Kjetill S Jakobsen

Pangenomes as a framework for adaptive radiation, speciation, and adaptation Understanding the genomic basis of diversification is a central goal in evolutionary biology. In recent years, the development and use of pangenomes, a genomic representation of multiple individuals ...

Due to complex evolutionary histories, hybridisations and polyploidizations - just to name some - pan genomes are crucial to plant research. American Journal of Botany bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Huge congratulations to everyone who made this milestone possible! 🎉🦋 Field teams out exploring 🥾🌿 and lab teams powering the sequencing 🧬 — every single contribution mattered. 🙌✨

Fig. 1.Overview of gene annotation. Genomes contain several different kinds of coding and non-coding genes, some of which encode functional proteins while others yield functional RNAs. Historically, experimental and computational efforts to annotate genes have frequently overlooked the protein-coding potential of genes with short open reading frames (sORFs), leading to their misclassification as non-coding despite producing a functional sORF-encoded peptide (SEP). Functional genomic, genetic, and biochemical data now support the inclusion of this additional class of SEP genes.

🧬 SPECIAL ISSUE REVIEW 🧬

Kearly & Nelson discuss historical and modern approaches and their limitations for identifying and characterizing plant short open reading frame-encoded peptides, and how improved techniques are rapidly changing the field 🌱

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...

#PlantScience 🧪

NATURE/NORWAY1.GIF

GBE | Large Inversion Polymorphisms are Widespread in North American Songbirds The Yellow-bellied Flycatcher (Empidonax flaviventris) is a North American migratory bird species whose nondescript exterior conceals dramatic genomic polymorphisms, including the putative inversion highlighted on the upper left in elevated orange points. Population genomic data from across the species’ breeding range revealed that this large 57-Mb region produces PCA plots with a distinctive 3-cluster pattern (upper right), not present in other parts of the chromosome (lower left). The middle cluster in the 3-cluster PCA corresponds to individuals heterozygous for the polymorphism, while the other two clusters represent the two classes of homozygotes. Pegan & Winger (2025) used whole genome data to find that evidence for large inversion polymorphisms is common even in species that lack known external phenotypic variation, which is frequently associated with inversions in studies on avian genomics. The depicted polymorphism is one of 170 identified across 28 species. Photo: Georg Langebrake.

Pegan & Winger tested whether inversions are common within populations without phenotypic polymorphisms in 28 N. American bird species, finding that many polymorphisms are present at balanced frequencies, but possibly segregating neutrally.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf205

#genome #evolution #birds

Team fish - we need your help! We are trying to build a database of all the fish chromosome-scale genomes where sex chromosomes have been identified. Have you build one or some? Do you know someone who has? Can you post the link in the comments? Please spread the word and repost! Thank you!

Acquisition of Spacers from Foreign Prokaryotic Genomes by CRISPR-Cas Systems in Natural Environments Abstract. Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) and CRISPR-associated (Cas) systems of bacteria and archaea provide immunities

@katharinasures.bsky.social @probstlab.bsky.social et al. analysed CRISPR-Cas systems of metagenome-assembled genomes from two subsurface environments, shedding new light on the diversity of CRISPR spacers in natural microbial communities.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf201

#genome #evolution #CRISPR

Harnessing artificial intelligence to advance CRISPR-based genome editing technologies Nature Reviews Genetics, Published online: 18 November 2025; doi:10.1038/s41576-025-00907-1CRISPR-based genome editing has revolutionized biotechnology, enabling precise DNA modifications for research and therapy. The authors review how artificial intelligence, including deep learning, is advancing genome editing by improving guide RNA design, editor protein engineering, novel effector discovery and predicting editing outcomes.

New online! Harnessing artificial intelligence to advance CRISPR-based genome editing technologies

The serpent head of the Oseberg Viking ship, carved in 820, and shown for the first time to the public in the Oslo Historical Museum

🌍✨ Why genome sequence mega-diverse countries?
A handful of countries hold >70% of Earth’s terrestrial biodiversity — packed with species found nowhere else. These places are evolution’s playground… and extinction’s front line.

#Biodiversity 🌿 #GenomeSequencing 🧬
#Genomics 🔬 #ConservationGenomics 🌍

An early Triassic bone bed excavated at 78°N changes the story about how marine life recovered after the most cataclysmic extinction in Earth history ~252 million years ago. The quantity and diversity of marine reptile and amphibian fossils show that these groups had already radiated into complex oceanic ecosystems by ~249 million years ago.

An early Triassic bone bed excavated at 78°N changes the story about how marine life recovered after the most cataclysmic extinction in Earth history ~252 million years ago.

Learn more in this week's issue of Science: https://scim.ag/48bLsGI

The number of low-quality or fraudulent publications is rising to hundreds of thousands per year. It is time to reevaluate current publishing models and outline a global plan. Read the 'Reformation of science publishing: the Stockholm Declaration': royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... #RSOS 🧪

GBE | Highlight: Genome Duplication in a New Zealand Snail Holds Clues for the Persistence of (A)sexual Reproduction

The recent GBE paper on whole-genome duplication in Potamopyrgus antipodarum is the focus of November's Highlight.

Highlight: Genome Duplication in a New Zealand Snail Holds Clues for the Persistence of (A)sexual Reproduction
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf198

#genome #evolution #WGD

TWS Journals Reindeer is an iconic species in the Arctic and subarctic but populations are declining. An environmental quality standard for reindeer populations assess their overall status (poor, medium, and good...

New publication: "A quality standard for conservation of wild #reindeer" with Atle Mysterud from @unioslo-cees.bsky.social & @biovitenskap.bsky.social
Published in The Wildlife Society @thewildlifesociety.bsky.social

The most original wild reindeer in Norway has been sequenced: Chromosome-level genome assembly of alpine reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus) url: academic.oup.com/jhered/artic...

