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Andrew Whitehead

@andrewwhitehead.bsky.social
2.2K followers 503 following 43 posts

UC Davis faculty, research in evolutionary & ecological genomics, ecotoxicology, climate change, phenotypic plasticity. whiteheadresearch.wordpress.com

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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
stay tuned for upcoming/related quantitative genetics manuscript...
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
very fun and integrative study, collab. w Nann Fangue, led by Joanna Griffiths @jogriffiths61.bsky.social, who persevered despite 1st year experiments disrupted by pandemic, record heat wave (while trying to control rearing temperatures), and a direct lightning strike to our experimental facility!
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
Are you interested in domestication selection and conservation physiology? Newest paper @evolappjournal.bsky.social: Highly and Lowly Domesticated Endangered Fish From a Conservation Hatchery Diverge in Their Thermal Physiology, Transcriptome, and Methylome onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
thermal tolerance acclimation with rearing temperature, and divergence between lowly-domesticated and highly-domesticated fish
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Wayne Maddison @waynemaddison.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
Confused writing is usually a symptom of confused thinking. As we struggle to clarify writing, we clarify our thoughts. AI writing aids rob us of that struggle, leaving clean-looking text and thoughts still confused for lack of inspection. Writing is not just a product; it is a diagnostic tool.
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Kat Kerlin @katkerlin.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
Research on the tenacious little killifish sheds light on how exposure to crude oil and flame retardants impacts later generations. From @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social @ucdavis.bsky.social
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
Flame-retardant paper #2: shows that exposure in one generation has neurobehavioral impacts on offspring. Even brief exposure during embryo development - their offspring years later inherited altered behavior. pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
Flame-retardant paper #1: we show that brief exposures during early life to PBDE flame retardants have neurobehavioral effects that can last a lifetime, but whether exposure is maternal or directly from the environment modulates toxic outcomes pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
2 new papers now out in #ES&T on the persistent and multi-generational impacts of flame retardants on behavior and brain biology Press release from ‪@ucdavis.bsky.social‬ ‪@ucdaviscaes.bsky.social‬ that ties this with our work on multi-gen impacts of oil spills www.ucdavis.edu/climate/news...
ucdavis.edu
Maternal Exposure to Crude Oil, Flame Retardants Can Affect Later Generations
A tiny fish with transparent embryos is helping University of California, Davis, researchers shed light on how exposure to crude oil and flame retardants can affect behavior, skeletal growth, cardiac ...
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UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences @ucdaviscaes.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
🚨Research alert 🚨 A tiny fish with transparent embryos is helping #UCDavis researchers shed new light on how maternal exposure to crude oil and flame retardants can affect later generations. #DeepwaterHorizon #PBTE caes.ucdavis.edu/news/materna...
caes.ucdavis.edu
Maternal Exposure to Crude Oil, Flame Retardants Can Affect Later Generations
A tiny fish with transparent embryos is helping University of California, Davis, researchers shed light on how exposure to crude oil and flame retardants can affect behavior, skeletal growth, cardiac ...
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
My system is very sophisticated. A running list on my Notes app.😬
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Moshi @fishymoshi.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
Our collaborative study shows that hatchery domestication in Delta smelt elevates thermal tolerance but reduces plasticity, with transcriptome and methylome shifts influencing adaptation. Read the preprint here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
Highly and lowly domesticated endangered fish from a conservation hatchery diverge in their thermal physiology, transcriptome, and methylome
Conservation hatcheries aim to produce fish for supplementation of wild populations, but hatchery environments may drive phenotypic divergence from wild fish. These diverged traits may have reduced fi...
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
stay tuned for two more papers coming out in the next few weeks on persistent and multi-generational impacts of exposures to ubiquitous flame retardant pollutants...
