Category Archives: next generation sequencing

Sparrows and spiders and aggression, oh my!

Posted on 11 September, 2020 by Kathleen Grogan

One of the major goals of evolutionary biology is to link phenotypic variation with specific genetic variation, yet for behavioral phenotypes in non-model species, this task remains daunting and generally elusive. Although behaviors are heritable and clearly acted upon by … Continue reading →

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How many samples do you need to investigate relationships between genetic make-up & immune function?

Posted on 24 February, 2020 by Kathleen Grogan

When an organism is exposed to a pathogen, what determines their ability to resist or recover from infection? Mounting an effective immune response is a complex dance with multiple partners, changing tempos, and maybe even a costume change or two: … Continue reading →

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Beetles’ diversity was driven by coevolution with plants — and a little help from some microbial friends

Posted on 21 January, 2020 by Jeremy Yoder
Posted in insects, next generation sequencing, phylogenetics, plants, RNAseq | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Symbiotic organs shaped by distinct modes of genome evolution in cephalopods

Posted on 12 January, 2019 by Laetitia Wilkins

Last week I was whining about gaps in our understanding of evolutionary processes in the ocean. The universe heard me, and today I am satisfied to write about the published genome of Euprymna scolopes – the Hawaiian bobtail squid and … Continue reading →

Posted in Coevolution, evolution, genomics, microbiology, next generation sequencing, Symbiosis | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Earth BioGenome: The launch of biology’s moonshot

Posted on 7 December, 2018 by Alex Twyford

The Earth BioGenome Project aims to sequence all currently described ~1.5 million eukaryotic species on earth (Lewin et al., 2018; Figure 1). The scale and scope are enormous, and it is hard to imagine a more ambitious but exciting goal. … Continue reading →

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Evolution 2018: assortative mating, combinatorial speciation and genome dynamics

Posted on 24 August, 2018 by Alex Twyford

The Evolution conference in Montpellier is over, and as the sun, wine and great science become a memory, here is my recap of some conference highlights following on from a great first day: Sharon Strauss (University of California Davis) gave … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, conferences, evolution, genomics, natural history, next generation sequencing, phylogenetics, population genetics, speciation | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The eyes have it!

Posted on 20 July, 2018 by Kelle Freel

Eyes are pretty darn complicated, which makes them cool models for studying complex trait evolution.  Maybe the first time I realized how interesting eyes are when I saw this by the oatmeal about the amazing-ness of the mantis shrimp (are they your … Continue reading →

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Metabarcoding for every body, every habitat, every time

Posted on 19 July, 2018 by Laetitia Wilkins

The immediate reason why I wanted to write about Boosting DNA metabarcoding for biomonitoring with phylogenetic estimation of operational taxonomic units’ ecological profiles is its usefulness for the scientific community and the effort of the authors to make their study reproducible. … Continue reading →

Posted in bioinformatics, community, community ecology, DNA barcoding, fieldwork, metagenomics, next generation sequencing, phylogenetics, R | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

What is DAS? A new tool to recover genomes from metagenomes

Posted on 8 June, 2018 by Kelle Freel

There are a lot of data out there, and if you haven’t already noticed the ‘omics train has steadily stayed its path through the fruitful (but challenging) world of metagenomics. Metagenomics offers the chance to unravel complex microbial communities without … Continue reading →

Posted in bioinformatics, community ecology, genomics, metagenomics, methods, microbiology, next generation sequencing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Chromosomal inversions and the maintenance of species barriers

Posted on 29 May, 2018 by Alex Twyford

Chromosomal inversions have long fascinated evolutionary biologists for their role in adaptation and speciation. These structural variants are abundant in natural populations and can have diverse evolutionary consequences. They can cause reproductive isolation through hybrid sterility or protect sets of … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, genomics, hybridization, next generation sequencing, speciation | Tagged , | Leave a comment