Gustavo A. Ballen
@gaballench.bsky.social
Computational biologist 🖥️. (Palaeo)Ichthyologist 🐟🦴. Lutenist 🎶. FAPESP postdoctoral fellow at UNESP Botucatu. https://gaballench.com
Pinned
Gustavo A. Ballen
@gaballench.bsky.social
· Sep 14
tbea: tools for pre- and post-processing in bayesian evolutionary analyses
Abstract. Estimating phylogenies in which branch lengths are expressed in units of absolute time is crucial for testing hypotheses in evolutionary biology.
academic.oup.com
Our paper (with @sreinales.bsky.social) finally out today in the Evolutionary Journal of the Linnean Society. It feels like a birthday present 🤪 academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a...
This outreach talk from last year just came out. Huge thanks to Claudia Solis-Lemus for inviting me to El Zoominario. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qdL...
El Zoominario: How do we tell the time of macroevolution? -- Gustavo Ballen
YouTube video by SolisLemus-lab
www.youtube.com
October 17, 2025 at 12:25 AM
This outreach talk from last year just came out. Huge thanks to Claudia Solis-Lemus for inviting me to El Zoominario. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qdL...
Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
eu quero SITES das coisas, com contato via e-mail e telefone, especialmente lojas, serviços etc e não perfil de Instagram com preço inbox
also quero tutoriais e análises em escrito, que eu possa dar um control f, não em video que tu fica caçando o trecho de 5 segundos que te interessa
also quero tutoriais e análises em escrito, que eu possa dar um control f, não em video que tu fica caçando o trecho de 5 segundos que te interessa
i don't want to hear your most boomer complaint. what's your most millennial complaint?
September 20, 2025 at 4:58 PM
eu quero SITES das coisas, com contato via e-mail e telefone, especialmente lojas, serviços etc e não perfil de Instagram com preço inbox
also quero tutoriais e análises em escrito, que eu possa dar um control f, não em video que tu fica caçando o trecho de 5 segundos que te interessa
also quero tutoriais e análises em escrito, que eu possa dar um control f, não em video que tu fica caçando o trecho de 5 segundos que te interessa
Our paper (with @sreinales.bsky.social) finally out today in the Evolutionary Journal of the Linnean Society. It feels like a birthday present 🤪 academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a...
tbea: tools for pre- and post-processing in bayesian evolutionary analyses
Abstract. Estimating phylogenies in which branch lengths are expressed in units of absolute time is crucial for testing hypotheses in evolutionary biology.
academic.oup.com
September 14, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Our paper (with @sreinales.bsky.social) finally out today in the Evolutionary Journal of the Linnean Society. It feels like a birthday present 🤪 academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a...
Our latest paper on Farlowella from Colombia in Journal of Fish Biology, the result of the undergrad dissertation by my former student Omar Melo. Supported by @agenciafapesp.bsky.social Universidad Javeriana, Museu de Zoologia da USP, and UNESP Botucatu. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
August 1, 2025 at 12:09 PM
Our latest paper on Farlowella from Colombia in Journal of Fish Biology, the result of the undergrad dissertation by my former student Omar Melo. Supported by @agenciafapesp.bsky.social Universidad Javeriana, Museu de Zoologia da USP, and UNESP Botucatu. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
Phylogenetic networks empower biodiversity research | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Phylogenetic networks empower biodiversity research | PNAS
Reticulate evolution has long been recognized as a key mechanism that contributes
to genetic and trait diversity. With the widespread availability ...
www.pnas.org
July 29, 2025 at 11:04 AM
Phylogenetic networks empower biodiversity research | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Colombian palaeontology
Well, this came out today. Terror birds (Phorusrhacidae)were not friends, but food.
Bueno, hoy salió esto. Las aves del terror (Phorusrhacidae) no eran amigos, sino comida. #PaleoSky #Phorusrhacidae #Paleontology #Fossils
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
Bueno, hoy salió esto. Las aves del terror (Phorusrhacidae) no eran amigos, sino comida. #PaleoSky #Phorusrhacidae #Paleontology #Fossils
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
July 23, 2025 at 10:45 PM
Colombian palaeontology
Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
Multifaceted evolution of dental morphology during the diversification of the bat superfamily Noctilionoidea https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.10.658888v1
June 15, 2025 at 7:31 AM
Multifaceted evolution of dental morphology during the diversification of the bat superfamily Noctilionoidea https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.10.658888v1
Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
The tragic landslide in Blatten gives me the excuse to tell you the story of how we found out Ice Ages existed. It's a cool story and the most important bit is rather similar to what's happening now.
