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The Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution is an international organization whose goals are to provide facilities for association and communication among molecular evolutionists and to further the goals of molecular evolution, as well as its practitioners and teachers. In order to accomplish these goals, the Society publishes two peer-reviewed journals, Molecular Biology and Evolution and Genome Biology and Evolution. The Society sponsors an annual meeting, as well as smaller satellite meetings or workshop on important, focused, and timely topics. It also confers honors and awards to students and researchers.

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Featured News

Congratulations to the winners of the SMBE 2020 Best Student Paper Awards for papers published in 2019 in MBE and GBE

These awards provide recognition for outstanding student papers in the two SMBE journals, Molecular Biology & Evolution and Genome Biology & Evolution, in the calendar year prior to the meeting are eligible for nomination.  Award recipients in 2020 for papers published in 2019:

For MBE, Winner: Ayush S Saxena

Evolution of the Mutational Process under Relaxed Selection in Caenorhabditis elegans


MBE Honorable Mentions:

Annabel Beichman

Aquatic Adaptation and Depleted Diversity: A Deep Dive into the Genomes of the Sea Otter and Giant Otter

Qiqing Tao

A Machine Learning Method for Detecting Autocorrelation of Evolutionary Rates in Large Phylogenies

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  • Wednesday, July 08, 2020
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SMBE Announcement - What can we do to fight intolerance, racism, and discrimination, now and in the future?

Dear SMBE Members,

I am writing to you, on behalf of the entire SMBE Council, in response to the hateful acts of racism-fueled injustice and violence. The murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor serve as painful reminders of hate and violence towards the Black community. Recent events in the US have brought long-entrenched structures of systemic racism to the forefront and have inspired demands for long overdue changes to these systems. As an international society, we are particularly grateful for the demonstration of solidarity exhibited by people in cities and countries all over the world-- underscoring the fact that racism is pernicious and intolerable, not just in the US but globally.

In addition to bringing police brutality and racism into sharp focus, the unjust oppression of Black Americans highlights the intersectionality of violence with social justice, public health disparities, environmental justice, and economic equality, even more broadly.  The sizes of these problems are large, and our movements toward change must be even larger and swifter.  Many people and organizations are re-priortizing or elevating the question: what can we do to fight intolerance, racism, and discrimination, now and in the future?  In order to contribute to this collective goal, council members of SMBE have committed to enhance our efforts towards the following ongoing and new initiatives:

Ongoing Initiatives

  • diversifying the editorial boards of the society’s two flagship journals, Molecular Biology & Evolution and Genome Biology & Evolution, to achieve great representation of underrepresented groups
  • supporting the participation of underrepresented groups in the yearly meeting of the society via travel and carer awards

New Initiatives

  • partnering with other organizations and institutions in order to better recruit, serve, and retain a diverse SMBE membership that includes more members from underrepresented groups
  • forming a diversity and inclusivity committee that will focus on programming during yearly meetings and year-round to promote equity and inclusion for all members of the society
  • re-evaluating the criteria for faculty awards, currently focused on one-dimensional definitions of excellence, in order to expand the recognition of leaders in our field

Furthermore, we commit to not only sharing these goals publicly, but to reporting on progress towards meeting them each year at the annual meeting.  

Neither this statement, nor our future actions as a scientific society, can undo the undeserved brutality, oppression, and discrimination faced by Black Americans, or faced more broadly by racial and ethnic groups historically and today, worldwide. But SMBE exists within a broader society-- a global community of scientists-- and our future actions can be impactful. We are committed to reflecting on these recent events, recognizing systems of injustice globally, re-evaluating past practice and procedures within the Society and its journals, and working on developing new structures to promote the ideals of diversity, equity, and inclusion that are essential to the success of science and society.

On behalf of the Council,
Marta L. Wayne

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  • Wednesday, June 10, 2020
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Congratulations to the winners of the SMBE 2020 annual Faculty Awards

2020 SMBE Allan Wilson Junior Award for Independent Research Winner: Iain Mathieson

Iain Mathieson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. His group studies the genetic architecture and evolution of complex traits in humans, with a particular focus on using ancient DNA to provide a direct window onto human history and evolution. He received a B.A. in Mathematics and an M.Phil. in Statistical Science from the University of Cambridge, and a D.Phil. in Genomic Medicine & Statistics from the University of Oxford advised by Gil McVean and Cecilia Lindgren and supported by the Wellcome Trust. He then completed a postdoc at Harvard Medical School with David Reich, supported by a fellowship from the Human Frontier Science Program. His lab is currently supported by a NIH NIGMS R35 Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award, a grant from the Charles E. Kaufman foundation and a Sloan Foundation research fellowship.