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
New paper out in #ES&T where we show that killifish exposure to crude oil has impacts (on embryo/larval development and transcriptome) that propagate to their offspring and to their grand-offspring. pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.... @acs.org
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Joana L. Rocha @joanocha.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
I am thrilled to announce that in January 2026 I will be starting my own lab at NYU Biology! Soon enough I will be recruiting postdocs and students! Please reach out if you are interested with a CV and description of your research interests, or if you know of people who could be interested! 🧬🗽 🦊
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Samuel Church @shchurch.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
Wish I could be at #Evol2025 this year! I’ll be starting a new lab at NYU this fall, and will be recruiting at all levels. Please spread the word if you know anyone who wants to work on evo. genomics, phylogenies, and comparative development of inverts (like Hawaiian Drosophila!) shchurch.github.io
Drosophila picticornis, a Hawaiian fly with patterned wings
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Christopher Wheat @chriswheat.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
🚨Postdoc opportunity🚨: LepEU postdoc: comparative population genomics of European scale adaptation in butterflies 2 year, full-time PD in my group, Stockholm Univ. Applications assed on rolling basis, deadline: 23 August 2025. Planned start 1 Oct. Details: christopherwheatlab.wordpress.com
The aim of this proposal is to place population genomic insights into a comparative framework to gain fundamental insights into the determinants of evolutionary outcomes. The project will work within LepEU, the European Lepidopteran Population Genomics Consortium (https://lepeu.github.io/). LepEU provides access to field samples from European populations of diverse species. Chromosome-scale reference genomes are provided by Project Psyche (https://www.projectpsyche.org/). Networking during the postdoc will be facilitated by participation in the 10kLepGenomes COST Action (https://10klepgenomes.eu/). Existing datasets await analysis, while additional samples need DNA extraction and submission for sequencing. Functional validation capability (CRISPR/Cas9 gene manipulations) is also available to test emergent hypotheses of allele-to-phenotype impacts. Personal research interests of the postdoc will be important to determine the exact project, as the project has a generous sequencing budget.The successful applicant should have a PhD (obtained within 6 years of the application deadline) in a suitable subject area, such as evolutionary biology or population genomics. A strong interest in population genomics, local adaptation, comparative analyses, and experience working with genomic-scale data is essential. The candidate must have a documented publication record demonstrating relevant skills. Experience working with bioinformatic pipelines (e.g., Snakemake), or working with butterflies is welcome but not essential. The net salary is 28,000 SEK/month (~2,430 Euro, not subject to Swedish income tax) and comes directly from the Carl-Trygger Foundation stipend, which is paid out directly to the postdoc. Only PhD candidates acquired outside of the host department can apply. Currently, the lab of Prof. Wheat consists of 3 postdoctoral researchers, while the Dept. of Zoology provides a vibrant and excellent research environment of active, dynamic researchers. 

Applications should include: i) a succinct description of research interests and experience, detailing your contribution to any relevant publications (max 1 page), ii) why you are the ideal candidate for this position in the lab (max 1 page); iii) a CV including a list of publications, and iv) the name and contact information of two personal references. 

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis with a deadline of 23 August 2025. The project is planned to start on 1 October, but flexibility in the starting date can be provided for a suitable candidate. Please contact Prof. Wheat for additional information.
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UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute @ucdmarinescience.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
Anya Brown - @dranyabrown.bsky.social, marine scientist at @ucdavis.bsky.social & Nat Geo Explorer, studies how coral microbes shape reef resilience. “It’s the kind of thing that unites so much of life on Earth,” she says. 🌊🪸🐠 Read more in Nat Geo: www.nationalgeographic.com/impact/artic...
nationalgeographic.com
Anya Brown is investigating microbes’ critical role in coral reefs
Her research team’s contributions could hold promise for coral adaptation and conservation.
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Jacquelyn Gill @jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 31/05/2025
This is a great thread, with some really nice talking points for your letters to your reps, your protest signs, your zines and flyers, and your conversations with neighbors.
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Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
"Our calculations suggest that the proposed budgetary cuts to the NIH will create a social cost that is 16 times greater than the savings that the administration is attempting to achieve." jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
jamanetwork.com
Cutting the NIH—The $8 Trillion Health Care Catastrophe
This JAMA Forum discusses the recent budget cuts to National Institutes of Health (NIH), the effects of these cuts on scientific research and health of individuals in the US, and the prospects for cha...
