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Arnaud Le Rouzic @arnaudlerouzic.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 24/09/2025

Come and join our team! A 2-year postdoc position is available in our "Genome Evolution" department. We want to play with theoretical phylogenetic models accounting for the horizontal transfers of transposable elements. Application & details on the official […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

$Object: Postdoc Position Building a phylogenetic model for horizontal transfers of transposable elements A postdoctoral position (24 months) is available to work at EGCE (Gif-sur-Yvette, France, CNRS / Université Paris-Saclay) from January 2026. Transposable elements (TEs) are repetitive DNA sequences capable of promoting their own mobility. They are widespread across the tree of life and often represent a substantial fraction of eukaryotic genomes. Beyond their ability to invade genomes, TEs are frequently reported to undergo horizontal transfer, enabling their colonization of new hosts. However, understanding and predicting how horizontal transfers shape the distribution of TEs among species is far from straightforward. In particular, estimates of transfer rates based on documented cases are both biased and approximate, since transfers occurring close to speciation events are virtually undetectable. This project aims to develop explicit phylogenetic models of TE evolution that incorporate horizontal transfers, and to use these models to obtain statistical estimates of key evolutionary dynamics of TE families across species (e.g., horizontal transfer and extinction rates). The postdoctoral project will focus on exploring the impact of horizontal transfers on the distribution of TE presence/absence among related species, using statistical and/or computational approaches.$

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