John Stinchcombe
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johnstinchcombe.bsky.social
John Stinchcombe
@johnstinchcombe.bsky.social
Ecological and evolutionary genetics in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UofT. Dad, dog lover, unashamed coffee addict.
Reposted by John Stinchcombe
Andrew Gelman: “I have a horrible feeling sometimes that heavily promoted crap research on space aliens, cold showers, mind-body healing…has softened the ground so that the seeds of more evil trees could then be planted and take root.”
I have a horrible feeling sometimes that heavily promoted crap research on space aliens, cold showers, mind-body healing, schoolyard evolutionary psychology, extra-sensory perception, magic golf balls, air rage, himmicanes, subliminal smiley faces, etc etc etc, has softened the ground so that the seeds of more evil trees could then be planted and take root. | Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
Dale Lehman sends an email with subject line “A new low in science”:
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu
January 1, 2026 at 8:07 PM
Reposted by John Stinchcombe
Newly posted updates to recent resurrection work from the lab, led by Sasha Bishop (w/ @johnstinchcombe.bsky.social )
A resurrection experiment reveals reduced adaptive potential in a common agricultural weed
Adaptive evolution is critical to population responses under accelerating anthropogenic global change. Although theory and some empirical work suggest that contemporary rates of environmental change c...
www.biorxiv.org
December 23, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Reposted by John Stinchcombe
Canadian universities received a big federal funding package to recruit international research leaders. Here is the call at my university, Queen's University, Ontario. If you are looking to move to Canada, this is the time!
First round of review begins January 9, 2026
www.queensu.ca/vpr/recruitm...
International Research Recruitment | Vice-Principal (Research)
Join Canada’s next generation of research leaders  In response to the federal government’s suite of international talent attraction initiatives, Queen’s University is actively recruiting outstanding i...
www.queensu.ca
December 19, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Reposted by John Stinchcombe
The Entomological Society of Canada is a fantastic supporter of grad students. Congrats Yaseen 🎉 @canentomologist.bsky.social
www.stfx.ca/news/Yaseen-...
Master’s student earns national scholarship for ladybug research
Research exploring how ladybugs cope with Nova Scotia’s warming winter climate has earned StFX master’s biology student Yaseen Ginnab a national scholarship.Mr. Ginnab, originally from Nashville, Tenn...
www.stfx.ca
December 16, 2025 at 5:41 PM
Reposted by John Stinchcombe
Took me a year (😱), but I finally published a blog post about our article on the #quantgen variance partition of phenitypic plasticity with @lmchev.bsky.social, published in @peercomjournal.bsky.social.

🇬🇧 devillemereuil.legtux.org/quantitative...
🇫🇷 devillemereuil.legtux.org/fr/genetique...
Quantitative genetics of reaction norms: an onion partitionning – Pierre de Villemereuil
devillemereuil.legtux.org
December 10, 2025 at 10:48 AM
Reposted by John Stinchcombe
Data sciences postdoc fellowship in EEB @ U.Toronto app deadline Jan 23 2026. Opportunity for independent research, encourages collab across labs/disciplines. Lots of great folks to interact with, Come join us!
datasciences.utoronto.ca/postdoctoral...
Postdoctoral Fellowship - DSI
DSI Postdoctoral Fellowships support multi/interdisciplinary training and collaborative research in data sciences.
datasciences.utoronto.ca
December 9, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Check out @ent3c.bsky.social and @sashagusevposts.bsky.social 's posts. Good stuff there

My guess is there's a generation of evolutionary biologists who read David Houle and Derek Roff's work from the 80s and early 90s who look at h2 = 0.3, and are thinking "what did else did anyone expect?"
Blog post: A Missing Heritability Update. Three legs and other problems. I follow up on the recent excellent post on the subject by @sashagusevposts.bsky.social. ericturkheimer.substack.com/p/missing-he...
Missing Heritability Revisited
Following up on Sasha
ericturkheimer.substack.com
November 25, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Reposted by John Stinchcombe
Treating emergent traits of the microbiome like quantitative genetic traits of the host reveals how environmentally acquired symbionts can contribute to hosts' adaptation
Quantitative genetics of microbiome-mediated traits
Microbiomes, the complex communities of microorganisms associated with multicellular hosts, play a vital role in shaping host traits and fitness. But how d
buff.ly
November 24, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by John Stinchcombe
"Her wit was as sharp as her convictions, and her honesty was refreshing and rare."

A wonderfully written (by @gbaucom.bsky.social) obituary for my grad school friend and Auburn University Prof. Vanessa Koelling, who passed away last week.

www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/m...
Vanessa Koelling Obituary - Montgomery, AL
Celebrate the life of Vanessa Koelling, leave a kind word or memory and get funeral service information care of Leak Memory Chapel.
www.dignitymemorial.com
November 24, 2025 at 12:30 AM
Reposted by John Stinchcombe
How are Pacific NW mountain birds responding to climate change?

