Congratulations Hannah Augustijnen for another PhD chapter published in InsectConservation : Living on the edge-Genomic and ecological delineation of cryptic lineages in the high‐elevation specialist Erebia nivalis resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…

Enjoyed my visit to Faculty of Biology - University of Freiburg Universität Freiburg in Switzerland with departmental seminar and many interesting scientific discussions with my excellent host Thomas Flatt and other colleagues. And the Swiss cheeze fondue was magnificent!

2/7 This collaborative work includes the contributions of Livio Bätscher, Martin Cesanek, Tinatin Chkhartishvili, Vlad Dinca, giorgi iankoshvili, Kota OGAWA (むし採りおじさん）, @RogerVila_lab, @Sklopfstein, Jurriaan M. de Vos and Kay Lucek. Universität Basel Université Neuchâtel Swiss National Science Foundation

3/7 We explore the relationship between diversification and chromosomal rearrangements that result in chromosome number changes from a macroevolutionary perspective. We built a robust phylogeny of Erebia, a diverse butterfly genus that shows considerable karyotype diversity.

4/7 We inferred ancestral chromosome states across the phylogeny in tandem with a birth-death process accounting for both anagenesis (changes along a phylogenetic branch) and cladogenesis (changes at a node) using ChromoSSE.

5/7 We found that, while most chromosomal change across Erebia is anagenetic, fusions and fissions seem to differ in the degree to which they are cladogenetic, with fissions being more directly linked to speciation.

6/7 The pattern becomes more complicated when clades within Erebia are considered: karyotypically diverse clades (e.g. the purple clade) show higher associated speciation rates while in more conservative clades (e.g. the red clade) diversification is driven more by other factors.

7/7 Overall, we show that fusions and fissions can have a considerable impact on speciation rates, particularly when groups are chromosomally diverse, and that the importance of fusions and fissions can differ even among clades within a single genus.

AMAZING! congratulations Hannah Augustijnen and many many 🙏to the co-authors! 🎉🦋

Complex interactions b/w 3D genome structures & sequence evol., genomic rearrangements, & processes such as recombination suppression intrigued us. We immensely enjoyed writing this work! Hope it evokes such intrigue in you & opens a new perspective for speciation research! 2/4

We thank the Fondation Pierre Mercier pour la Science & @SNSF for funding, Alice Laigle & Charlotte Wright for giving precious feedback on earlier drafts, & the editorial team of Trends in Genetics for smooth processing  3/4

Srinivas Narayanan Alice Laigle Charlotte Wright Trends in Genetics For me personally, I started thinking about genomic rearrangements, & 3D genome structures during my Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions grant at the Natural History Museum London during wonderful discussions with Jeffrey W. Streicher & Prof. Anjali Goswami ! Thank you so much for planting this seed in my head! 🙌🏾4/4

So exciting! What a great outcome of a group effort! Now we need to get the empirical side sorted 😊

Looking forward to exciting discoveries in Erebia! Go team 🦋

Well done! Let's explore the role of 3D genomic changes during speciation in #holocentrics and beyond

Throwback to last year's fieldwork in Georgia 🇬🇪 collecting Erebia 🦋 for genome annotation as part of our Biodiversity Genomics Europe (BGE) Case Study! Thanks to our Georgian experts Tina and giorgi iankoshvili from CaBoL and to European Research Executive Agency, SBFI SEFRI SERI, SIB, EU green research

IBC2024 has been joyful to meet our incredible collaborators, plant peers 🌍🇮🇳, learn loads about 🌱 ecology, evolution, genomes, adaptation, & more! Follow us for updates on genome evolution in the holocentric Carex genus! Marcial Escudero Kay Lucek #IBC2024

What happens when strongly divergent species form zones of secondary contact? 👉 Hannah Augustijnen last paper with me Molecular Ecology onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11… on alpine #erebia 🦋 using whole genome resequence data for 300 individuals #biodiversitygenomics

Great article The Guardian featuring Project Psyche projectpsyche.org aiming to sequence reference genomes for all European Lepidoptera 🦋 👉theguardian.com/environment/ar… honored to be part of this exciting community project Université Neuchâtel

Many thanks to European Reference Genome Atlas for highlighting our Biodiversity Genomics Europe (BGE) project in this new blog post! Go check it out! 🦋🧬🏔️⬇️