Organisms often face new, changing or otherwise challenging environments, which can drive evolutionary adaptations. However, different populations and species often respond differentially to the same environmental change, potentially altering their evolutionary trajectories. For instance, some organisms flourish in new environments, whereas others go extinct. What factors determine individual and population-level responses, and what are the... Continue Reading →
New paper: Mutation bias shifts can be adaptive
Our paper describing the evolutionary effects of shifts in mutation bias is now published! We started out by asking if mutation spectrum could alter the fitness effects of new mutations in E. coli. To our surprise, we found a consistent effect across many environments, but could not attribute the difference to any particular properties of... Continue Reading →
New paper: What governs redundancy in bacterial translation?
Our long-dreamt-of project on understanding the effects of widely varying tRNA gene copy number is finally complete! In a new paper, we describe the growth consequences of altering redundancy in the bacterial translation machinery. We find that the costs and benefits of redundancy vary with the possible growth rate, i.e. it is nutrient-driven. This was... Continue Reading →
New paper: A comprehensive fitness landscape reveals context-dependent oviposition strategies in flour beetles
We are starting 2023 on a great footing, with a new paper reporting a lot of really nice work by Vrinda and Gaurav. For a long time we have been puzzled by seemingly maladaptive oviposition behaviours of female flour beetles faced with different resource options. By carefully manipulating egg allocation across resource patches, we were... Continue Reading →
Rittik starts new faculty position
Former postdoctoral fellow Rittik Deb has joined the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) Bhubaneswar as an Assistant Professor. Congratulations Rittik, and we look forward to all of the exciting discoveries that you and your group will make in the coming years!
New paper: Review on evolutionary prediction
In late 2019, a bunch of people gathered at the Lorentz Center in The Netherlands to think about how we can predict evolution, and what we need to do better. It was a fantastic meeting, and we just published one of the outcomes – a review discussing different kinds of evolutionary predictions, factors that increase predictability,... Continue Reading →
ASN VP Symposium sessions online
Talks from the American Society of Naturalists' Vice-Presidential symposium, organized by Deepa at the 2022 Evolution meeting in Cleveland, are now available to view online. Check them out, and while you are at it, listen to many more great talks on the ASN youtube channel! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seoDr29D9Kw&list=PLrKX8ieTJNbQrIiJ7yHYhujP0Sdjiy-yf
SMBE Global Symposium (GS6) on the Genetics of Adaptation
Pleased to announce that one of the SMBE Global Symposia this year will be on the Genetics of Adaptation! On 21 Nov we plan an in-person intensive workshop at NCBS, for early-stage students from India who are interested in molecular evolution and evolutionary genetics (apply here). This will be followed by a virtual global symposium... Continue Reading →
ICTS Preparatory school on population genetics and evolution
Happy to announce the 2nd edition of our 1-week intensive school on population genetics and evolution in Feb 2024 at ICTS, co-organized with Kavita Jain from JNCASR Bangalore. If you are a student with a keen interest in population genetics but are relatively new to the topic, do consider applying (deadline 20 November 2022)! You'll... Continue Reading →