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Acer VanWallendael

@aceraceae.bsky.social
192 followers 121 following 10 posts

Professor studying the evolutionary genetics of weeds and invasive plants at North Carolina State University. Lab website: avanwallendael.github.io

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Reposted by Acer VanWallendael
Kieran Samuk @ksamuk.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Just posted: a group paper describing major updates to my software pixy, for population genetic summary statistics. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... New since 2021: arbitrary ploidy, multiallelic sites, missingness-aware Watterson's θ and Tajima's D, Hudson's FST, multicore execution!
Alt text: Schematic of the pixy workflow. Left, inputs: a bgzipped, tabix- or CSI-indexed VCF with callable sites supplied as an all-sites VCF or gVCF blocks, a populations file, and optional BED and sites files. Centre, core: windowing by fixed width, BED or region; statistic selection; options for Hudson's FST, multiallelic SNPs, automatic ploidy detection and multicore execution. Right, outputs: one TSV per statistic for pi, dxy, FST, Watterson's theta and Tajima's D, with raw count columns for exact aggregation. Bottom, development: GitHub fork and pull request, local checks with ruff, mypy and pytest, continuous integration across Python 3.10 to 3.14, and distribution through conda-forge. Features new since the 2021 release are badged "new".
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Acer VanWallendael @aceraceae.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
🔥 If you don't account for missing data someone else will 🔥 I need this on a shirt. Programs that handle missing SNP data when computing PCA usually impute, and you need to be very confident that's actually what you want to happen (it's usually not).
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Reposted by Acer VanWallendael
Julian Catchen @jcatchen.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
Our EEB department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is hiring an assistant professor in evo-devo. See go.illinois.edu/EEBAsstProf for details. Please share!
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Reposted by Acer VanWallendael
David Lowry @davidlowry.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
Really nice new highlight about our recent paper led by @aceraceae.bsky.social. "What a wild plant pathosystem reveals about local adaptation between hosts and pathogens and the implications for cultivated plant pathosystems under climate change" nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
What a wild plant pathosystem reveals about local adaptation between hosts and pathogens and the implications for cultivated plant pathosystems under climate change
Click on the article title to read more.
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Acer VanWallendael @aceraceae.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
This thoughtful commentary gives some really interesting phytopathology context for our New Phytologist paper. Thank you for your words @wheatpath.bsky.social
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Reposted by Acer VanWallendael
Emily Josephs @emjo.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
New work from Josephs lab grad student Asia Hightower @puffballove.bsky.social w/ Dan Chitwood & many many others on general, flexible methods for analyzing leaf shape variation www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
Procrustean pseudo-landmark methods in Python to measure massive quantities of leaf shape data
Premise When examining leaf shapes that are different from one another, it can be difficult to compare both the overall leaf shape and points along the leaf margin in biologically and statistically me...
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Reposted by Acer VanWallendael
Nature Ecology & Evolution @natecoevo.nature.com · 09/07/2025
Whole-genome sequences and field experiments focusing on the global invasive forage crop, white clover, show high levels of genetic variation across continents and parallel signatures of selection in five haploblocks www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Haploblocks contribute to parallel climate adaptation following global invasion of a cosmopolitan plant - Nature Ecology & Evolution
Whole-genome sequences and field experiments focusing on the global invasive forage crop, Trifolium repens, show high levels of genetic variation across continents and parallel signatures of selection...
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Acer VanWallendael @aceraceae.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
Hi #evol2025, our paper came out yesterday and I'd love to chat about it. We used an underused tool for studying parasite local adaptation, the Host Reciprocal Transplant, to study switchgrass and its fungal rust. doi.org/10.1111/nph....
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Acer VanWallendael @aceraceae.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
The florigen that through the green fuse drives the flower drives my green age
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Reposted by Acer VanWallendael
Rose Marks @roseamarks.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
our perspective on desiccation tolerance research is out in @naturecomms.bsky.social. with nearly forty authors from around the world spanning diverse career stages and disciplines, this work represents a shared vision for the field. let us know what you think! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Life on the dry side: a roadmap to understanding desiccation tolerance and accelerating translational applications - Nature Communications
