Category Archives: genomics

Major new microbial groups expand diversity and alter our understanding of the tree of life

Posted on 18 Mar, 2018 by Laetitia Wilkins

I still believe in revolutions. And sometimes they just happen, almost unnoticed. One such revolution happened on a boring 11th of April 2016 when Laura Hug et al. published their new tree of life in the journal of Nature Microbiology. … Continue reading →

Posted in bioinformatics, community ecology, evolution, genomics, metagenomics, microbiology, next generation sequencing, phylogenetics | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Are population genomic scans for locally adapted loci too successful?

Posted on 13 Mar, 2018 by Jeremy Yoder

Last Friday, Molecular Ecology released an interesting new systematic review online ahead of print. Colin Ahrens and coauthors at a number of Australian research institutions compiled results from 66 papers reporting tests for locally adapted loci based on either FST … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, association genetics, evolution, genomics, population genetics, selection | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Genomic signatures of ancient rendezvous and separation in elephant evolution

Posted on 5 Mar, 2018 by Patrícia Chrzanová Pečnerová

Evidence from various levels of the tree of life is showing that we’ve been picturing ancient encounters between related species all wrong and admixture events are probably more common than expected. Even rendezvous among primates, caniforms, and majestic proboscideans often … Continue reading →

Posted in conservation, evolution, genomics, hybridization, natural history, Paleogenomics, phylogeography | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Exploring the genomic diversity of tubeworm endosymbionts

Posted on 1 Feb, 2018 by Kelle Freel

Tubeworms are cool. (To be read only in your best (eleventh) Doctor Who voice). Although, depending on how close they are to a hydrothermal vent, they might be more on the hot side….Regardless, if you’re on the fence about how … Continue reading →

Posted in bioinformatics, Coevolution, community ecology, evolution, genomics, metagenomics, microbiology | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Climate change and genomic vulnerability

Posted on 8 Jan, 2018 by Ethan Linck

As the world burns and we barrel heedlessly into an ever-smaller and uglier future, predicting how species will respond to climate change will be critical for conservation planning. Intuition suggests most organisms will shift their ranges up in latitude or … Continue reading →

Posted in conservation, evolution, genomics | Tagged | 1 Comment

Molecular ecology, the flowchart

Posted on 2 Jan, 2018 by Jeremy Yoder

Update: You can now buy a poster print of the Flowchart, with proceeds going to support The Molecular Ecologist! Towards the end of last semester my department’s evolutionary genetics journal club read Rasmus Nielsen’s terrific 2005 review of tests for … Continue reading →

Posted in association genetics, bioinformatics, genomics, howto, infographic, linkage mapping, next generation sequencing, phylogenetics, phylogeography, population genetics, selection | 2 Comments

Visualize your genome assemblies

Posted on 18 Dec, 2017 by Elin Videvall

Bandage (a Bioinformatics Application for Navigating De novo Assembly Graphs Easily), is a program that creates visualisations of sequence assemblies that you can interact with. When assembling a genome with your favorite assembler, you are usually building graphs, from which … Continue reading →

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Diving deep: Exploring microbial communities under the seafloor

Posted on 7 Dec, 2017 by Kelle Freel

As we all sat staring at three large monitors in the front of the room, the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Jason hung on to a borehole observatory with one hydraulic arm as the other arm plugged our sampling equipment into … Continue reading →

Posted in bioinformatics, community ecology, fieldwork, genomics, metagenomics, microbiology, transcriptomics | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

It's decorative gourd genetics season, muppet-huggers

Posted on 8 Nov, 2017 by Jeremy Yoder

It’s the first week of November, and we’re at Peak Pumpkin. Jack o’lanterns are passé, but Thanksgiving (in the U.S.) and traditional winter-solstice-adjacent holidays will keep pumpkin pie and its infamous espresso-based brethren in style for almost two more months. … Continue reading →

Posted in domestication, genomics, phylogenetics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Star Trek Discovery made a debunked genome sequence into a plot point — but that’s not nearly the worst biology goof in the franchise

Posted on 22 Oct, 2017 by Jeremy Yoder

Anyone who’s been anywhere near my Twitter feed in the last month knows I’m pretty darned happy with Star Trek: Discovery, the latest iteration of the five-decade-old science fiction franchise. Discovery manages to build something new with the key elements … Continue reading →

Posted in bioinformatics, genomics, horizontal gene transfer | Tagged , | 3 Comments