🚨 PhD position available ! 🚨
I am hiring a PhD student to work with me on the evolution of plant sexual systems 🌺 at @unifrbiology.bsky.social ! The position is funded for 4 years by @snsf.ch as part of my Ambizione fellowship. More info here: tinyurl.com/monoecy
🌱 Please RP and share widely ! 🌱
We used haplotype-resolved phylogenies to reconstruct the history of transitions between reproductive modes. All hybrids are monophyletic, with asexual lineages nested within hybridogenetic ones. The transition to asexual reproduction subsequently gave rise to two triploid lineages.
The cool part? We could experimentally recapitulate these transitions: from hybridogenesis to parthenogenesis, and from a diploid parthenogenetic lineage to a triploid one.
Thomas Lesaffre 🌱
Luca Soldini
Interested in the molecular mechanisms and evolution of atypical reproductive modes ? Since 2025, we are running a (bi)-monthly online series. You can join us to watch or present!
More information : tinyurl.com/EvoRepro
Sign-up to our mailing list : go.unil.ch/QYYNa
In the incoming weeks/months, we will have talks about atypical reproductive modes in orthopteran and nematods!
Today we had an interesting talk on achiasmatic meiosis in the holocentric plant species Rhynchospora tenuis by @amarques.bsky.social
Reminder that the registration for this meeting closes today. We have a great list of speakers and participants, do not miss out!
How do alternative reproductive modes arise?
In this @pnas.org paper, we show that hybridogenesis -where a haploid set of chromosomes is transmitted clonally across generations- acted as an intermediate step between sexual and asexual reproduction in stick insects.
doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
New paper with @vsudbrack.bsky.social. Using pop gen modelling, we show that partial selfing makes selection on tandem repeats more efficient, reducing the associated load across different scenarios. Thanks to @snsf.ch @dee-unil.bsky.social @fbm-unil.bsky.social !
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Excited to announce the upcoming Jacques Monod Conference on the mechanistic and evolutionary basis of programmed DNA elimination (Sept 21–25, 2026):
cjm.sb-roscoff.fr/en/conferenc...
Organized by @laurarossevo.bsky.social and myself.
Luca Soldini
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
