Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

Joe Manthey @jdmanthey.bsky.social · 1d

Our paper on the temporal genomics of Ethiopian birds
has been highlighted (and gotten the cover) in @genomebiolevol.bsky.social
Article: doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf163
Highlight: doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf175

w/ @bourgeoisyann.bsky.social, @lcampillo.bsky.social, and others not on bsky

Genome Biology and Evolution October 2025 cover image with a photo of an Ethiopian White-eye.

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

Margarita Lopez-Uribe @mmlopezu.bsky.social · 2d

🌼 New paper showing that it's not just pollinators shaping flowers—abiotic factors like humidity and temperature also influence floral form and function. Check out this new paper on a more complex picture of floral evolution. 🌬️🐝
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra @jrossibarra.bsky.social · 1d

Your regular reminder that plant genomes are messy. Good luck getting your shortbread data to recapitulate this:

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

Matthew Hahn @3rdreviewer.bsky.social · 3d

The most important paper in evolutionary biology I'd never heard of:

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www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Gustavo A. Bravo @thamnobravo.bsky.social · 13d

What if NIH had been 40% smaller? | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

What if NIH had been 40% smaller?

Replaying history with less NIH funding shows widespread impacts on drug-linked research

www.science.org

Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

Genome Biology and Evolution @genomebiolevol.bsky.social · 23d

In a new Review article in GBE, @scientific-arlie.bsky.social et al delve into the growing field of phylogenetic genotype to phenotype mapping (PhyloG2P), discussing advances and future directions for using phylogenomic data to map traits to genomes

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf150

#genome #evolution

GBE | From Trees to Traits: A Review of Advances in PhyloG2P Methods and Future Directions

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

iNaturalist @inaturalist.bsky.social · Sep 4

Here, have some birds perched on appropriate/delightful signage. You're welcome. 🧵 ⤵️

1. Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus) by tysmith on iNaturalist

A black vulture sits on a sign that says "black vulture notice."

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

vicensvc @vicensvc.bsky.social · Sep 5

Big news for everyone who makes use of museum collections, VertNet is back online!

www.vertnet.org

VertNet

<div class=

www.vertnet.org

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

Michael Baym @baym.lol · Sep 1

What was antibiotic resistance like before we ever used antibiotics? How did we change what antibiotic resistance genes looked like over 100 years?

Our paper looking at resistance genes from a century of NCTC historical isolates now out in mGen:
www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

Genomic resistance in historical clinical isolates increased in frequency and mobility after the age of antibiotics

Antibiotic resistance is frequently observed shortly after the clinical introduction of an antibiotic. Whether and how frequently that resistance occurred before the introduction is harder to determin...

www.microbiologyresearch.org

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

Evolutionary Studies at Vanderbilt @evolutionvu.bsky.social · Aug 27

Museums aren’t just collections — they’re classrooms. 🦋🏛️
@corriemoreau.bsky.social's #Scopes100 talk shows how exhibits make #evolution accessible & engaging.
https://loom.ly/vFnwcRo

@ncse.bsky.social

Promotional graphic for Corrie Moreau’s Scopes Symposium lecture titled Teaching Evolution through Museum Exhibits. On the left, Moreau is shown speaking at a podium, wearing glasses and a patterned jacket, gesturing with her hands. On the right, text reads “Corrie Moreau – Teaching Evolution through Museum Exhibits.” Logos for Vanderbilt Evolutionary Studies and the National Center for Science Education appear at the bottom, along with a small photo of framed butterfly specimens in a museum display.

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Gustavo A. Bravo @thamnobravo.bsky.social · Aug 25

india.mongabay.com/2025/08/old-...

Old maps and dead birds reveal the story of grassland and bird decline in the Nilgiris

Since the mid-1800s, the Nilgiris have lost 80% of their grasslands, a new study finds by comparing a colonial-era map with satellite images.

india.mongabay.com

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · Aug 22

How sex shapes transcriptome evolution in the songbird brain https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.21.671601v1

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · Aug 22

Determinants of mutation load in birds https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.18.670172v1

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

Daniel Bolnick @danielbolnick.bsky.social · Aug 18

When populations evolve different strategies to defend against a recently acquired parasite (e.g., tolerance, resistance), what sets of gene expression responses are conserved, or diverge? Using a vaccination experiment with #stickleback @laurenfuess.bsky.social reports some fun results...

