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Nico Mongiardino Koch

@nmkphylo.bsky.social
264 followers 397 following 64 posts

Asst prof of phylogenetics at Colorado State University. Deep-time evolutionary biology, from genomes to fossils 🇦🇷 www.nmkphylo.com

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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I am looking for graduate students to join my lab in Fall 2027. If your interests lie within the realms of phylogenetics, macroevolution, and/or invertebrate biodiversity please reach out to me!!
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I think that most people would agree that Paleognathae emerges from a basal node, but that doesn’t make it a basal clade. Basal as in “close to the base/root” of a tree doesn’t describe correctly any clade that reaches the present, and thus has members that are as far away from the root as possible
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I received @caseywdunn.bsky.social’s in the mail today!
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
static.klipy.com
Young David Gilmour of Pink Floyd
ALT: Young David Gilmour of Pink Floyd
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
The PROGressive PHYLOgenetics LAB is now officially open and I'm looking to hire at all levels!! If you are interested in phylogenetics and macroevolution, and enjoy any/all of the following: fossils, morphology, genomics, simulations, or method development, please reach out to me :)
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Sean McMahon @seanhmcmahon.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
🚨Cover reveal🚨: My first non-academic book: How to Find a Martian: A Fossil Hunter's Guide to the Red Planet. Published Spring 2027 by @oneworldbooks.bsky.social (UK/Ireland/Commonwealth, this cover) and @uchicagopress.bsky.social (North America, other cover). 100% human-authored!
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Casey Dunn @caseywdunn.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
My new book, Phylogenetic Biology, is now published. Available online for free at dunnlab.org/phylogenetic... . Physical copies can be purchased at shop.lightningsource.com/b/085?params... or your favorite bookstore.
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Two weeks ago was my last first day of school! Very grateful to be here 😊
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Hernán @hernanhvm.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
Is that Bayesian time of the year in #sistematicaunam @unam when we use the pain of non-convergence @nmkphylo.bsky.social experienced some years ago, that make for a great cautionary tale on parametric #phylogenetics
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
😆 only now seeing this I’m glad that my Bayesian pain is other people’s Bayesian gain
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
Weirdly enough, that skull seems to be from Aenigmatorhynchus and corresponds to a paper published last June (doi.org/10.1098/rsos...). The journal seems to collect potential cover images from authors and then use them for an unrelated volume published later on
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
When I started my PhD ~10 years ago, only 2/5 echinoderm groups (the star-shaped sea stars and brittle stars) had genome-scale phylogenetic datasets. I am proud to say that the quest to complete the clade is now over doi.org/10.1098/rsos...
doi.org
Phylogenomics of extant Crinoidea (Echinodermata) reveals extensive morphological homoplasies and a Permian origin
Abstract. Crinoids have Ordovician origins and are unique among living echinoderms in their attachment to the substrate. Most diversity is within Comatulid
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 19/01/2026
Becoming a part of the @systbiol.bsky.social community is one of my greatest scientific achievements. I am happy to celebrate this today with a journal cover and a nomination to the editorial team
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 11/10/2025
Spring is here
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Reposted by Nico Mongiardino Koch
Tiago Simões @trsimoes.bsky.social · 28/09/2025
Our latest paper, now how to conciliate apparently discrepant evolutionary rate patterns in squamates, but which may well apply to any study system with Stephanie Pierce and @7brumas.bsky.social #macroevolution academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...
academic.oup.com
Evolutionary rate incongruences in squamates reveal contrasting patterns of evolutionary novelties and innovation
Abstract. Understanding the rate of phenotypic evolution can reveal fundamental aspects of organismal evolutionary trajectories. Hence, several studies hav
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Reposted by Nico Mongiardino Koch
Alessio Capobianco @acapomorphic.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
I am extremely happy to see that our review on fossil tip-dating is out in early view in Systematic Biology! A huge thanks to all the authors of this massive project (@heckeberg.bsky.social, @basantakhakurel.bsky.social, Gustavo Darlim, and @hoehna.bsky.social)! academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
Seeing these after laying down the first volume of Fabre’s Souvenirs entomologiques, devoted to the rearing behavior of predatory wasps, was a treat. Thanks for sharing Marshall!
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
I use it all the time, along with mean()
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Palaeoverse @palaeoverse.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
🚨Palaeoverse Lecture Series🚨 🗓️25th September 2025, 15:00 UTC🗓️ Join us next week to hear from @nmkphylo.bsky.social and @russellgarwood.co.uk, on “The Tree of Life and Death: What do Fossil Taxa Contribute to Morphological Phylogenetics?” 🌳🐣⚰️ Register here: bit.ly/palaeoverse-...
Flyer for the next instalment of the Palaeoverse Lecture Series. The flyer features a yellow cartoon trilobite, and pictures of Drs. Mongiardino Koch and Garwood. Mongiardino Koch wears a grey t-shirt and glasses, while Garwood wears a white shirt and is holding a glass trophy.
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
Today I learned the (very) hard way that R will tell you a file does not exist even when it totally does if the path to it exceeds 260 characters (in Windows) (and you can enable long paths, but it is not the default)
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
I will forever despise whoever named some closely related echinoid genera with a name starting with “Paleo” and others with a name starting with “Palaeo”
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 29/06/2025
A Sunday reading Fabre’s “Souvenirs entomologiques” by the fireplace is a Sunday well spent