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Moi Expósito-Alonso (MOILAB) @mexpositoalonso.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
Super excited to release a huge evolution project on the works for many years: Evolution experiments synchronized across climates to understand rapid adaptation Preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2025... All data available: www.grene-net.org/data #MOILAB @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social @hhmi.org 🧵👇
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
Wow. This looks awesome. Lab group will be reading this!
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Jon Freeman @freemanjb.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
🚨 A new rule would let career scientists like NSF/NIH program officers be replaced by political appointees Already 14,000+ public comments, deadline is Friday 📣 Comments can be short. Courts consider them—and scientists with NSF/NIH experience are especially impactful Speak up! shorturl.at/WKuBj
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
Interested in evolution in the Anthropocene? In a paper out today we use a mechanism-guided approach to predict & show that evolved resistance to urban pollutants offers cross-resistance to oil in killifish, via adaptive change in AHR signaling doi.org/10.1111/eva.... @evolappjournal.bsky.social
doi.org
Multiple Stressors in the Anthropocene: Urban Evolutionary History Modifies Sensitivity to the Toxic Effects of Crude Oil Exposure in Killifish
Persistence of wild species in human-altered environments is difficult, in part because challenges to fitness are complex when multiple environmental changes occur simultaneously, which is common in ...
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
What are your favorites?
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Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
New @science.org Exposomics. We're not doing nearly enough to understand and mitigate our toxic environmental exposures. A very insightful perspective www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
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Scott Delaney @scott-delaney.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
🙏 We need your help 🙏 The government continues to cancel grants at both NIH and NSF to censor science it doesn't like. We're tracking terminations to organize and advocate. Please report your terminated grants: NIH: forms.gle/J2znQ7y7YpeP... NSF: airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni... w/ @noamross.net
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
Students seemed relieved to hear that faculty recognize the challenges, are concerned for them, invested in their future, & are listening. Though institutes seem afraid to message support for students these days, perhaps support is best communicated in small groups with folks whose faces we know
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
Main message from faculty: Work hard on the things within your control... - take advantage of out-of-classroom opportunities to build breadth/depth of experience, including work in lab, internships, etc - get to know your professors - engage with professional organizations - build pro network
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
Hosted listening sessions with undergrad students in our program over the past 2 days. Their main concerns (perhaps unsurprisingly): - students from non-traditional identities worried if institute has their backs - worry about grad school prospects, job prospects, loss of educational opportunities
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
Those pants look pretty corny
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
New preprint from the lab: Exposure to crude oil in adult killifish has effects (morphology, gene expression) that propagate at least two generations, but effects are different between first and second generation descendants www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
Adult killifish exposure to crude oil perturbs embryonic gene expression and larval morphology in first- and second-generation offspring
Exposures to environmental toxicants can have both immediate and long-term impacts, including those that persist into the next generation. Using Gulf killifish ( Fundulus grandis ), we tested whether ...
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
New preprint from the lab, where we describe how evolved resistance to PCBs in urban populations of killifish affords protection from fitness impacts of crude oil - in adults and embryos - because of shared mechanisms of toxicity between PCBs and oil www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
For folks who are new to single-cell transcriptomics, does anyone have any recommendations for workshops?
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Tabatha Southey🇨🇦 @tabathasouthey.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
If you missed it, here’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s, quite sincerely, historic speech. It’s for, and is galvanizing, Canadians but he also speaks very directly to our allies in the US. Please hear us out. I do find myself thinking how much I’d give up, and do, for this imperfect country.
youtu.be
Trudeau: Canada will retaliate with 25% tariffs on $155B of U.S. goods
YouTube video by CBC News
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 03/05/2024
Love the term "Shitthropocene". I figure we'll use it in our next manuscript title. "Shitthropocene? Fish evolve the gene: The story of aryl hydrocarbon receptor" www.patagonia.com/quality/#shi...
patagonia.com
Quality Clothing & Gear by Patagonia
Our new film The Shitthropocene explores how we got here and why it’s destroying us all. It’s also a little bit about how we might be able to overcome this.
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 05/03/2024
A fun conversation with Will Tingle on the Naked Genetics podcast about role of hybridization in conservation. We touched on some controversial topics. What do you think? www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/int...
thenakedscientists.com
Should we hybridise endangered species?
