Evolvability refers to the capacity of biological systems to generate heritable and adaptive phenotypic variation. Theoretical work has identified gen…

Evolvability refers to the capacity of biological systems to generate heritable and adaptive phenotypic variation. Theoretical work has identified gen…

***Version française en dessous*** We, colleagues of Nathan Cofnas - supported by many colleagues internationally - want to respond to the negative and incorrect framing of Ghent University’s decisio...

Incipient reproductive isolation in the presence of gene flow has traditionally been attributed to a small number of major-effect loci under strong selection. Here, using the Heliconius erato adaptive...

The exhibition, Evolving Narratives, brings genetic diversity into the public imagination, fostering dialogue between science, culture, and society while encouraging new ways of understanding biodiver...

Reproductive isolation often accumulates unevenly during speciation, but when an early ecological barrier such as host-associated habitat isolation is already very strong, it remains unclear whether,...

Studying long-lived species across the animal kingdom could provide insights into healthy ageing in humans. This study reveals long lifespans and slowed ageing in Heliconius butterflies, identifying t...

Summary: The wing scales of butterflies and moths are derived from sensory organ precursors and are homologues of mechanosensory bristles.

Many bacterial taxa evolved facultative symbiotic associations with insects and spread through host populations by horizontal and maternal transmission. Co-infection at the individual host level may ...

The functions of proteins generally depend on their assembly into complexes. During evolution, some complexes have transitioned from homomers encoded by a single gene to heteromers encoded by duplicate genes. This transition could occur without adaptive evolution through intermolecular compensatory …

The David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellowship is proud to announce the seven members of our 2026 cohort — our largest incoming class to date, selected from a record number of applications submit...

High-quality reference genome assemblies have become essential for deepening our understanding of biodiversity, yet obtaining them for many species remains surprisingly challenging. Drawing on experi...

The technology industry promotes artificial intelligence (AI) as a key enabler to solve a vast number of problems, including the environmental crisis. However, when looking at the emissions of datacen...

Replicated hybrid zones between ecotypes established over within shore environmental gradients provide an opportunity to study the genomic architecture of barriers to gene flow. The marine snail Litto...

Genetically determined color morphs are found in many animals. Polymorphism can be maintained by social selection if competitive interactions allow each morph to increase in frequency when rare. This ...

Side-blotched lizards (Uta stansburiana) play a biological rock-paper-scissors game in which three differently colored male morphs utilize alternative mating strategies. We identified the genetic basi...

Structural variants (SVs) are widespread in vertebrate genomes, yet their evolutionary dynamics remain poorly understood. Using 45 long-read de novo genome assemblies and pangenome tools, we analyze S...

During an event organized by Metaforum (KU Leuven), I had the opportunity to reflect and speak, drawing on my own experience, about how we can make the university more accessible to everyone. I off…

Understanding how life is adapting to urban environments represents an important challenge in evolutionary biology. In this work, we investigate a widely cited example of urban adaptation, Culex pipie...

The reshuffling of genomic variation from multiple origins is an important contributor to phenotypic diversification, yet insights into the evolutionary trajectories of this combinatorial process and ...

Abstract. Sensory system evolution plays a crucial role in shaping species’ interactions with their environment, yet the extent to which olfactory system d

YouTube video by ERGA - European Reference Genome Atlas

YouTube video by ERGA - European Reference Genome Atlas

This month's ERGA BioGenome Analysis & Applications Seminar will feature a talk by speaker Aleksey V. Zimin about EviAnn (Evidence-based Annotator), a novel evidence-based eukaryotic gene annotation s...

In a case of obligate cross-species cloning, female ants of Messor ibericus need to clone males of Messor structor to obtain sperm for producing the worker caste, resulting in males from the same moth...

Communications Biology - FANTASIA, a protein language model-based tool, enables large-scale functional annotation across ~1000 animal proteomes, revealing novel gene functions in both model and...

Modelled projections indicate a widespread decline in ecological suitability for snakes across Europe, with cold-adapted species demonstrating particular vulnerability to global warming.