Thomas Hitchcock

A centromere but not just a centromere: structure and evolution of a selfish chromosomal supergene in monkeyflowers www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Evolution and mechanisms of atypical reproductive modes Evolution and mechanisms of atypical reproductive modes Monthly meetings to bring together researchers focusing on atypical reproduction and other non-mendelian transmission systems. The objective is to promote the exchange of ideas and feedback on conceptually similar questions approached with d...

Join our online series on atypical reproductive modes and non-Mendelian inheritance, Tuesdays at 3 p.m. CET. More info & sign-up: https://tinyurl.com/EvoRepro Best, Schwander Group, University of Lausanne. #conference

@kztwyman.bsky.social & @andygardner.bsky.social mathematically connect the dynamics of natural selection to optimisation to provide formal justification for viewing obligately eusocial colonies as adaptive individuals in their own right—that is, superorganism:

doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

Parent-offspring conflict over sex determination in non-Mendelian systems https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.26.690632v1

Photo of Kalyani Twyman.

Two other members of the research group have successfully made it to @eseb2025.bsky.social ahead of me.

Look out for @kztwyman.bsky.social, whose poster "A formal theory of group-level adaptation for obligate eusociality" (P01.068) is in this evening's session.

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 ...

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...

An Extension of Muller's Sheltering Hypothesis for the Evolution of Sex Chromosome Gene Content Abstract. The first influential hypothesis for sex chromosome evolution was proposed in 1914 by H. J. Muller, who argued that once recombination was suppre

Mrnjavac et al. reevaluate arguments against Muller's hypothesis, and find that they do not conclusively exclude a role for sheltering in sex chromosome evolution.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf177

#evobio #molbio

Happy to share our latest article, led by Tee Muirhead, now out in PNAS! We report the evolutionary genomics of the newly discovered neo-sex chromosomes in Myzomela — involving translocation, inversions & degeneration on the neo-W. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Outreach volunteers sought! @imprintedgene.bsky.social and I will host “Breaking Bread: Exploring the Evolution of Amylase in humans” at Festa Major de Gràcia, Barcelona (16 Aug, 19:00). We need 1-2 volunteers (ES/EN) for visitor guidance and on-site translation. Please DM or email me if interested.

Faster adaptation but slower divergence of X chromosomes under paternal genome elimination - Nature Communications X chromosomes evolve faster than autosomes, but confounding factors make this a difficult phenomenon to study. Utilising the unusual sex determination system of Sciaridae flies, this study finds a slo...

New paper: "Faster adaptation but slower divergence of X chromosomes under paternal genome elimination" (Open Access)

w/ Robert Baird, @imprintedgene.bsky.social‬, Jan Ševčík, Katy Monteith, @laurarossevo.bsky.social‬ & @ajmongue.bsky.social‬

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

‪@natcomms.nature.com‬

Talks by:

@tatianagiraud.bsky.social‬
Bo Xu
@vincentcastric.bsky.social
@wenjuanma84.bsky.social‬
Sha Sun
Pengfei Wu
Robert Baird
Jing Liu
@imprintedgene.bsky.social‬
Deborah Charlesworth

Abstracts for @eseb2025.bsky.social due next week! Milk, ejaculates, skin secretions, regurgitate, microbes ...our symposium will have it all, with invited speakers @berasymbionts.bsky.social and @jennyperry.bsky.social ...and you?
Organised w/ @joriskoene.bsky.social and @wolfnerlab.bsky.social

Now available for preorder!

The Paradox of the Organism:
Adaptation and Internal Conflict, edited by me and Manus Patten, will be published by @harvardpress.bsky.social this fall.

Cover coming soon.

The man who sent Japan's cherry blossoms out to the world Masatoshi Asari's trees — symbols of peace and reconciliation — blossom in the U.K., U.S., Poland and China.

The man who sent Japan's cherry blossoms out to the world: "If my cherries can help spread some happiness and avoid war, then it’s all worthwhile, and I can sleep soundly."