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · Aug 15

History of divergence and gene flow shaping geographic variation in Andean warblers (Myioborus) https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.12.667688v1

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

Charikleia Karageorgiou (Clio) @evobioclio.bsky.social · Aug 15

Our latest preprint explores the evolution of the primate amylase locus, uncovering structural innovations, regulatory shifts and molecular convergence.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Convergent evolution through independent rearrangements in the primate amylase locus

Structurally complex regions of the genome are increasingly recognized as engines of evolutionary convergence due to their propensity to generate recurrent gene duplications that give rise to similar ...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra @jrossibarra.bsky.social · Aug 15

Music to my ears. This is brilliant. Either 90% of us can claim to be better musicians than Beethoven or… maybe just maybe polygenic scores aren’t perfect?

Simon Fisher @profsimonfisher.bsky.social · Aug 7

If someone you know buys into claims about "genetic optimization" of embryos using polygenic scores of cognition, just send them our 2024 paper on Beethoven & musicality. We wrote it to help communicate limits of individual-level genetic predictions & complexity of links between DNA & behaviour. 🧪👇

Notes from Beethoven’s genome

Wesseldijk et al. compare the genomic information collected from Ludwig van Beethoven with population-based datasets used to quantify musical achievement.

www.cell.com

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Gustavo A. Bravo @thamnobravo.bsky.social · Aug 15

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Prevalence and implications of sex reversal in free-living birds | Biology Letters

The ability to unequivocally identify the sex and reproductive status of individuals is crucial across many fields of study. Recent evidence indicates that avian sex determination is more flexible tha...

royalsocietypublishing.org

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

Aves do Brasil @avesbrasil.bsky.social · Aug 6

🇧🇷Saudade
🌎Lipaugus ater
Conservação:Quase Ameaçada

A saudade é uma ave passeriforme da família Cotingidae, monotípica

📷 Cal Martins

Um pássaro preto com uma faixa amarela brilhante em suas asas está sentado em um galho de árvore. O pássaro está olhando para a direita e seu bico está aberto. O fundo é desfocado, mas parece ser um céu nublado.
Atenção: O alt da imagem foi gerado automaticamente.

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

Santiago Claramunt @sclaramunt.bsky.social · Jul 30

Happy to share our latest paper in which we use a new big phylogeny of birds to analyze the relationships between dispersal, geographic range size and diversification rates across all birds. See also post by
‪@sheardcat.bsky.social‬ and @josephtobias.bsky.social
www.cell.com/current-biol...

A new time tree of birds reveals the interplay between dispersal, geographic range size, and diversification

Flight may affect the dispersal and evolution of birds. Using a new evolutionary tree, Claramunt et al. find that efficient fliers have broader geographic ranges, and speciation reduces range size, bu...

www.cell.com

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

Zack Steel 🪶🦇🌲🔥 @zacksteel.bsky.social · Jul 30

New research from our lab documents important drought impacts on desert bird communities in the SW United States 🌎🐦

25 years of bird data across the Mojave & Sonoran deserts, show drought drives clear declines in bird abundance & species richness.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Increased drought drives avian community declines in the warm deserts of the United States

The frequencies, intensities, and durations of extreme weather are increasing under climate change, furthering biodiversity loss. In the Southwestern …

www.sciencedirect.com

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

Jonathan Pritchard @jkpritch.bsky.social · Jul 28

Does anyone know who first used the term "Manhattan Plot"?

Wikipedia links to a 2010 paper by Greg Gibson. I haven't yet found an earlier use, but Greg's phrasing suggests that he did not invent the term.
doi.org/10.1038/ng07...

Hints of hidden heritability in GWAS - Nature Genetics

Although susceptibility loci identified through genome-wide association studies (GWAS) typically explain only a small proportion of the heritability, a classical quantitative genetic analysis now argu...

doi.org

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

Sara Lipshutz (she/her) @jacanamama.bsky.social · Jul 25

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Global incidence of female birdsong is predicted by territoriality and biparental care in songbirds - Nature Communications

Elaborate traits like birdsong are thought to be sexually selected in males but are poorly understood in females. This study shows that year-round territoriality and biparental care are selected for f...

www.nature.com

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Gustavo A. Bravo @thamnobravo.bsky.social · Jul 25

Success!! We just moved our tissue collection into a brand new cryogenic facility. Top infrastructure to preserve Colombia's genetic resources, one of the most biodiverse countries on Earth #institutohumboldt

Liquid nitrogen tanks in a cryogenic facility

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Bravo

Reid Brennan @reidbrennan.bsky.social · Jul 24

If you're interested in the interaction between genetic and epigenetic changes during rapid adaptation, take a look at our recent paper in @pnas.org ! doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Complementary genetic and epigenetic changes facilitate rapid adaptation to multiple global change stressors | PNAS

To persist under unprecedented rates of global change, populations can adapt or acclimate. However, how these resilience mechanisms interact, parti...

doi.org

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