Evolutionary Ecology and Genomics | Conservation Biology | University of Texas at Austin. All things freshwater mussels
Austin, TX
Joined April 2020
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Very excited to announce our new publication in Molecular Biology and Evolution. Our study identifies empirical support for mitonuclear sex determination in freshwater mussels. Coauthors @raquelmejia___ @DrPintoThe2nd @SophieBreton16 @HavirdLab
academic.oup.com/mbe/advance…
We use a freshwater mussel, Potamilus streckersoni, as a model to better understand sex determination in bivalves with biparental mitochondrial inheritance. RNA and mitochondrial sncRNA sequencing provided empirical support for mitochondria inhibiting sexual development.
Chase Smith retweeted
Stoked about our new paper in @PNASNews! Using new genomes from #Scaphopoda, we found support for Scaphopoda+Bivalvia (Diasoma) and evidence that ILS may be to blame for previous incongruence on relationships among gastropods, bivalves, and scaphopods.
pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.23…
Chase Smith retweeted
Mussel-mania is here! #MassDigitization has partnered with the @NMNH Department of Invertebrate Zoology to image a treasure trove of freshwater mussels! Specimens from the 25K lots of freshwater mussels will have 3 fabulous #shellfies taken for more than 120K images total.
Go check out our work led by @DrPintoThe2nd!
Latest #JHered issue is out, with this handsome guy on the cover. And more squamates inside - a squamate genomics review and a new leopard gecko reference genome by @DrPintoThe2nd & others, & the western fence lizard genome by @anusha_bishop & others.
ALT A phenotypically wild-type leopard gecko, Eublepharis macularius (juvenile male individual). In this issue, the updated reference genome for E. macularius is described in detail and provides a robust genomic resource for this emerging laboratory model system (see Pinto et al. pp. 513–520). Photo credit: Tony Gamble
New publication - we find an interesting case of mistaken identity! We show the federally threatened Texas Fawnsfoot (Panels E-G) is present in the Trinity River, and not the common and widespread Fawnsfoot (Panels C-D). Big conservation implications!
academic.oup.com/mollus/arti…
A case of limited morphological divergence in closely related species. John Strecker, former curator at @MaybornMuseum, hypothesized this distribution in the early 1900s. Strecker's distributional work has been accurate in many cases, which has been supported using genetics
New paper 🚨. Our new study uses historical DNA and DNA barcoding to redefine the range of the soon to be federally threatened Louisiana Pigtoe. We expand the range east to the Pearl River and confirm its historical presence from the type locality using a 1800s museum specimen!
Our pre-access abstract is available now and the article should be available in the coming days!
int-res.com/prepress/n01266.…
Chase Smith retweeted
My lab is recruiting graduate masters or PhD students to start in January 2023 or August 2023. Anyone interested in genomics, systematics, or conservation, should consider applying.
Formal Announcement: nathanwhelan.com/assests/GRA…
ALT Photo of Announcement. If using a screen reader, please click on the link to get a PDF of the announcement.
A great article on my PhD advisor Robert Doyle! Robert and his wife Eva created a study abroad program for Baylor students in Brazil, which allows students to engage in global and environmental health initiatives. Read more about it here: robbins.baylor.edu/news/stor… via @baylor
Chase Smith retweeted
@systbiol The Bulletin of the SSB is thrilled to announce the publication of a paper by Sakina Neemuchwala and colleagues about the evolution of parasitic life histories in the freshwater mussel tribe Quadrulini: doi.org/10.18061/bssb.v2i1.8…
Chase Smith retweeted
he Bulletin of the SSB is thrilled to announce the publication of a paper by Sakina Neemuchwala and colleagues about the evolution of parasitic life histories in the freshwater mussel tribe Quadrulini: doi.org/10.18061/bssb.v2i1.8…
I am pleased to announce our new publication in the BSSB titled "Coevolution With Host Fishes Shapes Parasitic Life Histories in a Group of Freshwater Mussels (Unionidae: Quadrulini)". Check it out here:
library.osu.edu/ojs/index.ph…
Our work highlights an intriguing case of coevolution among mussels and catfish. This work was led by Sakina Neemuchwala, who performed this research with me as an undergraduate at UT-Austin and is now in medical school at UT-Southwestern.
Other twitter coauthors @mud_Iark @David_Hillis @AndreMaGoSaP. Other non-twitter Nathan Johnson, Manuel Lopes-Lima, Elsa Froufe
I'm excited to announce our new preprint titled "Mitonuclear sex determination? Empirical evidence from bivalves". Our work uses WGR, RNA-seq, and mitochondrial sncRNA sequencing to investigate the sexual development pathway of Potamilus streckeroni
biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
Given mussels have biparental inheritance of mtDNA, it has been hypothesized mtDNA play a role in sex determination. We found support that male mtDNA play a direct role in male development by silencing female developmental pathways through RNAi.
We were also unable to identify a nuclear sex determination, providing empirical support that mtDNA may act as a primary sex determiner in mussels.
Coauthors @raquelmejia___ @SophieBreton16 @DrPintoThe2nd @HavirdLab Mark Kirpatrick