2020 Margaret Dayhoff Mid-Career Award Winner: Christian Landry

Christian Landry is Professor of Biology as well as Biochemistry, Microbiology and Bio-informatics at Université Laval. His research focuses on evolutionary systems biology and evolutionary genomics. He uses experimental, computational and theoretical approaches to study how natural selection, mutations and drift are shaping cellular systems. Christian received a BSc and a MSc working with Louis Bernatchez from Université Laval, a PhD from Harvard University working with Daniel L Hartl and did his postdoctoral work with Stephen W Michnick at Université de Montréal.  He has been holding the Canada Research Chair in Evolutionary Cell and Systems Biology since 2015, was elected a member of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada in 2014 and was awarded the NSERC EWR Steacie Memorial Fellowships of Canada in 2018.  




2020 SMBE Motoo Kimura Lifetime Contribution Award Winner: Brian Charlesworth

Brian Charlesworth is a Senior Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. He was born in Brighton, England in 1945. He obtained his PhD in genetics from Cambridge University in 1969, and was a postdoctoral fellow with Richard Lewontin at the University of Chicago, 1969-1971. He subsequently worked at the Universities of Liverpool, Sussex and Chicago, moving from Chicago to E

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  • Monday, May 18, 2020
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SMBE 2020 Officer and Councillor Election

Greetings SMBE Members,

The time has come for the 2020 SMBE Election!

Please take a moment to vote for your preferred candidates for President, Treasurer and up to two Councilors.  The council runs the society, and your participation is important.

The election will be open through June 26, 2020.

Candidate biographies and statements may be found as a linked PDF document within the online ballot.

If you have not received your invite directly, please check your SPAM box, make sure you have not opted out of receiving our member emails and notify smbe@allenpress.com.

Best Regards,
Marta Wayne
President, SMBE

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  • Monday, May 18, 2020
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SMBE2020 Cancelled

Dear All,

I am writing to let you know that we have decided to cancel SMBE 2020 due to concerns about COVID19. The wellbeing of our communities is always the most important consideration. Please join me in thanking an outstanding local organizing committee in Québec City, particularly Nadia Aubin-Horth and Christian Landry. We hope to see you at a future SMBE meeting. 

We will provide more details on refund process in the near future. In the meantime, be well wherever you are. 

With best wishes,

Marta L. Wayne
President, SMBE

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  • Thursday, March 12, 2020
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COVID19 and SMBE2020

Dear SMBE Members:

At this time, we are still planning to hold our annual meeting this summer in beautiful Québec City. Accordingly, we recommend that you register for the meeting and book your hotel room. Registration and hotel room deposits will be refunded in the event the meeting were cancelled by SMBE. However, if you have not already booked your flights or ground transportation, you may consider purchasing trip insurance or fares that allow for refunds, if available. Note that many airlines are introducing incentives to book tickets; this is a dynamic situation and offers vary by carrier, so investigate carefully.

We look forward to seeing you this summer in Canada!

Yours,
Marta L. Wayne
President, SMBE

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  • Friday, March 06, 2020
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SMBE is a member of the Scientific Society Publisher Alliance

@OfficialSMBE Feed

MBE | Most Read

Molecular Biology and Evolution

Correction: Sex Differences in 20-Hydroxyecdysone Hormone Levels Control Sexual Dimorphism in Bicyclus anynana Wing Patterns

Tue, 06 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT

This is a correction to: Shivam Bhardwaj and others, Sex Differences in 20-Hydroxyecdysone Hormone Levels Control Sexual Dimorphism in Bicyclus anynana Wing Patterns, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Volume 35, Issue 2, February 2018, Pages 465–472, https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msx301

