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Katie Abson

@katieabson.bsky.social
90 followers 45 following 2 posts

PhD student at the University of Edinburgh interested in evolutionary biology and quantitative genetics 🥾🧬🌻

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Katie Abson @katieabson.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Our paper is out! 📣 we find that molecular measures of genetic variation do not predict heritable genetic variation across species - important implications for the application of genomic data for conservation! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
Nucleotide diversity is a poor predictor of short-term adaptive potential | PNAS
The capacity to adapt is essential for a population to avoid extinction in a changing world and is recognized as a global conservation priority. Ad...
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Reposted by Katie Abson
PLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · 19/06/2026
How do species differ in their ability to #adapt to environmental change? This study by Lillith Zijmers, Adam Eyre-Walker &co estimates #evolvability from over 170 multicellular species, revealing that #plants exhibit greater adaptive potential than animals. 🧪#AcademicSky plos.io/4vk2TON
The predicted evolvability from the authors' model for a linear, morphological trait estimated from a wild population for each species, plotted across the phylogeny with their 95% credible intervals. Evolvability estimates for plants are higher than for other groups.
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Reposted by Katie Abson
Susan Johnston @susanjohnston.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
📣🧬 Postdoc Alert🧬📣 We are hiring a 2+ year NERC-funded postdoc at Edinburgh Uni investigating causes and consequences of sex differences in recombination in house sparrows in Norway. Informal enquiries welcome at Susan.Johnston@ed.ac.uk 🙂 Details here: elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
A female and male sparrow stand on a wooden post. Photo by Peter S. Ranke.
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Reposted by Katie Abson
Lilli @lillithzij.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
I’m excited to share that our preprint is now available on bioRxiv. We show that levels of additive genetic variation differ systematically among species, with plants in our data exhibiting significantly higher evolvability than animals. doi.org/10.64898/202...
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Katie Abson @katieabson.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
I'm excited to share that our preprint is now available on bioRxiv! Our study challenges the widespread use of molecular genetic diversity as a predictor adaptive potential, with important implications for how genetic data is used to inform conservation decisions. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Nucleotide diversity is a poor predictor of short-term adaptive potential
A capacity to adapt is essential for a population to avoid extinction in a changing world and is recognised as a global conservation priority. Adaptation requires additive (heritable) genetic variatio...
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