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S. Lorena Ament

@loreament.bsky.social
558 followers 391 following 68 posts

Bioinformatician at NBIS, SciLifeLab, Sweden. ---------------------------------------------- Interested in genomics, speciation, reproductive strategies, fungi, and biodiversity. And cats! She/her Views are my own.

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Reposted by S. Lorena Ament
NBIS @nbis.se · 17/08/2026
📢 Registration is now open for the course "R Programming Foundations for Data Analysis"! Beginner course, no prior experience needed. 📅 When: 9-13 November 2026 📍 Where: BMC, Uppsala ⏰ Apply by: 12 October 2026 🔗 Course webpage: training.scilifelab.se/events/r-pro...
training.scilifelab.se
R Programming Foundations for Data Analysis
<p>The course is addressed to individuals with little or no experience in programming but who are enthusiastic about learning how to use R for data analysis and streamline their work.</p> <p>The cour...
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S. Lorena Ament @loreament.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Ciliates biology is totally bananas. Cool paper! #speciation #hybridization #protists www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Breaking the species barrier: recurrent genomic introgressions from very distant lineages in a ciliate
The process of speciation, through which two reproductively isolated species emerge from an ancestral population, is often gradual, including a period during which gene flow still occurs, and hence sp...
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Reposted by S. Lorena Ament
Earth BioGenome Project 🌍 @ebpgenome.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
🧬 The VGP Phase I preprint is out! 🎉 The Vertebrate Genomes Project has completed Phase I, delivering 816 of the highest-quality vertebrate reference genomes ever produced. Explore this major new resource for vertebrate genomics: 📄 tinyurl.com/VGPphase1 @vertebrategenomes.bsky.social #Genomics
Graphic featuring a collage of diverse vertebrates, including a chameleon, sea turtle, frog, whale, bat, duck, axolotl, shark, echidna, salamander, bird, tropical fish, leopard, crocodile, cassowary, clownfish, Komodo dragon, snake and deep-sea fish. Text reads: “A New Milestone for Vertebrate Genomics.” The Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP) has completed Phase I, delivering 816 high-quality reference genomes spanning 95% of vertebrate orders.Underwater photograph of a humpback whale swimming beneath the ocean surface. Text reads: “Why Vertebrates? More than 70,000 vertebrate species inhabit our planet.” High-quality reference genomes help researchers understand evolution, biodiversity, conservation and adaptation.
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billkittle.bsky.social @billkittle.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
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Genome Biology and Evolution @genomebiolevol.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
@loreament.bsky.social & Saupe suggest that fungal NOD-like receptors evolve under diversity-enhancing mechanisms and display selective signatures consistent with a general immune function. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/... #societyjournal #genome #evolution
doi.org
NOD-Like Receptor Genes Undergo Diversity-Enhancing Evolution in a Fungal Species Complex
Abstract. Fungi harbor diverse arrays of genes encoding NOD-like receptors (NLRs), key intracellular immune proteins found in plants, animals, and bacteria
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Reposted by S. Lorena Ament
Mario Vallejo-Marin @nicrodemo.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Last year we took a small amber with a fossil bee to the Oxford synchrotron. Little did we know that it would become a tiny window into the ecology of bees and their mites in the subtropical forests 40 million years ago. @charliezoology.bsky.social @hfspo.bsky.social www.cell.com/iscience/ful...
cell.com
Insights into the ecology of early leaf-cutter bees revealed through synchrotron X-ray tomography
Zoology; Entomology; Evolutionary biology; Paleobiology
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S. Lorena Ament @loreament.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
It's out!! Using population and comparative genomics of Podospora fungi, we show that a class of genes called #NLRs display evolutionary signatures that are consistent with an immune function, much like in plants and animals! 1/n 🍄 #popgen #balancingselection #introgression doi.org/10.1093/gbe/...
