thousand years

The mechanisms driving the spatial organisation of early human societies in Africa are typically addressed through climate variables [1][1]-[3][2]. However, genetic and archaeological studies have als...

www.biorxiv.org

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Pooja Swali @poojaswali.bsky.social · May 22

Excited to announce our paper on ancient Borrelia genomes is finally out! 🦠💀We document the evolutionary history of louse-borne relapsing fever, published today in @science.org‬ with @lucyvandorp.bsky.social and @pontus-skoglund.bsky.social #aDNA 🏺🧪🧬
Main findings and paper below: 🧵⬇️

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Lucy van Dorp @lucyvandorp.bsky.social · May 23

Our @ucl.ac.uk @crick.ac.uk work, out this week in @science.org, traces a genetic time series of bacterial infections to reveal when and how Borrelia recurrentis jumped from ticks to humans—via our body lice.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Ancient Borrelia genomes document the evolutionary history of louse-borne relapsing fever

Several bacterial pathogens have transitioned from tick-borne to louse-borne transmission, which often involves genome reduction and increasing virulence. However, the timing of such transitions remai...

www.science.org

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Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias @ceciliapad.bsky.social · May 23

🚨NEW PAPER from the @eegcam.bsky.social!🚨I have never been as proud of something as of the work that finally we can share today: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... - we show how a climatically driven Pan African meta population model explains our species genetic and morphological diversity 🧬💀

Pan-African metapopulation model explains Homo sapiens genetic and morphological evolution

Emerging evidence has challenged the traditional view of a single-region origin for Homo sapiens, suggesting instead that our species arose and diversified across multiple geographically distinct popu...

www.biorxiv.org

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Michela Leonardi @mikleonardi.bsky.social · Apr 11

Here is the latest news from @eegcam.bsky.social...

Among other VIPs (=very important publications), it includes our recent paper on Luca Cavalli-Sforza's legacy on #humanevolution 💀🧬

With @margheritac17.bsky.social Jason Hogdson, @chrisbstringer.bsky.social and @elliescerri.bsky.social

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Evolutionary Ecology Group, Cambridge @eegcam.bsky.social · Apr 10

🧬💀 News from our lab: "New light on human evolution: recent papers and a podcast"💀🧬

www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/news/new-lig...

New light on human evolution: recent papers and a podcast from our Evolutionary Ecology Group | Department of Zoology

The Evolutionary Ecology Group here in Zoology, studies how animals (including our own species) respond and adapt to changing environments.

www.zoo.cam.ac.uk

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Dr Huw Groucutt @huwgroucutt.bsky.social · Apr 9

(1/17) We are thrilled to see our new paper ‘Hunter-gatherer sea voyages extended to remotest Mediterranean islands’ published in Nature. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

www.nature.com

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Eleanor Scerri @elliescerri.bsky.social · Apr 9

A blog post from me about our discovery pushing back Maltese prehistory to the Mesolithic, and discovering that hunter-gatherers were making epic 100 km sea journeys!
communities.springernature.com/posts/discov...

Discovering Europe's Last Hunter-Gatherers

A chance discovery led to evidence of a vanished people - and the epic sea voyages they were never supposed to have undertaken.

communities.springernature.com

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Lucy Timbrell @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social · Apr 8

Join the Human Palaeosystems Group tomorrow (9th April 2pm CET) for a seminar by Dr Will Gosling on “Drivers of vegetation change in tropical Africa”

www.gea.mpg.de/129765/drive...

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