I got up at 4:00 am for a month to find out.

but first the backstory, or "how I spent seven years telling everyone this project wasn't possible"

new paper here:
esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
November 12, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Maybe Duke should spend less money on higher administration and a football coach who no longer works there... and use the money for basic research, including an herbarium. Some pretty shocking salaries on this list, including from people claiming the Uni lacks $.

dukechronicle.com/article/duke...
Here’s how much Duke’s top employees made in fiscal year 2024
Belt-tightening efforts across the University have brought more scrutiny to Duke's highest-paid employees. The Chronicle examined the institution's most recent tax filings to see how much top earners ...
dukechronicle.com
November 5, 2025 at 6:13 PM
Reposted by John Stinchcombe
Applications are currently being accepted for UBC's ✨️ Biodiversity Postdoctoral Fellowship ✨️ (two positions!!), due Jan. 15

Please share far and wide 🚀

(See thread)
Postdoctoral Fellowship Opportunities
Biodiversity Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2-year (2026-2028) - 2 positions OPENAt UBC, we believe that attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce is key to the successful pursuit of excellence in resea...
biodiversity.ubc.ca
November 3, 2025 at 5:25 PM
TWO curatorial positions at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, ON, Canada. Curator of Birds, and Curator of Plants and Sustainability... please pass the word and amplify!

royalontariomuseum.applytojob.com/apply/XBR2Yc...

&

royalontariomuseum.applytojob.com/apply/Sf2iAO...
Curator of Birds - Royal Ontario Museum - Career Page
Apply to Curator of Birds at Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, ON, Canada.
royalontariomuseum.applytojob.com
October 31, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Amazing profile of the new facilities at @ksrjokershill.bsky.social designed by Montgomery Sisam Architects.

azuremagazine.com/article/koff...
Outside Toronto, the Koffler Scientific Reserve Finds True North
Montgomery Sisam’s Koffler Scientific Reserve is a surprisingly intimate marriage of building science and agrarian vernacular.
azuremagazine.com
October 30, 2025 at 7:39 PM
Reposted by John Stinchcombe
I had such fun thinking, reading and writing this Tansley Review on #arbuscular #mycorrhizal #fungal mycelia. We need a more fungal-centric view to better understand not only the AM fungi, but also their many ecological roles.
@newphyt.bsky.social

🔗 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/DHGB3S....
October 30, 2025 at 4:56 PM
"The foundation for our current understanding of how phenotypic evolution operates in natural populations was laid by Lande (1976, 1979, 1982) and Lande & Arnold (1983)."

1. What a topic sentence from Vriend et al.:
academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...

2. What a collection of papers in a 7 year span!
October 24, 2025 at 7:12 PM
Reposted by John Stinchcombe
Sharing our new paper, "Distinct haplotypes and reversed dominance at a single-gene balanced polymorphism controlling heterodichogamy in two genera of wingnuts". Genomics & evolution of a mating type system involving two morphs with alternating sexes in walnut relatives www.cell.com/current-biol...
Distinct haplotypes and reversed dominance at a single-gene balanced polymorphism controlling heterodichogamy in two genera of wingnuts
In most species within the walnut family, two genetically determined morphs alternate between male and female flowering phases in time. Groh et al. identify a distinct locus for this dimorphism in two...
www.cell.com
October 16, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Reposted by John Stinchcombe
Congratulations to @jeffgroh.bsky.social on the publication of his paper on an ancient balanced polymorphisms controlling heterodichogamy in two genera of wingnuts. The paper shows the putative turnover & reversal of dominance of a mating type polymorphism
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Distinct haplotypes and reversed dominance at a single-gene balanced polymorphism controlling heterodichogamy in two genera of wingnuts
In the angiosperm mating system of heterodichogamy, two hermaphroditic morphs temporally alternate between male and female flowering phases, promoting…
www.sciencedirect.com
October 16, 2025 at 3:42 PM
My only quibble is that @ent3c.bsky.social is far too kind when noting that twin studies "offer little insight."

I think @sashagusevposts.bsky.social had it right when he wrote "twin heritability models can tell you whatever you want to hear."
In 2018, Charles Murray challenged me to a bet: "We will understand IQ genetically—I think most of the picture will have been filled in by 2025—there will still be blanks—but we’ll know basically what’s going on." It's now 2025, and I claim a win. I write about it in The Atlantic.
Your Genes Are Simply Not Enough to Explain How Smart You Are
Seven years ago, I took a bet with Charles Murray about whether we’d basically understand the genetics of intelligence by now.
www.theatlantic.com
October 15, 2025 at 1:03 AM
Reposted by John Stinchcombe
The genomic response to drought across spatiotemporal scales in Amaranthus tuberculatus https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.02.679894v1
October 5, 2025 at 1:33 AM
Reposted by John Stinchcombe
New paper by former MSc student @christeinecke.bsky.social! ⭐ A behemoth effort to apply artificial selection on clonal reproduction in #Mimulus guttatus. We show that clonality evolves quickly, but not symmetrically in both directions, and multivariate life history traits are altered too! 🧪🌾
Life-history evolution under artificial selection in a clonal plant https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.01.679824v1
October 2, 2025 at 11:50 AM
Reposted by John Stinchcombe
Fun to synthesize some exciting future directions for spatiotemporal genomics in this Tansley perspective.

Check er out!
✨ Paper spotlight ✨

The genetic architecture and spatiotemporal dynamics of adaptation across human-modified landscapes
doi.org/10.1111/nph....

(🧵 1/6) What determines how quickly species adapt to changing environments?...
September 22, 2025 at 1:03 PM
A stunning day to be in the field in Southern Ontario today, at the Koffler Scientific Reserve, @ksrjokershill.bsky.social
September 18, 2025 at 1:46 AM