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Dr. Makenzie Mabry @makenziemabryphd.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

📢 Call for abstracts! PAG 34 is coming to San Diego JAN 8–12 2027! 🧬🌱 We’re organizing five interconnected sessions: • Domestication Genomics • Ancient DNA • Comparative Genomics – Animals • One Health Hologenomics • Wildlife Genomics Submit your abstract by *October 9*: forms.gle/EgwFCVyxaf7R...

forms.gle

PAG 2027 Abstract Submission: Ancient DNA, Domestication Genomics, Comparative Genomics of Animals, Wildlife Genomics, One Health Hologenomics

****DEADLINE: FRIDAY OCTOBER 9, 2026**** This is the abstract submission form for the following PAG 34 workshops: Paleogenomics and Degraded DNA Domestication Genomics Comparative Genomics of Animals...

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Dr. Makenzie Mabry @makenziemabryphd.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

What’s scarier than a plant that eats insects? 🎃🪰 A bunch of unrelated plants evolving to do it independently! Carnivorous plants are one of the coolest examples of convergent evolution. 🌱 Check it out with Dr. Doug Soltis👇 youtube.com/shorts/Ntfk0...

youtube.com

The Tree Of Life: Carnivorous Plants

YouTube video by LabX

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Dr. Makenzie Mabry @makenziemabryphd.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

#Jackie, the Big Bear bald eagle 💔🦅, got me thinking: who is more closely related to her, a hawk or a falcon? The answer might surprise you, because appearances can be deceiving when it comes to the Tree of Life. Check it out 👇 youtube.com/shorts/DdHnQ...

youtube.com

The Tree Of Life: Falcons & Hawks

YouTube video by LabX

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Dr. Makenzie Mabry @makenziemabryphd.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Bacteria, its all around you! 🦠🧫 Learn more from the Tree of Life with Dr. Doug Soltis! youtube.com/shorts/_LUvq...

youtube.com

The Tree Of Life: Bacterial World

YouTube video by LabX

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Dr. Makenzie Mabry @makenziemabryphd.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

What do elephants and manatees have in common? 🐘🌊 They don’t look much alike, but they’re actually close evolutionary relatives. Sometimes evolutionary relationships can be surprising. Check it out with Dr. Doug Soltis👇 youtube.com/shorts/IFJpV...

youtube.com

The Tree Of Life: Elephants & Manatees

YouTube video by LabX

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Dr. Makenzie Mabry @makenziemabryphd.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

How are 2.4 billion species on Earth related? 🌳🧬 That’s where the Tree of Life comes in. Check out more with Dr. Doug Soltis! 👇 youtube.com/shorts/Rdliz...

youtube.com

The Tree Of Life: What is it?

YouTube video by LabX

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Karolina Heyduk @kheyduk.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

Anna has some cool results from a pretty bonkers hybrid system - hit her up if you're looking for a speaker in your PAG workshop!

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Dr. Makenzie Mabry @makenziemabryphd.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

Any folks interested in giving a talk at PAG in the 5 interconnected sessions on #Domestication, #AncientDNA, #AnimalComparativeGenomics, #OneHealthHologenomics, #WildlifeGenomics? Please submit an abstract here! Let me know if you have any questions!

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Dr. Makenzie Mabry @makenziemabryphd.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

We hope that these open educational resources can be useful to those who work with natural history collections! There are four modules that this paper walks through. All modules are available on QUBES HUB :https://qubeshub.org/community/groups/bceenet/teaching_resources

qubeshub.org

BCEENET- Biological Collections in Ecology & Evolution Network: Teaching Resources

QUBES Hub - The Power of Biology, Math, and Community

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Karolina Heyduk @kheyduk.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

Our "Joshua tree is CAM" paper is finally out: nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Data collection started back in 2021, when we saw weird results in some RNAseq that made me stop and wonder if Joshua trees, long thought to be C3, were actually...CAM!