Aerial view westward over the Blatten deposit and the newly formed lake upstream! 🧊🌊
📷Via Christian Petit/Linkedin
📷Via Christian Petit/Linkedin
May 29, 2025 at 7:49 PM
The tragic landslide in Blatten gives me the excuse to tell you the story of how we found out Ice Ages existed. It's a cool story and the most important bit is rather similar to what's happening now.
💯
May 17, 2025 at 1:55 AM
💯
Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
“Massive numbers of students are going to emerge from university with degrees, and into the workforce, who are essentially illiterate…Both in the literal sense and in the sense of being historically illiterate and having no knowledge of their own culture, much less anyone else’s.”
Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College
ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project.
nymag.com
May 7, 2025 at 11:08 AM
“Massive numbers of students are going to emerge from university with degrees, and into the workforce, who are essentially illiterate…Both in the literal sense and in the sense of being historically illiterate and having no knowledge of their own culture, much less anyone else’s.”
Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
Happy to share that my PhD paper published in Systematic Biology. My paper explores the #Asymptotictheory of Bayesian rate model selection and explore how misspecified calibrations can affect this. Also test rate model selection with large #Phylogenomes
Link below:
academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...
Link below:
academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...
Bayesian Selection of Relaxed-Clock Models: Distinguishing between Independent
and Autocorrelated Rates
Abstract. In Bayesian molecular-clock dating of species divergences, rate models are used to construct the prior on the molecular evolutionary rates for br
academic.oup.com
March 20, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Happy to share that my PhD paper published in Systematic Biology. My paper explores the #Asymptotictheory of Bayesian rate model selection and explore how misspecified calibrations can affect this. Also test rate model selection with large #Phylogenomes
Link below:
academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...
Link below:
academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...
I'm happy to see my latest preprint out on stratigraphic intervals, a topic I've been interested in since my first year as PhD student. Available in the brand-new StratIntervals.jl (github.com/gaballench/S...) @julialang.org package. Preprint on @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social doi.org/10.1101/2025...
February 17, 2025 at 10:11 PM
I'm happy to see my latest preprint out on stratigraphic intervals, a topic I've been interested in since my first year as PhD student. Available in the brand-new StratIntervals.jl (github.com/gaballench/S...) @julialang.org package. Preprint on @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
A flexible Bayesian method for estimating stratigraphic intervals and their co-occurrence in time https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.13.638199v1
February 17, 2025 at 11:33 AM
A flexible Bayesian method for estimating stratigraphic intervals and their co-occurrence in time https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.13.638199v1
First time in four years that I don't ☺️
December 23, 2024 at 3:38 PM
First time in four years that I don't ☺️
I'm happy to share our latest preprint on fossil fishes from Colombia, which represents the last piece of my PhD thesis that was still to be published. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @agenciafapesp.bsky.social @uspoficial.bsky.social @sbbe.bsky.social #cienciacriolla
Fossil Freshwater Fishes from the Pliocene of northern Colombia and the Palaeogeography of northern South America
Freshwater fishes from northern Colombia are reported from the Sincelejo and Ware formations, of Pliocene age. A total of ten taxa have been identified comprising two orders, five families, and nine g...
www.biorxiv.org
December 23, 2024 at 11:12 AM
I'm happy to share our latest preprint on fossil fishes from Colombia, which represents the last piece of my PhD thesis that was still to be published. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @agenciafapesp.bsky.social @uspoficial.bsky.social @sbbe.bsky.social #cienciacriolla
Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
Fossil Freshwater Fishes from the Pliocene of northern Colombia and the Palaeogeography of northern South America https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.18.629252v1
December 22, 2024 at 7:00 AM
Fossil Freshwater Fishes from the Pliocene of northern Colombia and the Palaeogeography of northern South America https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.18.629252v1
Honoured to have won the prize to best presentation in methods and software at the Congresso Brasileiro de Biologia Evolutiva
November 23, 2024 at 2:02 AM
Honoured to have won the prize to best presentation in methods and software at the Congresso Brasileiro de Biologia Evolutiva
Very excited to see the dissertation of my first undergrad student already available as a preprint (and submitted as well).
