Dmitri Petrov
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petrovadmitri.bsky.social
Dmitri Petrov
@petrovadmitri.bsky.social
Evolutionary Biologist at Stanford. Rapid Evolution, Adaptation, and Genomics. Open Science advocate.
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
My department at UT Austin is looking to hire an Assistant Professor in Evolutionary Biology, broadly defined. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions you may have.
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November 13, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Yes! And also we have an exciting announcement - we are so lucky to have the privilege of having Brenna Henn give the keynote. hennlab.ucdavis.edu
November 13, 2025 at 8:37 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
don't forget to register for BAPG at Stanford on Dec 6! @petrovadmitri.bsky.social and CEHG are hosting. talk submissions close on Nov 16 - bapg2025.github.io/bapg2025stan...

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
BAPG Fall 2025
Bay Area Population Genomics Conference @ Stanford
bapg2025.github.io
November 13, 2025 at 6:55 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
I am so excited to share new work on a TE insertion that regulates iridescence in swordtails, led by fantastic grad student @nadiahaghani.bsky.social and with help from many coauthors! In a time that has been so difficult to navigate, this & other projects have kept my spirits up: shorturl.at/NE65A
Insertion of an invading retrovirus regulates a novel color trait in swordtail fish
For over a century, evolutionary biologists have been motivated to understand the mechanisms through which organisms adapt to their environments. Coloration and pigmentation are remarkably variable wi...
shorturl.at
November 12, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
Excited to share some new work led by grad student Sophie Walton (w/ @petrovadmitri.bsky.social). We used in vitro gut communities to study how natural selection acts on strains of the same species as they compete within larger communities. Check out Sophie's thread below for details!
Super excited that the bulk of my PhD work is now preprinted! Here we used whole-community competition, or coalescence, experiments to quantify selection acting on genetically diverged strains within larger communities. (1/n)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org
November 12, 2025 at 3:43 AM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
An empirical approach to evaluating the prevalence of long-lived balancing selection in humans--and important limitations. Work by @hannahmm.bsky.social
November 11, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
How common are frequency dependent fitness effects?

New preprint out today 👇
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Frequency-dependent fitness effects are ubiquitous
In simple microbial populations, the fitness effects of most selected mutations are generally taken to be constant, independent of genotype frequency. This assumption underpins predictions about evolutionary dynamics, epistatic interactions, and the maintenance of genetic diversity in populations. Here, we systematically test this assumption using beneficial mutations from early generations of the Escherichia coli Long-Term Evolution Experiment (LTEE). Using flow cytometry-based competition assays, we find that frequency-dependent fitness effects are the norm rather than the exception, occurring in approximately 80\% of strain pairs tested. Most competitions exhibit negative frequency-dependence, where fitness advantages decline as mutant frequency increases. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the strength of frequency-dependence is predictable from invasion fitness measurements, with invasion fitness explaining approximately half of the biological variation in frequency-dependent slopes. Additionally, we observe violations of fitness transitivity in several strain combinations, indicating that competitive relationships cannot always be predicted from fitness relative to a single reference strain alone. Through high-resolution measurements of within-growth cycle dynamics, we show that simple resource competition explains a substantial portion of the frequency-dependence: when faster-growing genotypes dominate populations, they deplete shared resources more rapidly, reducing the time available for fitness differences to accumulate. Our results demonstrate that even in a simple model system designed to minimize ecological complexity, subtle ecological interactions between closely related genotypes create frequency-dependent selection that can fundamentally alter evolutionary dynamics. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.
doi.org
August 21, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Kudos to our superstar grad student @sophiejwalton.bsky.social! One of the most interesting and surprising (at least to me) studies I have been involved in. Very curious to know what people think of it! @benjaminhgood.bsky.social
Super excited that the bulk of my PhD work is now preprinted! Here we used whole-community competition, or coalescence, experiments to quantify selection acting on genetically diverged strains within larger communities. (1/n)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org
November 11, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
Super excited that the bulk of my PhD work is now preprinted! Here we used whole-community competition, or coalescence, experiments to quantify selection acting on genetically diverged strains within larger communities. (1/n)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org
November 11, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
And of course thank you to @benjaminhgood.bsky.social and @petrovadmitri.bsky.social for mentoring me through this adventure. n/n
November 11, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
1/ Hello Drosophila-philists and braino-maniacs! 👋🪰🧠🧪

The Caron lab has a new preprint, and it is about 🥁🥁🥁 democracy!

