Nikunj Goel (@nikunj410)

Summer School on Stochastic Population Dynamics led by Alex Hening. A great opportunity for anyone interested in learning about stochastic methods and their applications to population dynamics.

stochasticsummerschool.com

www.mathprograms.org/db/programs/...

Please repost.

11.03.2026 20:58 👍 9 🔁 12 💬 0 📌 0

Bluesky Map Interactive map of 3.4 million Bluesky users, visualised by their follower pattern.

I made a map of 3.4 million Bluesky users - see if you can find yourself!

bluesky-map.theo.io

I've seen some similar projects, but IMO this seems to better capture some of the fine-grained detail

08.02.2026 22:59 👍 7209 🔁 2164 💬 658 📌 4577

The method is highly parallelizable. We analyzed ~3.7 million loci of North American rosy-finches in under 16 hours.

Reach out if you have feedback and think this method might be helpful for your questions.

PS: The method also works for genotype calls and pool-seq data. Code is available on Zenodo

21.01.2026 22:51 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Second, we present a new model of evolution that accounts for structured migration when modeling a clinal relationship between allele frequency and climatic covariates. This helps us remove distortions in the response curve caused by the migration-selection balance, thereby reducing false negatives

21.01.2026 22:51 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

First, we present a new data model that enables probabilistic estimation of genetic variation from low-coverage whole-genome sequencing data. This helps avoid biases caused by false genotype calls and allows us to use the full datasets, providing broader genomic coverage.

21.01.2026 22:51 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Identifying adaptive variation in spatially structured populations using low-coverage whole-genome sequencing data Successful implementation of evolutionary management programs to rescue climatically threatened species requires identification of adaptive genetic variation. Although current genotype-environment association methods have been successful in identifying adaptive variation, they can be improved in two important aspects. First, most existing methods do not account for genotype uncertainty in widely available low-coverage whole-genome sequencing data. Researchers often restrict analysis to loci for which genotypes can be inferred reliably or call the most probable genotype, allowing the use of traditional genotype-based methods, such as BayeScEnv and Bayenv. However, discarding data and false genotype calls increases the uncertainty in estimates of genetic variation and introduces systematic biases. Second, most methods use phenomenological approaches, such as logistic regression, to partition estimated genetic variation into adaptive and non-adaptive components. Consequently, current approaches may inadvertently fail to account for evolutionary processes, such as migration-selection balance. Structured migration between climatically disparate locations can produce deviations from a smooth S-shape response curve, which can be difficult to accommodate using generalized linear regression models. To overcome these challenges, we developed a method that accounts for genotype uncertainty in sequencing data and propagates this uncertainty to inform the parameters of a model of evolution. A key feature of this evolutionary model is that it mechanistically describes how genetic variation arises from joint interactions between local adaptation, structured migration, mutation, and drift. We apply our approach to analyze multiple synthetic datasets and a real dataset of North American rosy-finches (3.7 million SNPs), a high-alpine, climatically threatened clade of bird species. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. U.S. National Science Foundation, 2222525, 1927177, 2222524, 2222526 U.S. National Science Foundation, 2138259, 2138286, 2138307, 2137603, 2138296

We present a new Bayesian methods paper to identify adaptive genetic variation in structured populations (tinyurl.com/2fxfe7pj)
This is a follow-up of our previous MME 2025 paper (tinyurl.com/2su788t7).

The paper adds two novel features to existing GEA methods

21.01.2026 22:51 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Ecology, Evolution and Behavior The Ecology, Evolution and Behavior graduate program at The University of Texas at Austin is top-10 ranked.

Like math and plant community ecology?

I am recruiting one or two new Ph.D. students to work on theory and its integration with data in the areas of forest dynamics, species coexistence, or plant community ecology more generally.

Deadlines for the EEB and Plant Biology programs are Dec. 1.

17.11.2025 20:37 👍 28 🔁 33 💬 1 📌 0

Identifying genomic adaptation to local climate using a mechanistic evolutionary model Identifying genomic adaptation is key to understanding species' evolutionary responses to environmental changes. However, current methods to identify adaptive variation have two major limitations....

My first methods paper from postdoc—How to identify genomic adaptation to climate using a mechanistic model of evolution. @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

26.08.2025 22:15 👍 25 🔁 9 💬 0 📌 0

A mechanistic statistical approach to infer invasion characteristics of human‐dispersed species with complex life cycle The rising introduction of invasive species through trade networks threatens biodiversity and ecosystem services. Yet, we have a limited understanding of how transportation networks determine spatiot...

First post
I am happy to share our new paper on theoretical and statistical models for understanding the spread of human-mediated invasive species. @esajournals.bsky.social

esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

09.04.2025 04:40 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 1

Nikunj Goel

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