The taxonomic status of Farlowella colombiensis Retzer & Page 1997 with comments on species of the F. acus species group (Loricariidae: Loricariinae). https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.18.624099v1
The taxonomic status of Farlowella colombiensis Retzer & Page 1997 with comments on species of the F. acus species group (Loricariidae: Loricariinae). https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.18.624099v1
The genus Farlowella has been historically challenging, in part due to the difficulty in defining di
www.biorxiv.org
November 20, 2024 at 2:25 AM
Very excited to see the dissertation of my first undergrad student already available as a preprint (and submitted as well).
I'm happy to share our latest paper which was just published in Journal of Biogeography on the impact of the Panama Isthmus Closure on the evolution of Centropomids and related fishes. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Phylogenetic and Biogeographic History of the Snooks (Centropomidae: Carangiformes) Spanning the Closure of the Isthmus of Panama
Aim Amphiamerican New World fishes provide a unique opportunity to explore the impact of geological processes and the formation of geographic barriers on biological diversification across both spati...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 15, 2024 at 11:53 PM
I'm happy to share our latest paper which was just published in Journal of Biogeography on the impact of the Panama Isthmus Closure on the evolution of Centropomids and related fishes. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
Looking for geological data? 🪨⚒️ We've got you! Check out our new R package for accessing Macrostrat 👇
🚨New paper!🚨
Want to use data from macrostrat.org, but struggle working with APIs?
Our (Christopher Dean, @willgearty.bsky.social, @bethanyjallen.bsky.social, & I) article describing the rmacrostrat R package 📦 is now published #OpenAccess in #Geosphere
doi.org/10.1130/GES0...
#Geology #RStats
Want to use data from macrostrat.org, but struggle working with APIs?
Our (Christopher Dean, @willgearty.bsky.social, @bethanyjallen.bsky.social, & I) article describing the rmacrostrat R package 📦 is now published #OpenAccess in #Geosphere
doi.org/10.1130/GES0...
#Geology #RStats
October 31, 2024 at 10:22 AM
Looking for geological data? 🪨⚒️ We've got you! Check out our new R package for accessing Macrostrat 👇
YouTube raised a copyright claim on one of my videos misidentifying it for a recording by the lutenist Shirley Rumsey. That's a compliment I guess.
Ricercar N31. Francesco Canova da Milano, Il Divino
YouTube video by Gustavo A. Ballen
youtu.be
September 23, 2024 at 12:13 AM
YouTube raised a copyright claim on one of my videos misidentifying it for a recording by the lutenist Shirley Rumsey. That's a compliment I guess.
So this bluething now supports embedded videos 🤔
Luys de Narváez. Canción del Emperador, figueta castellana technique.
YouTube video by Gustavo A. Ballen
youtu.be
September 21, 2024 at 10:12 PM
So this bluething now supports embedded videos 🤔
Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
Registrations are open for the 2025 school on computational molecular evolution in Crete, the application deadline is November 1st.
meetings.embo.org/event/25-com...
meetings.embo.org/event/25-com...
Computational Molecular Evolution
The need for effective and informed analysis of biological data is increasing with the explosive growth of genomic data. A phylogenetic framework is central to many molecular evolutionary approaches …
meetings.embo.org
September 17, 2024 at 9:38 AM
Registrations are open for the 2025 school on computational molecular evolution in Crete, the application deadline is November 1st.
meetings.embo.org/event/25-com...
meetings.embo.org/event/25-com...
Reposted by Gustavo A. Ballen
If you're having a rough day, remember that in 1991 Tim Berners-Lee's paper for the World Wide Web was rejected and he was relegated to the poster session.
September 17, 2024 at 1:33 PM
If you're having a rough day, remember that in 1991 Tim Berners-Lee's paper for the World Wide Web was rejected and he was relegated to the poster session.