Is saving some genome better than saving none?
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Gina Baucom @gbaucom.bsky.social · 19/02/2024
Guest blog from me on Dynamic Ecology, a guide for beginning grads on developing a reading habit and project ideas! Super grateful for reposts :)
dynamicecology.wordpress.com
Non-definitive guides on developing a reading habit & generating project ideas
Note from Meghan: This is a guest post by my colleague Gina Baucom on a topic that's sure to be of interest to lots of readers! *** I lead a graduate-level professional development seminar* where we r...
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Jo Wolfe, PhD @jopabinia.bsky.social · 19/02/2024
Wow! The complex genomic and epigenetic variation that builds the tasty diversity of Brassica oleracea (the single species that forms broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, Brussels sprouts) 🧪🥦🥬
nature.com
Large-scale gene expression alterations introduced by structural variation drive morphotype diversification in Brassica oleracea - Nature Genetics
De novo genome assemblies of 22 Brassica oleracea accessions and pan-genome analyses highlight the effects of structural variations on gene expression and their contributions to morphotype diversifica...
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 01/02/2024
kudos to the wonderful group of students, postdocs, research scientists, and faculty involved, including co-lead authors Jeff Miller and Bryan Clark @ecotoxdoc.bsky.social, plus Noah Reid @noahreid.bsky.social and others not on this platform.
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 01/02/2024
We are currently working to expand on this; more families, more chemicals, and more traits, to expand our understanding of the complexity of genetic adaptation to radically-altered urban estuaries
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 01/02/2024
Key regulators of the AHR signaling pathway, which is adaptively desensitized in resistant populations, are found within QTL regions. In the discussion we try to wrap our heads around what these data tell us about polygenic adaptation and genetic redundancy.
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 01/02/2024
Independently evolved pollution resistance in four killifish populations is largely explained by few variants of large effect. But wait there is more... Some QTL for PCB developmental toxicity show signatures of selection in wild populations, other don't. Some adaptive loci are QTL, most are not
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 01/02/2024
Are you interested in evolution in the Anthropocene?... in evolved resistance to pollution?... in the genetic architecture of rapidly evolving traits?... You are in luck! I have something for you to read... onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
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Brant Faircloth @brantfaircloth.bsky.social · 26/01/2024
Reposting here with some edits for brevity... (from @prosanta.bsky.social in the other place): The Museum of Natural Science at LSU is hiring three collections managers!!! Apply at the following links: Mammals: bit.ly/3u5lmUT Birds: bit.ly/3u8x9BE Genetic Resources: bit.ly/3UivQL8
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 16/01/2024
Maybe. Nice article about rapid adaptation in the Anthropocene by @scibri.bsky.social and featuring interviews with @ryanamartin.bsky.social, Sarah Diamond, Luciano Beheregaray hakaimagazine.com/news/can-ani... via @hakaimagazine.bsky.social
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Joanna Griffiths @jogriffiths61.bsky.social · 05/01/2024
Interested in #conservation #genomics #hatcheries #thermaltolerance #phasing #imputation #GWAS approaches? Come see my talk at #SICB2024 Saturday at 9:15am room 613/613
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 05/01/2024
Hey SICB gang! If you are interested in conservation genetics and quantitative genetics of thermal resilience then be sure to check out Joanna’s awesome work… #SICB2024
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 20/12/2023
If you had the opportunity to launch some philanthropic giving initiatives in your department, what would be your top 2 priorities?
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Andrew Whitehead @andrewwhitehead.bsky.social · 20/12/2023
I use phenotypic elasticity sometimes. But mainly to distinguish irreversible developmental plasticity from plasticity that can track environmental fluctuations …
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Holly Moeller @mixotrophe.bsky.social · 29/11/2023
I am *thrilled* to finally announce that our department is hiring an Evolutionary Biologist. We are esp looking genetic/genomic expertise, and those who can help us build a more equitable biology community at UCSB. Please apply by Jan 15! recruit.ap.ucsb.edu/JPF02635 #unicornjob
recruit.ap.ucsb.edu
Assistant Professor of Evolutionary Biology
University of California Santa Barbara is hiring. Apply now!
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