doi.org
NOD-Like Receptor Genes Undergo Diversity-Enhancing Evolution in a Fungal Species Complex
Abstract. Fungi harbor diverse arrays of genes encoding NOD-like receptors (NLRs), key intracellular immune proteins found in plants, animals, and bacteria
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S. Lorena Ament @loreament.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
How do fungi distinguish conspecific self from non-self? The genetics of this fascinating topic are plagued with misunderstandings even amongst mycologists. We wrote a review/rant to address this confusion, out now! 🍄 #fungi #allorecognition #HETgenes www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Drawing the line: Clarifying fungal allorecognition from HET domains to het genes to heterokaryon incompatibility
The iconic networks of filamentous fungi are connected through hyphal fusions. While fusion is beneficial among hyphae from the same fungal individual…
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James McInerney @jomcinerney.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
I’ve seen trees you people wouldn’t believe. Deep branches collapsing off the shoulder of a saturated site, unresolved. I watched long-branch attraction glitter in the dark near the root of the Archaea. All those topologies will be lost in time… like tips in a polytomy.
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FeM - Funghi e Micologia @funghimicologia.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
NOD-like receptor genes undergo diversity-enhancing evolution in a fungal species complex academic.oup.com/gbe/advance-...
academic.oup.com
NOD-like receptor genes undergo diversity-enhancing evolution in a fungal species complex
Abstract. Fungi harbor diverse arrays of genes encoding NOD-like receptors (NLRs), key intracellular immune proteins found in plants, animals, and bacteria
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S. Lorena Ament @loreament.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Ugh #pangenome #bioinformatics #genomics
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Henry Arenas-Castro @henryarenas.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
Applications to the Gordon Research Seminar in Speciation are now open! We encourage PhD students & postdocs from all geographies, backgrounds, disciplines to APPLY! This 2d seminar in beautiful Lucca 🇮🇹 will be followed by a 5d conference open to the broader community. www.grc.org/speciation-g...
Screenshot of the registration page of the Gordon Research Seminar in Speciation 2027 at Lucca, Italy
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PLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · 08/07/2026
#Mosquito gene drives for #malaria control can be undermined by rare, hard to detect genetic resistance alleles. This study by @ioannamor.bsky.social @drew-hammond.bsky.social &co reveals how #CRISPR resistance emerges and how to overcome it, advancing vector control 🧪 #AcademicSky plos.io/3R0ggEQ
A photograph of an intersex An. gambiae mosquito bearing a Cas9-induced mutation collected in an Eppendorf tube for further analysis. Image credit to Ioanna Morianou.
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S. Lorena Ament @loreament.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Me trying to run minigraph-cactus to be like the cool pangenome kids #Pangenome #genomics
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Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra @jrossibarra.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
I talked about this at PEQG a few weeks ago. In addition to github.com/RILAB/argprep (preps your genome assemblies for SINGER), argtest github.com/RILAB/argtest does some QC to clean up an ARG estimated with SINGER.
unfolded sis before (left) and after (right) argtest. still an imperfect fit, but a much better fit to intermediate frequency polymorphismsbefore (left) and after (right) running argtest simulated (y) and observed (x) diversity from the ARG. argtest removed a bunch of outliers where there was much higher diversity than expected (lower right corner, lefthand plot)screenshot of part of the html summary of argtest showing parameter choices, how much of the ARG is retained, and how each sample faredcomparison of derived mutation count per individual before (left) and after (right) running argtest. on the right the overall mutation rate is still off by a bit, but the real data tracks the expectation from the ARG much better
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bioRxiv Genetics @biorxiv-genetic.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
Genetic Association of Somatic Incompatibility and NLR-like Protein Domains in Coprinopsis cinerea www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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ERGA - European Reference Genome Atlas @ergabiodiv.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
ERGA member Merce Montoliu Nerin @mmontonerin.bsky.social will present @official-smbe.bsky.social June 29 in session "L04 – Understanding adaptive evolution through the lens of hologenomics" #SMBE2026
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bioRxiv Genomics @biorxiv-genomic.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
kmerRRR: A k-mer based tool for functional genomics in Repeat Rich Regions www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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S. Lorena Ament @loreament.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
"Enabling the prediction of phage receptor specificity from genome data" #genomics #immunity #bacteria #viruses www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Enabling the prediction of phage receptor specificity from genome data
Predicting which receptor a phage binds to from genome sequence alone has remained an intractable challenge, principally because the experimental phenotypic data required to train and validate predict...