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Actually, I got it wrong, it is -3. I was going with alternating between subtracting -2 - (i - 1)/2 and adding 1, where i is the iteration
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Following the sequence would make state 5 = -4 median eyes
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
A student once asked me why wasn’t I using which.min(x) instead of which(x == min(x)) and I pretended it was for pedagogical purposes
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
Congratulations James! That’s outstanding
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
And this breakthrough required only.. how many months in Berlin??
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Palaeoverse @palaeoverse.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
🚨Palaeoverse Lecture Series🚨 It’s time to announce our Summer 2025 talk schedule 👀 Looking forward to hearing from @spissatella.bsky.social, @sauropodlets.bsky.social, @nmkphylo.bsky.social and @russellgarwood.co.uk! Sign up here: bit.ly/palaeoverse-lecture-series-2025
A flyer for the Palaeoverse Lecture Series for Summer 2025
June 26th - Dr Katie Collins, Natural History Museum
“Both round and upward: Spiral morphometry and how to compare things that are the same, but different”
July 31st - Summer break
August 28th - Amy Shipley, University of Leeds
“Modelling ancient food webs: ecosystem changes across the Pliocene marine megafaunal extinction”
September 25th - Dr Nicolás Mongiardino Koch, UC San Diego and Dr Russell Garwood, University of Manchester
“The Tree of Life and Death: What do fossil taxa contribute to morphological phylogenetics?”
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
Yeah, it is true that the result deviates from the expectations of ordering variables/observations. If the matrix format that sapply outputs isn’t convenient you can use lapply instead, or you can just transpose it
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
I think this is because you are not supposed to use sapply on matrices. If you do it probably gets coerced into a data.frame, whose elements are the columns. Anyways, not long ago I discovered asplit() which is pretty handy when needing the flexibility to work across either margin
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
Sleep Token is horny metal?? 😆 @brenenwynd.bsky.social what are your thoughts on this?
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
media.tenor.com
a cartoon skeleton wearing a police uniform and tie
ALT: a cartoon skeleton wearing a police uniform and tie
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
Redefining music 25 years after your debut album is something that was probably done only once
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Dr. Bethany Allen @bethanyjallen.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
📢 Tired of choosing between fossils to incorporate into your phylogenetic analysis? Us too. 💥 Check out our new preprint on incorporating stratigraphic ranges into the FBD model, implemented in BEAST2. We explore how using ranges affects the inference of dog 🐶 and penguin 🐧 trees 🌳
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
She’s never worn fake eyelashes in her whole life
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Santiago Claramunt @sclaramunt.bsky.social · 16/11/2024
I'm recruiting a PhD student to join my lab at the University of New Orleans starting in Fall 2025. Research topics will focus on building and using phylogenies to study the diversification of birds, with an emphasis on Neotropical bird radiations. Contact me if interested.
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
Great news!! Congrats 🥳
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Luke Parry @cambriannelids.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
I finally have something worth posting here! A new paper on wormsI never expected to see fossilised! Juracanthocephalus is the first body fossil of Acanthocephala and remarkably provides links with rotifers and other gnathiferans. Published in @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
A Jurassic acanthocephalan illuminates the origin of thorny-headed worms - Nature
An acanthocephalan body fossil, Juracanthocephalus daohugouensis, is described from the Middle Jurassic Daohugou biota of China, showing previously unrecognized diversity in ancient Acanthocephal...
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
The Malvinas War erupted 43 years ago. Its memory remains to this day alive in every corner
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
Ahh the smell of fresh reviews in the morning
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
Check out my interview with @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social for some thoughts on phylogenies, uncertainty, and the complexities of life as a scientist
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
Oh no, this is 100% a true story
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 22/03/2025
media.tenor.com
a man with a mustache is saying thank you .
ALT: a man with a mustache is saying thank you .
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
Great ambient music, terrible phylogeny, highly uncertain ancestral state
youtu.be
Leken
YouTube video by Henrik Lindstrand - Topic
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
More good news!! Our (@russellgarwood.co.uk, @cambriannelids.bsky.social) 2023 article in Palaeontology is a #TopCitedArticle! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Inaccurate fossil placement does not compromise tip‐dated divergence times
Time-scaled phylogenies underpin the interrogation of evolutionary processes across deep timescales, as well as attempts to link these to Earth's history. By inferring the placement of fossils and us...
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
One of the wood-associated seastars we described last year was chosen as one the top 10 new marine species of 2024! ⭐️
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
I generally wait for a second email with a reminder to respond and then accept (or not) within a day of receiving it
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Jeff Thompson @echinerd.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
Like morphometrics, micro-CT scanning, and morphological evolution? Then please consider applying for our 18 month postdoc position at the university of Southampton! Details here: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMF402/r...
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
Actually this is not deep at all.. still very Dutch
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
The deep sea as a Dutch Golden Age painting
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