Chromosomal fusions shaped the genome of the greater hornwrack bryozoan (Flustra foliacea) (Linnaeus, 1758) The phylum Bryozoa is an understudied, yet commonly-occurring, globally distributed bilaterian metazoan organismal group. They have a colonial lifestyle and an evolutionary history that spans at least...

#marineinvert folks, not many #bryozoa genomes, here’s a new one, a Norwegian Flustra foliacea www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Genome is "large" (at c. 900Mb). Lead by Helle Baalsrud (NMBU) and Ole Tørresen (UiO). @ebpgenome.bsky.social Norway @kjetillsj.bsky.social

Phylogenomic analysis of deep-branching telonemid Abstract. The evolutionary history of eukaryotic supergroups has been investigated primarily by large-scale phylogenomics, but one major hindrance to conti

Phylogenomic analysis of deep-branching telonemid #protistsonsky
academic.oup.com/gbe/advance-...

Zooplankton mortality and distribution around a seismic survey - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Zooplankton mortality and distribution around a seismic survey

New publication highlight the interplay between sound exposure, environmental conditions, and the impact on #zooplankton in areas of #seismic activity.
With Josefin Titelman from @biovitenskap.bsky.social
Published in @nature.com

Epigenetic Potential and Dispersal Propensity in a Free‐Living Songbird: A Spatial and Temporal Approach Natal dispersal is a key life history trait determining fitness and driving population dynamics, genetic structure, and species distributions. Despite existing evidence that not all phenotypes are eq...

Very excited about this work now out in
@molecology! We test whether🐦with ⬆️dispersal propensity differ in the nº CpGs across the genome, with the hypothesis that⬆️CpGs allow for⬆️epigenetically-driven plasticity facilitating environmental coping
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

New publication: "Role of forest edges and other seminatural linear landscape features in structuring wild bee habitat connectivity in intensively managed landscapes" with Marianne Torvanger & Bastiaan Star @biovitenskap.bsky.social
Published in Conservation Biology @scbeurope.bsky.social

GBE | Hemoglobin-Gene Cluster Deletions in Antarctic White-Blooded Icefishes Facilitated by Transposable Elements Analyzing numerous genome assemblies of notothenioid fishes, Desvignes et al. demonstrated that in Antarctic white-blooded icefishes, the only vertebrates living without hemoglobin, the two hemoglobin gene clusters were lost independently from one another by different genomic mechanisms, although both mechanisms incriminate transposable and repeat-like elements.

@notothentoma.bsky.social @arcolon14.bsky.social & @jpostlethwait.bsky.social show how Antarctic white-blooded icefishes, the only vertebrates without hemoglobin, independently lost hemoglobin cluster genes, driven by TEs and repeats.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf184

#genome #evolution #TEsky

Reference genome bias in light of species-specific chromosomal reorganization and translocations - Genome Biology Background Whole-genome sequencing efforts, have during the past decade, unveiled the central role of genomic rearrangements—such as chromosomal inversions—in evolutionary processes, including local a...

New paper out where we demonstrate how pop gen parameters and scoring of structural variants (inversions) could be affected by the choice of reference genome (both in terms of both quality and relatedness).
@unioslo-cees.bsky.social
@biovitenskap.bsky.social

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Reference genome bias in light of species-specific chromosomal reorganization and translocations - Genome Biology Background Whole-genome sequencing efforts, have during the past decade, unveiled the central role of genomic rearrangements—such as chromosomal inversions—in evolutionary processes, including local a...

Article alert: Maurstad, Hoff; Cerca et al. Reference genome bias in light of species-specific chromosomal reorganization and translocations. Now out in Genome Biol. Congrats to Sissel and the team😀 doi.org/10.1186/s130...

🧬 Not all DNA comes out easily! Some species lock their secrets behind tough shells, rigid walls, or tricky chemistry. Extracting high-quality DNA can mean cracking exoskeletons, dissolving cell walls, or working around inhibitory compounds — science meets detective work 🔬💥

Excited to share this work, out today in MBE! In polar fishes, we found that antifreeze protein genes expanded in copy number at low temperatures and contracted in the deep sea, highlighting a role of depth and pressure in AFP evolution.

🔗 academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

Inga is a new member at the Academy - Department of Biosciences Inga Angelica Frøland Steindal has been accepted as a new member of The Young Academy of Norway. Inga is a researcher at the Center for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES) at the Department o...

Congratulations, Inga! @biovitenskap.bsky.social

Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms, Structural Variants, and Short Tandem Repeats Capture Distinct Signals of Adaptive Divergence in the Atlantic Puffin Abstract. The Arctic has been the scene for (re)colonization, diversification, and adaptation of boreal and Arctic fauna. As anthropogenic warming of the A

Article alert! Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms, Structural Variants, and Short Tandem Repeats Capture Distinct Signals of Adaptive Divergence in the Atlantic Puffin url: academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...

🧨 The Naturhistoriska riksmuseet has a position open for a Tenure-Track group Leader position (DDLS fellow).

17 M SEK start-up (1.6 million euros, which will account for your salary / 2 PhDs / 2 Postdocs / plenty of money for starting projects and sending peoeple to conferences).

lnkd.in/d5jNr_Ti

'Dark DNA' may explain dancing spiders' extraordinary diversity There are many more species of peacock spider than other animals, scientists think they may know why.

Cool intro to the Earth Biogenome Project (link in the article)

… and who doesn’t love our cute Aussie spiders? 🕷️

share.google/XvZI57IbEdNU...