Neuro-democracy, to be precise. So: drop EVERYTHING and listen up — a 🧶!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
October 30, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
How is functional variation at large-effect loci maintained in natural populations, even as environments change? In a paper led by @mkarag.bsky.social, we tracked known pesticide resistant alleles in outdoor 𝘋. 𝘮𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘨𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳 cages & inferred selection and dominance from temporal sequencing data.
November 6, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
If you're looking for a faculty position at the intersection of ecology and computing (both broadly defined), please apply to this joint search between the CEE Department and the College of Computing at MIT: cee.mit.edu/people/share...
Faculty Position in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Schwarzman College of Computing - cee.mit.edu
The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), together with the Schwarzman College of Computing (SCC) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge MA, seeks candidate...
cee.mit.edu
November 5, 2025 at 7:27 PM
Please register for BAPG at Stanford 12/6, especially if you want to give a talk or a poster. The deadline is Nov 16. bapg2025.github.io/bapg2025stan... And please reshare on bsky!
November 5, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
Everything Jeff said except since we're hosting at Stanford it's pronounced BAP-G bsky.app/profile/jros...
Bay Area Pop Gen conference Dec 6! One of my favorite conferences. Registration is free! Only controversy is how to pronounce BAPG (bap-guh is the right answer). docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Registration for BAPG 2025, Stanford Dec 6 2025
docs.google.com
November 2, 2025 at 4:43 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
Bay Area Pop Gen conference Dec 6! One of my favorite conferences. Registration is free! Only controversy is how to pronounce BAPG (bap-guh is the right answer). docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Registration for BAPG 2025, Stanford Dec 6 2025
docs.google.com
November 2, 2025 at 2:59 AM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
Does anyone have examples of F32 supporting documents in the new format (starting August of this year) they'd be willing to share? We're specifically looking for goals, preparedness, training activities and timeline for an F32 resubmission for the December deadline. Any help very much appreciated! 🙏
November 1, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
This is a bad idea. Recruiting talented people from other countries is a good thing. American universities have been very good at it in particular. Recruiting talented people tends to benefit everyone. We should keep doing it. I am speaking in short sentences for the benefit of the Governor.
Florida Universities to Stop Hiring Foreign H-1B Workers Under DeSantis Plan
www.nytimes.com
October 30, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
I started a new job in Montpellier, France!
Happy about new opportunities, sad about the state of things in the US.

abetterscientist.wordpress.com/2025/10/26/w...
We left the US and moved to France
Hello readers, I got big updates! Some of you already know this, but it’s getting more real and more official every month: my family and I have left the US and moved to France! A few months ago I q…
abetterscientist.wordpress.com
October 27, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
For population genetics and evolutionary biology folks in the Bay Area: the next BAPG will be hosted by Stanford CEHG and the Petrov lab at Stanford on 12/6.
Registration is free but required. The deadline for talk submission is Nov. 16. Hope to see you soon! Pls RT!
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
docs.google.com
October 20, 2025 at 10:42 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
Check out @jaguilarrod.bsky.social and @petrovadmitri.bsky.social thought provoking work! If like me, you feel this work may be out of your comfort zone, make sure to read Jose's bluetorial, clearly explained! Congratulations!
October 23, 2025 at 9:32 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
Wow! Very impressive work 🤯
October 23, 2025 at 7:21 AM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
Congratulations Jose! You always talked about how challenging was working at the bench at the beginning! I'm very happy for you! I won't comment on the science until I read it, some time this week :)
October 22, 2025 at 11:42 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
This paper is SO COOL! Congrats, and thanks for sharing!
October 22, 2025 at 6:44 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Petrov
Nice work. Thanks for a fantastic skeetorial, always appreciated
October 22, 2025 at 7:09 PM