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Reposted by S. Lorena Ament
Björn Usadel @usadellab.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
1/8 What if the genomic features we associate with fungal pathogens were also used by mutualists? We assembled 41 scale lichen genomes across 11 Peltigera species with 30 chromosome scale and 5 T2T revealing an unexpected genomic toolkit behind lichen symbiosis. doi.org/10.64898/202... #lichen
doi.org
A chromosome-scale super-pangenome of the lichen genus Peltigera reveals genome architecture and expanded interaction repertoires shared across pathogenic and mutualistic fungi
Fungi engage in associations with other organisms across a continuum from pathogenic to mutualistic lifestyles. Hence, they require a compendium of molecular capacities, including partner recognition,...
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Seána Duggan @seanaduggan.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
🗞️New Paper🗞️ We show that #Candida & #Staph cooperate via copper handling - with fungal copper uptake & bacterial copper export shaping the community. @mrccmm.bsky.social @microbiologysociety.org @universityofexeter.bsky.social www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...
microbiologyresearch.org
Copper-driven mutualism of Candida albicans and Staphylococcus aureus interkingdom biofilms
Although fungi and bacteria commonly co-exist within polymicrobial communities, the molecular mechanisms underlying their interactions are still not well understood. Here, we show that the fungus Cand...
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S. Lorena Ament @loreament.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
"Unifying Repbase and Dfam: a new open foundation for transposable element research" #genomics #transposons link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
Unifying Repbase and Dfam: a new open foundation for transposable element research - Mobile DNA
Repbase and Dfam, the two foundational resources for transposable element annotation, are being unified into a single, fully open access framework, with Repbase released under CC-0 and its core curati...
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Reposted by S. Lorena Ament
Aylwyn Scally @aylwyn-scally.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
This very interesting paper shows the degree to which speciation research is now dominated by genomic approaches, and argues (among other things) that since it's an unreliable way to measure reproductive isolation (RI), we should place less emphasis on it. academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a...
academic.oup.com
The identity crisis of speciation genomics
Abstract. Understanding how reproductive isolation (RI) evolves remains a central goal of speciation research. Quantifying RI is challenging, and researche
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bioRxiv Plant Bio @biorxiv-plants.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Reproductive isolation emerges from coordinated barriers during mating system divergence in plants www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Team Thomma @teamthomma.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Where do plant pathogen effectors come from? @mesny.bsky.social shows how fungi turned shield 🛡️ into sword ⚔️ to end up with dual-function molecules to disrupt host immunity & protective host microbiota. @ceplas.bsky.social @mibinet.bsky.social @madfungi.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Plant-associated fungi co-opt ancient antimicrobials for host manipulation
Fungal effectors may have evolved from ancient antimicrobials, shaping plant microbiota and immunity during infection.
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Danve Castroverde @danvec.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
Incorporating genetic load contributes to predicting Arabidopsis thaliana’s response to climate change @naturecomms.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Incorporating genetic load contributes to predicting Arabidopsis thaliana’s response to climate change - Nature Communications
Genetic load is often overlooked in conservation predictions of species response to climate change. This study found that effective population size was the major determinant of genetic load and that g...
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S. Lorena Ament @loreament.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
I'm finding this little pipeline to get trees out of BUSCO runs quite convenient #phylogenomics github.com/jamiemcg/BUS...
github.com
GitHub - jamiemcg/BUSCO_phylogenomics: BUSCO_Phylogenomics | Pipeline to construct species phylogenies using BUSCO proteins
BUSCO_Phylogenomics | Pipeline to construct species phylogenies using BUSCO proteins - jamiemcg/BUSCO_phylogenomics
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Andrew Rambaut (🐏🎀) @arambaut.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
The first version of FigTree was released nearly 20 years ago and it is still widely used (including by me). But there are currently 85 issues on the GitHub repo (github.com/rambaut/figt...) and some of them I don’t really like the look of.