An Ancestral Balanced Inversion Polymorphism Confers Global Adaptation

Tue, 23 May 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Abstract
Since the pioneering work of Dobzhansky in the 1930s and 1940s, many chromosomal inversions have been identified, but how they contribute to adaptation remains poorly understood. In Drosophila melanogaster, the widespread inversion polymorphism In(3R)Payne underpins latitudinal clines in fitness traits on multiple continents. Here, we use single-individual whole-genome sequencing, transcriptomics, and published sequencing data to study the population genomics of this inversion on four continents: in its ancestral African range and in derived populations in Europe, North America, and Australia. Our results confirm that this inversion originated in sub-Saharan Africa and subsequently became cosmopolitan; we observe marked monophyletic divergence of inverted and noninverted karyotypes, with some substructure among inverted chromosomes between continents. Despite divergent evolution of this inversion since its out-of-Africa migration, derived non-African populations exhibit similar patterns of long-range linkage disequilibrium between the inversion breakpoints and major peaks of divergence in its center, consistent with balancing selection and suggesting that the inversion harbors alleles that are maintained by selection on several continents. Using RNA-sequencing, we identify overlap between inversion-linked single-nucleotide polymorphisms and loci that are differentially expressed between inverted and noninverted chromosomes. Expression levels are higher for inverted chromosomes at low temperature, suggesting loss of buffering or compensatory plasticity and consistent with higher inversion frequency in warm climates. Our results suggest that this ancestrally tropical balanced polymorphism spread around the world and became latitudinally assorted along similar but independent climatic gradients, always being frequent in subtropical/tropical areas but rare or absent in temperate climates.

A Caenorhabditis elegans Male Pheromone Feminizes Germline Gene Expression in Hermaphrodites and Imposes Life-History Costs

Sat, 20 May 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Abstract
Sex pheromones not only improve the reproductive success of the recipients, but also impose costs, such as a reduced life span. The underlying mechanisms largely remain to be elucidated. Here, we show that even a brief exposure to physiological amounts of the dominant Caenorhabditis elegans male pheromone, ascr#10, alters the expression of thousands of genes in hermaphrodites. The most dramatic effect on the transcriptome is the upregulation of genes expressed during oogenesis and the downregulation of genes associated with male gametogenesis. This result reveals a way in which social signals help to resolve the inherent conflict between spermatogenesis and oogenesis in a simultaneous hermaphrodite, presumably to optimally align reproductive function with the presence of potential mating partners. We also found that exposure to ascr#10 increased the risk of persistent intestinal infections in hermaphrodites due to pathological pharyngeal hypertrophy. Thus, our study reveals ways in which the male pheromone can not only have beneficial effects on the recipients’ reproduction, but also cause harmful consequences that reduce life span.

GBE | Most Read

Genome Biology & Evolution

Near-Chromosomal-Level Genome Assembly of the Sea Urchin Echinometra lucunter, a Model for Speciation in the Sea

Wed, 07 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Abstract
Echinometra lucunter, the rock-boring sea urchin, is a widely distributed echinoid and a model for ecological studies of reproduction, responses to climate change, and speciation. We present a near chromosome-level genome assembly of E. lucunter, including 21 scaffolds larger than 10 Mb predicted to represent each of the chromosomes of the species. The 760.4 Mb assembly includes a scaffold N50 of 30.0 Mb and BUSCO (benchmarking universal single-copy orthologue) single copy and a duplicated score of 95.8% and 1.4%, respectively. Ab-initio gene model prediction and annotation with transcriptomic data constructed 33,989 gene models composing 50.4% of the assembly, including 37,036 transcripts. Repetitive elements make up approximately 39.6% of the assembly, and unresolved gap sequences are estimated to be 0.65%. Whole genome alignment with Echinometra sp. EZ revealed high synteny and conservation between the two species, further bolstering Echinometra as an emerging genus for comparative genomics studies. This genome assembly represents a high-quality genomic resource for future evolutionary and developmental studies of this species and more broadly of echinoderms.