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Cryptic CAM photosynthesis in Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia, Y. jaegeriana)

Joshua trees are long-lived perennial monocots native to the Mojave Desert in North America. Composed of two species, Yucca brevifolia and Y. jaegeriana (Asparagaceae), Joshua trees are imperiled by...

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Shelly Gaynor @shellygaynor.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Next up, JT Miller - a phd student in the @soltislab.bsky.social talking about occupancy models in the #Botany2025 soltis lab workshop.

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Shelly Gaynor @shellygaynor.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

And the last of the #Botany2025 with @soltislab.bsky.social

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Shelly Gaynor @shellygaynor.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

Only three more talks left - first, Elizabeth White, a phd candidate from the @soltislab.bsky.social, presenting on post-enm analysis at the #Botany2025 Soltis lab workshop

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Shelly Gaynor @shellygaynor.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

Starting back up at the Soltis lab #Botany2025 workshop with postdoc @makenziemabryphd.bsky.social

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Shelly Gaynor @shellygaynor.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

Sebastian Fernandez, a soltis lab undergrad (who is about to graduate), presenting on ecological niche modeling in the @soltislab.bsky.social #Botany2025 workshop. Check out his poster with @makenziemabryphd.bsky.social tomorrow!

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Shelly Gaynor @shellygaynor.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

Next up, Tyler Radtke, who just finished his BS, on null models at the #Botany2025 @soltislab.bsky.social workshop! Tyler is part of the PLANTs program this year and has a poster with @makenziemabryphd.bsky.social tomorrow!

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Shelly Gaynor @shellygaynor.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

Undergrad Sydney Barfus now presenting on data exploration and environmental variables at the @soltislab.bsky.social #Botany2025 workshop! See her poster with @makenziemabryphd.bsky.social tomorrow!

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Shelly Gaynor @shellygaynor.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

Packed room for the @soltislab.bsky.social #Botany2025 workshop. If you cannot make it, all the resources can be found here: github.com/soltislab/Bo...

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Shelly Gaynor @shellygaynor.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

Sarah Ellen Strickland, a first year PhD student in @soltislab.bsky.social, now presenting on Georeferencing herbarium records at the #Botany2025 lab workshop!

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Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand @wikimediaaotearoa.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

2023 Wikimedia Laureate and WANZ member @siobhanleachman.bsky.social collaborated with @makenziemabryphd.bsky.social from the Florida Museum of Natural History to produce these resources, designed to introduce Wikidata to students, and how it can be used to highlight hidden figures.

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Dr. Makenzie Mabry @makenziemabryphd.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

I know!! I already miss you!! We will find more projects, I am sure!

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Dr. Makenzie Mabry @makenziemabryphd.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

Soo excited to read this one!! Congrats!!!

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Bionomia @bionomia.net · 09/12/2024

Working on laboratory exercises for next semester? Find links to the excellent "Revealing Hidden Figures" @bceenet.bsky.social teaching modules at bionomia.net/help developed by @siobhanleachman.bsky.social @makenziemabryphd.bsky.social and their co-authors.

Screenshot of references to three teaching exercises for instructors in biological collections.

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Wayne Maddison @waynemaddison.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

A new method for trimming alignments in #phylogenomics — PhyIN. It identifies and trims regions with high phylogenetic discord. Able to trim well even on single loci — an advantage for gene tree/species tree studies. #evolbiol #phylogeny 🧪http://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.18504 Some backstory... 🧵

doi.org

PhyIN: trimming alignments by phylogenetic incompatibilities among neighbouring sites

In phylogenomics, regions of low alignment reliability and high noise are typically trimmed from multiple sequence alignments before they are used in phylogenetic inference. I introduce a new trimming...