github.com
rambaut/figtree
Automatically exported from code.google.com/p/figtree - rambaut/figtree
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The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR) @tairnews.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
"TAIR 12 is here!" Read more here: arabidopsis.org/news/breaking-news#… #News
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PLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · 20/02/2026
Plasmids use immune systems like #CRISPR-Cas to compete with other #plasmids, but do these systems confer an advantage? @davvi36.bsky.social &co show that CRISPR-Cas benefits resident plasmids but is constrained by toxin-antitoxin systems after horizontal transfer @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4qNbdDt
Mathematical modeling predicts that CRISPR-Cas has a greater potential to benefit its plasmid in defence than in offense. Structure of the mathematical model when a CRISPR-Cas plasmid is the resident (left) or the invader plasmid (right). The authors consider seven distinct cell types: C (CRISPR-Cas bearing) and T (TA-bearing) plasmids reside in host cells; CT denotes a C cell that has been invaded by a T plasmid and vice versa; Cr* and Ci* cells have undergone segregational loss of a T plasmid, and the fate of PSK is not yet resolved; PSK cells are dead cells after post-segregational killing. When the plasmids co-reside, they are subject to basic biological parameter s (segregational loss). CRISPR-Cas and TA alter parameter s by their own modes of action x and y, respectively. Parameter f describes the positive effect PSK cells have on growth of nearby cells, where fr describes the benefit to cells containing the previously resident plasmid. All parameters adopt distinct values when their respective plasmids are resident (r) or invasive (i).
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S. Lorena Ament @loreament.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
🐟💃
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S. Lorena Ament @loreament.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
So I did something a bit different :). Thrilled to see this fun project out! 🐟 #genomics "Female-biased sex ratios despite stable genetic sex determination across a climatic gradient in a marine fish" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
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S. Lorena Ament @loreament.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
I submitted this ms to a journal about a 1.5 months ago, and the status remains "Awaiting Referee Assignment". The editor says they are struggling to find a second reviewer... Are these waiting times normal? Should I offer a fresh list of potential reviewers or is that inappropriate? 💔 #postdoclife
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Charlotte Wright @charlottewright.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
Are you excited about pangenomics? If so, join us in Edinburgh on 8-9th June to discuss the latest methods & insights from using these approaches across biodiversity! More details here: royalsociety.org/science-even... Organised together with @henrylnorth.bsky.social & @joanameier.bsky.social!
royalsociety.org
Pangenomics transforms evolutionary biology | Royal Society
This Theo Murphy meeting organised by Dr Joana Meier, Dr Henry North and Dr Charlotte Wright, will showcase cutting-edge pangenome tools, applied uses of pangenomes which are transforming health and a...
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S. Lorena Ament @loreament.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
Would you say that Neurospora crassa is declining as a model organism for fungal biology? 💛 No way, that orange fun-guy is alive and well! 🔴 Yeah, not so many people work with it nowadays ... 🔵 Neuro-who? 📅 Ends: December 31, 2025, 10:03 PM UTC 📊 Show results
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Dr. Arun Sethuraman @arunsethuraman.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Whoop! New preprint has dropped - led by the amazing @trevormugoya.bsky.social. We developed a SV-calling and benchmarking platform called SaVor and test it on 1,165 Arabidopsis thaliana short read whole genomes. Do check out the paper, and try SaVor on your own data: github.com/ChabbyTMD/Sa...
github.com
GitHub - ChabbyTMD/SaVor: A flexible snakemake structural variant calling workflow.
A flexible snakemake structural variant calling workflow. - ChabbyTMD/SaVor
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bioRxiv Genomics @biorxiv-genomic.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
A recent shift in centromere size and DNA content in Podospora pseudocomata co-occurs with the loss of a fungal genome defense system www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Cecile Lorrain @ccilelorrain.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
Our paper on Zymoseptoria tritici 3D genome organization is officially out! @iglavincheska.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
Three-dimensional genome architecture connects chromatin structure and function in a major wheat pathogen - BMC Biology
Background Genome spatial organization plays a fundamental role in biological function across all domains of life. While the principles of nuclear architecture have been well-characterized in animals ...