Desiccation tolerance is an extreme adaptation to water limitation. Here the authors envisage a roadmap to advance desiccation tolerance research, highlight key knowledge gaps, call for standardizatio...
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Reposted by Acer VanWallendael
Naomi Fraga @naomibot.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
📣Job Announcement! California Botanic Garden, the largest garden dedicated to #CAnativeplants, is seeking a Nursery Manager to join our team! To view the position click the link: drive.google.com/file/d/1MGcA... Please share! 🌱
Oak seedingsJuncus growing in the nursery.
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Acer VanWallendael @aceraceae.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
Weeds have evolved plasmids to house herbicide resistance genes (extracellular circular DNA), which is insanely cool. Previously, this was only Roundup resistance (glyphosate), but an amaranth pop. has been found with resistance to glufosinate on the same plasmid. academic.oup.com/plcell/advan...
academic.oup.com
A rearranged Amaranthus palmeri extrachromosomal circular DNA confers resistance to glyphosate and glufosinate
Abstract. Some herbicide-resistant weeds become resistant by generating additional copies of specific loci. For example, amplification of the locus encodin
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Reposted by Acer VanWallendael
Nicholas Tay @malayoman.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
Excited to share that our protein editing method from the Muir Lab is now published in @science.org We believe that protein transposition will enable new biochemical studies of PTMs and open up new intersections of proteins and small molecules www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Protein editing using a coordinated transposition reaction
Protein engineering through the ligation of polypeptide fragments has proven enormously powerful for studying biochemical processes. In general, this strategy necessitates a final protein-folding step...
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Acer VanWallendael @aceraceae.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
The VanLab grows!
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David Lowry @davidlowry.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
We have a new paper out today, where, among other things, we find evidence that a locally adaptive chromosomal inversion likely trapped an even older inversion along its path to becoming the supergene it is today. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
The Evolution of Locally Adaptive Chromosome Inversions in Mimulus guttatus
Chromosomal inversion polymorphisms are ubiquitous across the diversity of diploid organisms and play a significant role in the evolution of adaptations in those species. Inversions are thought to op...
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Reposted by Acer VanWallendael
Seema Sheth @seemasheth.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
Late-breaking job ad: The Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at North Carolina State University (Raleigh, NC, USA) is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Plant Evolutionary Biology!!! More details below. Please repost!
jobs.ncsu.edu
TT Assistant Professor of Plant Evolutionary Biology
The Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at North Carolina State University invites applications for an Assistant Professor position in Plant Evolutionary Biology. This position is a 9-month, ten...
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Acer VanWallendael @aceraceae.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
I have funding available in my lab at NC State for a graduate student interested in plant evolutionary genetics, especially in weeds. Please email me by Dec 20 for full consideration. Details and contact info on the lab website: avanwallendael.github.io/#joining-the-lab
avanwallendael.github.io
Genetic diversity in locally adapted, weedy, and invasive plants
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Jill Hamilton @jillahamilton.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
So excited to announce our department is hiring a tenure track position in Forest Ecophysiology! Happy to answer any questions about the position!! Join us in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management at Penn State! psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/PSU_Ac...
psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com
Assistant Professor of Forest Ecophysiology
APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS: CURRENT PENN STATE EMPLOYEE (faculty, staff, technical service, or student), please login to Workday to complete the internal application process. Please do not apply here, a...
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Acer VanWallendael @aceraceae.bsky.social · 01/12/2023
Thanks Josh!
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Acer VanWallendael @aceraceae.bsky.social · 01/12/2023
Got my new head shots back just in time to announce that I'm starting a lab at North Carolina State University in January! I'll be a genetics prof in the Weed Science program, with research centered on evolutionary genomics in weeds and invasive species Ask me for info! avanwallendael.github.io
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Acer VanWallendael @aceraceae.bsky.social · 26/11/2023
Stunning frost flowers on the snakeroots this morning
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