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Gustavo A. Ballen

@gaballench.bsky.social
734 followers 244 following 63 posts

Computational biologist 🖥️. (Palaeo)Ichthyologist 🐟🦴. Lutenist 🎶. FAPESP postdoctoral fellow at UNESP Botucatu. gaballench.com

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Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
bioRxivpreprint @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Acrean fish diversity back in time: Paleoichthyology of the Rio Acre fossil fauna in Brazil www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Assessing the robustness of SNaQ to violations induced by high-level phylogenetic networks www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
I have received the Excellence Prize in evolutionary biology in the @sbbe.bsky.social Conference for the second time in the field of Methods and Software. I am most grateful to my coauthors and especially to @sreinales.bsky.social for all her support in this academic and personal journey.
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Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
The Palaeontological Association @thepalass.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Fossil freshwater fishes from the Pliocene of northern Colombia & the palaeogeography of northern South America onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... @gaballench.bsky.social @sreinales.bsky.social @agenciafapesp.bsky.social #PapersinPalaeontology #FossilFriday
Top left: Map centred on Colombia, showing Venezuela to the right and the Pacific Ocean to the left. The Guajira Peninsula is highlighted in a dotted box outline towards the top. To the right is a photograph of a fossil fish tooth (Serrasalmus; STRI 470060; scale bar 2 mm). Red rectangle in the top right corner is a cover image from the journal Papers in Palaeontology. Bottom left is a palaeogeographic map of northern South America showing a possible palaeodrainage connection between east and west of the Andes. In the bottom left corner is a selection of fish photographs representing the taxa recovered from the site.
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Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
Alexis Stamatakis @stamatak.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Applications for the 2027 summer school on Computational Molecular Evolution on Crete are now open at: meetings.embo.org/event/27-com...
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
And finally it was published! Massive thanks to my coauthors, the editor and reviewers, and the institutions that supported our research. journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
journals.plos.org
What did the dove sing to Pope Gregory? Ancestral melody reconstruction in Gregorian chant using Bayesian phylogenetics
An attractive goal in the study of Gregorian chant melodies is reconstructing unobserved melodies as they may have been transmitted along their history, especially as early chant notation does not cap...
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
I'm not arguing, but I think the reproducibility part is key here, not the phylo part itself. Other similar efforts in statistical analyses have been identified and discussed in the past without concluding that there is an issue with statistics but rather with the reproducibility of stat analyses.
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
My understanding is that the phylogenetics editor checks whether analyses are reproducible and then provides feedback to the authors about how to remedy the situation if issues are present, not just reject the manuscript because of lack of reproducibility. @pedrolgodoy.bsky.social, any comments?
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Congratulations Pedro, that task is definitely challenging and it's nice to see it having a real impact in the reproducibility of phylogenetic analysed at JVP.
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Felicidades Pedro!
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Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
Henry Arenas-Castro @henryarenas.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
VIII Simposio Colombiano de Biología Evolutiva Bogotá, 23-25 de julio Inscripciones abiertas 📣 Diversidad de invitados, cursos precongreso y simposios temáticos: Biogeografía, filogenética, EvoDevo, morfometría, enseñanza de la evolución y mucho más... Más info: lasalle.edu.co/es/viii-simp...
Póster anunciando que las inscripciones para el VIII Simposio Colombiano de Biología Evolutiva están abiertas. Inscripción temprana hasta el 24 de abril.
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Congratulations, well deserved!
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
Does the expected behaviour happen when running the code directly on the R console or Rscript?
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
Include fossils in your phylogenies whenever possible!
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Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
Evolutionary Journal of the Linnean Society @evojlinnsoc.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
RRrrrr, a scientist's best friend. A new package "tbea" has made estimating phylogenies even easier than before, crucial for testing hypotheses in evolutionary biology! Combining fossil, genetic & geological data, this study looked at S American Cynodontidea as an example 👇
doi.org
tbea: tools for pre- and post-processing in Bayesian evolutionary analyses
Abstract. Estimating phylogenies in which branch lengths are expressed in units of absolute time is crucial for testing hypotheses in evolutionary biology.
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
I'm happy to share our latest (and wrap-up) paper from the Genome of Melody project in this special collection on cultural evolution royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article...
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
This earlier thread sounds relevant here bsky.app/profile/gaba...
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
Hello, I'm interested!
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
Thank you to @palaeopercs.bsky.social for inviting me, the talk is already available on YouTube: youtu.be/k-yWOsyF0Jw
youtu.be
Gustavo A. Ballen - Palaeoichthyology and Neogene Palaeogeography of Northern South America
YouTube video by Pal(a)eoPERCS
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
Looking forward to giving this talk. See you all on Tuesday!
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
Congratulations Etka!
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
This outreach talk from last year just came out. Huge thanks to Claudia Solis-Lemus for inviting me to El Zoominario. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qdL...
youtube.com
El Zoominario: How do we tell the time of macroevolution? -- Gustavo Ballen
YouTube video by SolisLemus-lab
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