A High Frequency of Chromosomal Duplications in Unicellular Algae Is Compensated by Translational Regulation

Tue, 23 May 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Abstract
Although duplications have long been recognized as a fundamental process driving major evolutionary innovations, direct estimates of spontaneous chromosome duplication rates, leading to aneuploid karyotypes, are scarce. Here, from mutation accumulation (MA) experiments, we provide the first estimates of spontaneous chromosome duplication rates in six unicellular eukaryotic species, which range from 1 × 10−4 to 1 × 10−3 per genome per generation. Although this is ∼5 to ∼60 times less frequent than spontaneous point mutations per genome, chromosome duplication events can affect 1–7% of the total genome size. In duplicated chromosomes, mRNA levels reflected gene copy numbers, but the level of translation estimated by polysome profiling revealed that dosage compensation must be occurring. In particular, one duplicated chromosome showed a 2.1-fold increase of mRNA but translation rates were decreased to 0.7-fold. Altogether, our results support previous observations of chromosome-dependent dosage compensation effects, providing evidence that compensation occurs during translation. We hypothesize that an unknown posttranscriptional mechanism modulates the translation of hundreds of transcripts from genes located on duplicated regions in eukaryotes.

T Residues Preceded by Runs of G Are Hotspots of T→G Mutation in Bacteria

Mon, 22 May 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Abstract
The rate of mutation varies among positions in a genome. Local sequence context can affect the rate and has different effects on different types of mutation. Here, I report an effect of local context that operates to some extent in all bacteria examined: the rate of T→G mutation is greatly increased by preceding runs of three or more G residues. The strength of the effect increases with the length of the run. In Salmonella, in which the effect is strongest, a G run of length three 3 increases the rate by a factor of ∼26, a run of length 4 increases it by almost a factor of 100, and runs of length 5 or more increase it by a factor of more than 400 on average. The effect is much stronger when the T is on the leading rather than the lagging strand of DNA replication. Several observations eliminate the possibility that this effect is an artifact of sequencing error.

Genome-Wide Discovery of Structural Variants Reveals Distinct Variant Dynamics for Two Closely Related Monilinia Species

Mon, 22 May 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Abstract
Structural variants (SVs) are variants with sizes bigger than 50 bp and capable of changing the size, copy number, location, orientation, and sequence content of genomic DNA. Although these variants have been proven to be extensive and involved in many evolutionary processes along the tree of life, there is still insufficient information on many fungal plant pathogens. In this study, the extent of SVs, as well as single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), has been determined for two prominent species of the Monilinia genus (the causal agents of brown rot disease in pome and stone fruits): Monilinia fructicola and Monilinia laxa for the first time. The genomes of M. fructicola were found to be more variant-rich in contrast to M. laxa based on the reference-based variant calling (with a total number of 266.618 and 190.599 SNPs and 1,540 and 918 SVs, respectively). The extent, as well as distribution of SVs, presented high conservation within the species and high diversity between the species. Investigation of potential functional effects of characterized variants revealed high potential relevance of SVs. Moreover, the detailed characterization of copy number variations (CNVs) for each isolate revealed that around 0.67% of M. fructicola genomes and 2.06% of M. laxa genomes are copy number variables. The variant catalog as well as distinct variant dynamics within and between the species presented in this study opens doors for many further research questions.

The First Genome of the Cold-Water Octocoral, the Pink Sea Fan, Eunicella verrucosa

Sat, 20 May 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Abstract
Cold-water corals form an important part of temperate benthic ecosystems by increasing three-dimensionality and providing an important ecological substrate for other benthic fauna. However, the fragile three-dimensional structure and life-history characteristics of cold-water corals can leave populations vulnerable to anthropogenic disturbance. Meanwhile, the ability of temperate octocorals, particularly shallow-water species, to respond to adjustments in their environment linked to climate change has not been studied. This study reports the first genome assembly of the pink sea fan (Eunicella verrucosa), a temperate shallow-water octocoral species. We produced an assembly of 467 Mb, comprising 4,277 contigs and an N50 of 250,417 bp. In total, 213 Mb (45.96% of the genome) comprised repetitive sequences. Annotation of the genome using RNA-seq data derived from polyp tissue and gorgonin skeleton resulted in 36,099 protein-coding genes after 90% similarity clustering, capturing 92.2% of the complete Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs (BUSCO) ortholog benchmark genes. Functional annotation of the proteome using orthology inference identified 25,419 annotated genes. This genome adds to the very few genomic resources currently available in the octocoral community and represents a key step in allowing scientists to investigate the genomic and transcriptomic responses of octocorals to climate change.