Registration is open for the Internal Conflicts STN Workshop at ESEB 2025 on August 17 in Barcelona. Free registration includes lunch. More info: https://internalconflictsstn.wordpress.com/workshop-ii/ #workshop

Ever wondered why you too should publish in @jevbio.bsky.social? Wonder no more, we have the answers for you (in case you didn’t know already):

Cephalopod sex determination and its ancient evolutionary origin Octopuses, squids, and cuttlefishes—the coleoid cephalopods—are a remarkable branch in the tree of life whose members exhibit a repertoire of sophisti…

Octo-squid-nautiloid sex chromosomes!

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

The joint evolution of separate sexes and sexual dimorphism Abstract. Dioecious plants are frequently sexually dimorphic. Such dimorphism, which reflects responses to selection acting in opposite directions for male

1/7 Very happy to share our latest paper on the joint evolution of separate sexes and sexual dimorphism in @jevbio.bsky.social, led by @thomaslesaffre.bsky.social and in collaboration with John Pannell at @dee-unil.bsky.social

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/jeb/voae136

Society for the Study of Evolution Site description

Undergraduate Diversity at Evolution provides full support— registration, travel, lodging, meals— and mentoring for students to attend the Evolution 2025 meeting in Athens, Georgia this summer! Applications are due Monday, submit yours here:

New paper: "Kin competition drives the evolution of earlier metamorphosis", with @bingdongevo.bsky.social.

doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

John Werren (University of Rochester): Cooperating on Conflict: Selfish Genetic Elements, Heritable Microbes, and Genetic Conflicts. Bengt Olle Bengtsson (Lund University): Decades of conflicts: A personal history.

*Internal Conflicts and Organismal Adaptation*

Join us on Thursday, 9am Eastern, for a history special in our STN lecture series!

Jack Werren and Bengt Olle Bengtsson will reflect on their many years of working on genetic conflicts.

Graphical abstract of the methods and main results of the publication. It includes a photograph of a group of several humpback whales competing to be closest to the female of the group.

New paper on "Patterns of paternity: insights into mating competition and gene flow in a recovering population of humpback whales." 🐋🧬
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

@emma-carroll.bsky.social @lrendell.bsky.social @ellengarland.bsky.social @seamammalresearch.bsky.social 1/8

Tie that binds - Hill-Robertson Interference can produce signals of sexual antagonism even in the absence of sexually antagonistic selection https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01.08.632022v1

Selective advantage of redirected helping in a viscous population Abstract. When a brood fails, the failed parent can help a neighbor rear its offspring. This behavior is known as redirected helping and occurs in various

My second paper, written with @geoffwild.bsky.social, has been published in @journal-evo.bsky.social
! Title: Selective advantage of redirected helping in a viscous population: doi.org/10.1093/evol....

🚨JOB 🚨Would a title "Professor of Life History Evolution" suit you? If yes... Become a colleague of us here in Mainz! I am happy to provide more information if this intrigues you.
cms.zdv.uni-mainz.de/karriere/wp-...

Temporal Dynamics of Faster Neo-Z Evolution in Butterflies https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.19.572367v1 The faster-Z/X hypothesis predicts that sex-linked genes should diverge faster than autosomal genes.

Temporal Dynamics of Faster Neo-Z Evolution in Butterflies https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.19.572367v1

One-week international workshop on evolution June 22-29 in the Swiss Alps for Master's & early PhD students. Application due 28 January 2024.

I've co-taught the course several times (but not this time), and it's a terrific format and beautiful location.

www.evolution.unibas.ch/teaching/gua...

Do deleterious mutations promote the evolution of recombination suppression between X and Y chromoso... bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution

Do deleterious mutations promote the evolution of recombination suppression between X and Y chromosomes? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Our new paper on sexual antagonism in sequential hermaphrodites has now been published! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....