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Paulina Arancibia @pauliarancibia.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

I created this stater pack with women in ecology and evolution. If you want to be added you can comment or DM me, but also please suggest the names of those I am missing 🧪🌎🌐 go.bsky.app/8jFH7cS

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Jevon Carey @jevoncarey.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Two of the many standing stones that encircle the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, one of my favourite places to visit. #photography #blackandwhitephotography #antiquity #standingstones

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Paul Blischak @pblischak.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

Hello Bluesky! I’m Paul, a Data Scientist and Computational Geneticist. I love programming, analyzing data, and building software tools – which means I spend a lot of my time battling bugs, but even more time battling my cat’s desire to sit on my keyboard

Cat standing on laptop keyboard, asking cheekily for treats.

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Dr. Makenzie Mabry @makenziemabryphd.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

🥦 Hi! I’m Makenzie, and I study plant biodiversity, focusing on wild relatives of crops in the Brassica family—think cabbages, mustards, and leafy greens. My research explores how these plants adapt to diverse and often challenging environments, revealing insights into resilience and survival. (1/9)

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R. Shawn Abrahams (They/Them) @youngeukaryote.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

This work was funded by a COVID-19 delayed grant from National Geographic written with Makenzie Mabry & our PhD advisor @jchrispires.bsky.social. Even though we all scattered to the wind following the pandemic, following up on such exciting work has been great! #TeamBrassica

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R. Shawn Abrahams (They/Them) @youngeukaryote.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

The plants we found were often connected to human habitation. They appeared as weeds in gardens, like Zilla spinosa, or as volunteers in farmers’ fields, where the centuries-old practice of community-coordinated groundwater extraction from oases sustains them and their cousin Brassica oleraceae.

Researcher R. Shawn Abrahams, crouched, attaching a Licor 6400 to a Zilla spinosa volunteer in the pea garden of a local Moroccan hotel.

View of an irrigated oasis field in southern Morocco with leafy "collard greens" planted throughout and date palms in the background.

Under the canopy of an irrigated oasis palm grove, with a clear view of the pools of water that are filled in around the base of the palms .

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R. Shawn Abrahams (They/Them) @youngeukaryote.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

To observe this otherwise hidden photosynthetic phenotype, we brought a Licor 6400 to the desert to measure photosynthetic efficiency. Unfortunately, due to an earlier drought, many plants had already activated their avoidance strategies, so we missed the opportunity to observe and measure them.

The Licor 6400 photosynthesis measurement tool is balanced on its carrying case so as to attach to the leaf of a Moricandia suffruticosa that is growing out of the rock wall of a drainage ditch.

A dry, dead or dormant plant of the tribe Brassiceae, identified from dried fruit silique, sits amongst stones in a desert landscape.

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R. Shawn Abrahams (They/Them) @youngeukaryote.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

Some utilize avoidance strategies, like those that go dormant or completely disappear from the landscape, relying on a resilient seed bed to avoid the harshest conditions. Others have evolved a photosynthetic tolerance strategy hidden from the naked eye, allowing them to persist.

The rocky desert landscape of southern Morocco pointed towards a cliff side dotted with little desert plants, primarily brown and dry but a few vibrant greens despite the conditions.

A sandy desert landscape in southern Morocco with brown plants sticking up through the dunes.

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R. Shawn Abrahams (They/Them) @youngeukaryote.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

When people think of the Sahara, they rarely consider the plants or realize how close a thorny desert shrub is to their favorite leafy greens. My field partner, Makenzie Mabry, and I traveled to Morocco with Abderrahim Ouarghidi to uncover the secrets of these desert-adapted Brassiceae species.

Researchers Makenzie Mabry (Left), R. Shawn Abrahams (Middle), and Abderrahim Ouarghidi (right) in the Moroccan desert in search of local plant species.

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R. Shawn Abrahams (They/Them) @youngeukaryote.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

Hi new folks! I'm Shawn. My research utilizes a combination of systems biology, systematics, and comparative genomics to understand trait evolution in plants. My current work took me to the northern Sahara in search of desert-adapted wild relatives of Brassica crops (🥦🧪). Here's how it went:

Afro-Caribbean researcher R. Shawn Abrahams in the Moroccan desert, measuring the photosynthetic capacity of the plant Moricandia suffruticose, a relative of Brassica crop plants like Broccoli.

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