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Aditi Merchant @adititm.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
What if we could autocomplete DNA based on function? Today in @Nature, we share semantic design—a strategy for function-guided design with genomic language models that leverages genomic context to create de novo genes and systems with desired functions. 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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S. Lorena Ament @loreament.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
"When the female bugs lay their eggs, they rub the cultivated hyphae across the egg mass. The hyphae grow to envelope the eggs and physically exclude attentive parasitoid wasps until the bugs hatch." #fungi #symbiosis
science.org
Defensive fungal symbiosis on insect hindlegs
Dinidorid stinkbugs were reported to possess a conspicuous tympanal organ on female hindlegs. In this study, we show that this organ is specialized to retain microbial symbionts rather than to perceiv...
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S. Lorena Ament @loreament.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
Wow O_o
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Hadley Wickham @hadley.nz · 06/11/2025
Do you teach #rstats? Do your students complain about how lame and old-fashioned dplyr is? Don't worry: I have the solution for you: github.com/hadley/genzp.... genzplyr is dplyr, but bussin fr fr no cap.
github.com
GitHub - hadley/genzplyr: dplyr but make it bussin fr fr no cap
dplyr but make it bussin fr fr no cap. Contribute to hadley/genzplyr development by creating an account on GitHub.
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S. Lorena Ament @loreament.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
Our paper was included in the Collection "Microbial Genomics of Eukaryotes" from the @microbiologysociety.org 🧬 😁 #genomics #longreadsequencing www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/micr...
microbiologyresearch.org
Microbial Genomics of Eukaryotes | Microbiology Society
With technological advances like single-cell sequencing and long-read sequence techniques continually improving, allowing the full resolution of increasingly complex highly repetitive genomes, and wit...
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S. Lorena Ament @loreament.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
O.o "From genotype to phenotype with 1,086 near telomere-to-telomere yeast genomes" | Nature share.google/IAaPSj5t9OvQ... #pangenome #fungi #yeast
share.google
From genotype to phenotype with 1,086 near telomere-to-telomere yeast genomes - Nature
A newly compiled atlas of species-wide structural variants and gene-based and graph pangenomes derived from highly complete assemblies of genomes from 1,086 natural isolates enable integrative genome-...
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Francis M. Martin @fmartin54.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
A timetree of Fungi dated with fossils and horizontal gene transfers www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
A timetree of Fungi dated with fossils and horizontal gene transfers - Nature Ecology & Evolution
Combining fossil-based and molecular calibrations with data on horizontal gene transfer events, the authors develop a time-calibrated phylogeny of Fungi. This timescale, which integrates analytic uncertainties, suggests an older age of crown Fungi (1,401–896 million years ago), as well as a minimum age for ancient interactions involving fungi and the algal ancestors of embryophytes in terrestrial ecosystems (1,253–797 Ma).
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S. Lorena Ament @loreament.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
Wooo!
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Ingrid Olivares @ingridolivares.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
How do species diverge? Could the relative immobility of plants increase their likelihood of speciating in the same place?🧵
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Camille Roux @crouxevo.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
Hybridization and introgression are major evolutionary processes. Since the 1940s, the prevailing view has been that they shape plants far more than animals. In our new study (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... ), we find the opposite: animals exchange genes more, and for longer, than plants
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S. Lorena Ament @loreament.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
"Rapid establishment of species barriers in plants compared with that in animals" by Monnet et al #Speciation www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Rapid establishment of species barriers in plants compared with that in animals
Speciation, the process by which new reproductively isolated species emerge from ancestral populations, results from the gradual accumulation of barriers to gene flow within genomes. To date, the noti...
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S. Lorena Ament @loreament.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
mRNA A-to-I editing in vegetative cells of Fusarium #fungionsky #fungi #epigenetics link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
Hyphal editing of the conserved premature stop codon in CHE1 is stimulated by oxidative stress in Fusarium graminearum - Stress Biology
Although genome-wide A-to-I editing mediated by adenosine-deaminase-acting-on-tRNA (ADAT) occurs during sexual reproduction in the presence of stage-specific cofactors, RNA editing is not known to occ...
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