Ava Mackay-Smith @a-mack-s.bsky.social · 03/08/2026Thanks to our collaborators at GWU and STRI for facilitating this improvement to the genomic resources we have available for Heliconius! 🦋 3/3 010
Ava Mackay-Smith @a-mack-s.bsky.social · 03/08/2026It's also nice to see that instruments like @pacbio.bsky.social's Revio can produce near-complete assemblies without additional sequencing data types! Using only Revio long reads, some of these new assemblies approached ~2-3 contigs per chromosome 🧬 120
Ava Mackay-Smith @a-mack-s.bsky.social · 03/08/2026Happy to share this release of some new long-read genomes in @genomebiolevol.bsky.social! We hope that subspecies-specific, quality genomes will enable better profiling of variation underlying phenotypic differences in Heliconius, mitigating bias from using a relative's genome as the reference 1/3 262
Reposted by Ava Mackay-SmithSociety for Molecular Biology and Evolution @official-smbe.bsky.social · 04/06/2026#SMBE2026 S03: Genome Plasticity and Evolutionary Innovation 🗓️ Tue Jun 30, 10:20 am - Part 1 🗓️ Tue Jun 30, 1:20 pm - Part 2 🔗 smbe2026.org/programme 133
Ava Mackay-Smith @a-mack-s.bsky.social · 20/04/2026🥳 Super excited to see this work out from the urchin side of the Wray lab team! ⬇️ 010
Reposted by Ava Mackay-SmithEvolDir @evoldir.bsky.social · 23/06/2025Join the SEPEEG meeting on Oct 3-5 in the Great Smoky Mountains to explore ecology, evolution, and genetics. It’s student-friendly! More info: sepeeg2025.blogspot.com #conferencesepeeg2025.blogspot.comSEPEEG2025 Southeastern Population Ecology & Evolutionary Genetics Meeting Oct 3-5, 2025 Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont 011
Ava Mackay-Smith @a-mack-s.bsky.social · 01/07/2025That’s the inspiration for our title, genome mountaineering - every one of our section headers and table/figure captions are named after something mountain-related! academic.oup.com/gbe/article/... Thanks for reading till the end! * 7/7 #PopGen #evo #evolution #genomics #epigenomicsacademic.oup.comGenome Mountaineering: Expanding Horizons of the 3D Genome for the Intrepid Evolutionary AdventurerAbstract. The physical positioning of DNA in 3D space within the nucleus can be important for understanding how genetic changes influence gene regulation a 000
Ava Mackay-Smith @a-mack-s.bsky.social · 01/07/2025If you made it this far, one of my favorite parts of writing this paper was that we kept thinking about the genome as moving from a linear representation into a series of loops and twists, almost like a mountain range. 6/7media.tenor.coma national geographic logo can be seen in the background of a snowy mountainALT: a national geographic logo can be seen in the background of a snowy mountain 100
Ava Mackay-Smith @a-mack-s.bsky.social · 01/07/2025Because this was a Perspectives-type article, citations are limited, and we had to make some tough choices about the works we cited (this was hard!) My apologies if we weren’t able to include your work & please feel free to repost this thread to publicize your own related research! 5/7media.tenor.coma man in a blue shirt and tie is standing in front of a bulletin board with papers on it .ALT: a man in a blue shirt and tie is standing in front of a bulletin board with papers on it . 100
Ava Mackay-Smith @a-mack-s.bsky.social · 01/07/2025We hope that this Perspective sparks curiosity and acts as a low barrier for entry into this space, rather than a comprehensive review (many of which already exist and are excellent!) If you make it till the end and are hungry for more, check out Table 1 for some recommended subsequent reading! 4/7media.tenor.coman orange and white cat is reading a book called the loreALT: an orange and white cat is reading a book called the lore 100
Ava Mackay-Smith @a-mack-s.bsky.social · 01/07/2025We focus on exploring: 1) evolutionary rates and #conservation in #comparative studies, 2) evolutionary innovation in 3D genome structure, 3) #structuralvariation and breakpoints, and 4) general principles of #generegulation as informed by 3D #genomestructure. Sound cool to you? Check it out! 3/7media.tenor.comspongebob squarepants is smiling and holding his hands up in the air with the words `` genetics '' written above him .ALT: spongebob squarepants is smiling and holding his hands up in the air with the words `` genetics '' written above him . 100
Ava Mackay-Smith @a-mack-s.bsky.social · 01/07/2025Instead of being a highly technical review, we focus on some of the conceptual questions that evolutionary biologists can investigate with these methods. We want to convince you that 3C-based genomic methods can contribute towards answering questions you’re already interested in! 2/7media.tenor.comtwo men are sitting on a couch and one of them is saying " this is next level "ALT: two men are sitting on a couch and one of them is saying " this is next level " 110
Ava Mackay-Smith @a-mack-s.bsky.social · 01/07/2025🌟 paper tweetorial! 🌟 check out my first first-author paper from my Ph.D! We wrote a small (=easy-to-read) Perspective piece trying to bridge the gap between #evolutionarybiology and the expanding world of #genomic assays, specifically #chromatin conformation capture (3C and related approaches) 🧵1/7 2133
Ava Mackay-Smith @a-mack-s.bsky.social · 08/05/2025🦋 Happening today at #BoG25: Are you interested in unusual patterns of recombination in the context of ongoing hybridization?? If you answered yes OR no to this question, come by poster 187 tonight! Learn something, or teach me something! 🦋 021
Ava Mackay-Smith @a-mack-s.bsky.social · 05/05/2025🦋 If you're 1) coming to #BoG25 (!!!) and 2) like thinking about weird patterns of recombination or population genetics, come say hi & stop by my poster "Exploring hybridization persistence: Gene regulatory dynamics and sex-specific recombination landscapes in Lepidoptera" 🦋 030