@rodrigoichthys.bsky.social
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Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
savin dos louvadeus 🦗 @sav.trevastropicais.art.br · 20/09/2025
eu quero SITES das coisas, com contato via e-mail e telefone, especialmente lojas, serviços etc e não perfil de Instagram com preço inbox also quero tutoriais e análises em escrito, que eu possa dar um control f, não em video que tu fica caçando o trecho de 5 segundos que te interessa
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 14/09/2025
Our paper (with @sreinales.bsky.social) finally out today in the Evolutionary Journal of the Linnean Society. It feels like a birthday present 🤪 academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a...
academic.oup.com
tbea: tools for pre- and post-processing in bayesian evolutionary analyses
Abstract. Estimating phylogenies in which branch lengths are expressed in units of absolute time is crucial for testing hypotheses in evolutionary biology.
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
It's not possible to use continuous in MrBayes at the moment despite the confusing information regarding this over the internet (been there some years ago). That's work in progress by Chi Zhang, so eventually it will be available.
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Our latest paper on Farlowella from Colombia in Journal of Fish Biology, the result of the undergrad dissertation by my former student Omar Melo. Supported by @agenciafapesp.bsky.social Universidad Javeriana, Museu de Zoologia da USP, and UNESP Botucatu. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
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Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
Sungsik Kong @sungsik.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
Phylogenetic networks empower biodiversity research | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
Phylogenetic networks empower biodiversity research | PNAS
Reticulate evolution has long been recognized as a key mechanism that contributes to genetic and trait diversity. With the widespread availability ...
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
Colombian palaeontology
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Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
Multifaceted evolution of dental morphology during the diversification of the bat superfamily Noctilionoidea www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
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Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
Andrea Matranga @andreamatranga.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
The tragic landslide in Blatten gives me the excuse to tell you the story of how we found out Ice Ages existed. It's a cool story and the most important bit is rather similar to what's happening now.
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
Fascinating thread! Thank you!
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
💯
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Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 07/05/2025
“Massive numbers of students are going to emerge from university with degrees, and into the workforce, who are essentially illiterate…Both in the literal sense and in the sense of being historically illiterate and having no knowledge of their own culture, much less anyone else’s.”
nymag.com
Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College
ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project.
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Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
Muthukumaran Panchaksaram, PhD @muthubioinfo.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
Happy to share that my PhD paper published in Systematic Biology. My paper explores the #Asymptotictheory of Bayesian rate model selection and explore how misspecified calibrations can affect this. Also test rate model selection with large #Phylogenomes Link below: academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...
academic.oup.com
Bayesian Selection of Relaxed-Clock Models: Distinguishing between Independent and Autocorrelated Rates
Abstract. In Bayesian molecular-clock dating of species divergences, rate models are used to construct the prior on the molecular evolutionary rates for br
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
Ammonite art by the brilliant @jwmorenob.bsky.social who is always happy to take commissions!
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
I'm happy to see my latest preprint out on stratigraphic intervals, a topic I've been interested in since my first year as PhD student. Available in the brand-new StratIntervals.jl (github.com/gaballench/S...) @julialang.org package. Preprint on @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social doi.org/10.1101/2025...
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Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
A flexible Bayesian method for estimating stratigraphic intervals and their co-occurrence in time www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
Fantastic analogy!
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
🙋🏽‍♂️
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 23/12/2024
First time in four years that I don't ☺️
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 23/12/2024
I'm happy to share our latest preprint on fossil fishes from Colombia, which represents the last piece of my PhD thesis that was still to be published. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @agenciafapesp.bsky.social @uspoficial.bsky.social @sbbe.bsky.social #cienciacriolla
biorxiv.org
Fossil Freshwater Fishes from the Pliocene of northern Colombia and the Palaeogeography of northern South America
Freshwater fishes from northern Colombia are reported from the Sincelejo and Ware formations, of Pliocene age. A total of ten taxa have been identified comprising two orders, five families, and nine g...
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 23/12/2024
Gracias!
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 22/12/2024
🙋🏽‍♂️
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Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
bioRxivpreprint @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · 22/12/2024
Fossil Freshwater Fishes from the Pliocene of northern Colombia and the Palaeogeography of northern South America www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
Honoured to have won the prize to best presentation in methods and software at the Congresso Brasileiro de Biologia Evolutiva
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Very excited to see the dissertation of my first undergrad student already available as a preprint (and submitted as well).
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Gustavo A. Ballen @gaballench.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Thank you Michael!
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