Stephane Guindon

Indeed... We'll get back to the authors about their submissions by mid February. That will then leave one month to decide whether or not to attend the conference.

Only one week left to register to MCEB 2026 in Crete! mceb2026.sciencesconf.org

Join us in Crete next year for a new edition of the conference "Mathematical and Computational Evolutionary Biology"! More information (to be updated in the coming weeks), including the list of keynote speakers available here:

mceb2026.sciencesconf.org?lang=en

cc @stamatak.bsky.social

Incredibly honest, inspiring and insightful address given by the president of the American Society of Naturalists, Prof. Daniel L. Bolnick at #Evol2025. Highly recommended.

The first and last keynote speakers at #MCEB2025: Lisa Pokorny and Richard Durbin.

Thanks a lot Granada for hosting us in 2025! It was a real blast. Fantastic venue, marvellous city. Many thanks to the local organizers: A. Jesús Muñoz-Pajares and Mohamed Abdelaziz Mohamed. #MCEB2025

The programme and list of abstracts of selected talks and posters for the upcoming MCEB 2025 in Granada, Spain are now available. Please check out the conference website: mceb2025.sciencesconf.org?lang=en

MCEB 2025 in Granada, Spain, 12-16 May 2025: mceb2025.sciencesconf.org

Deadline for pre-registration : 21 February 2025

Looking forward to seeing you there!

These extreme peaks - spikes in effective population size (Ne) immediately followed by an even more extreme collapse are really common! Here are a few examples from the literature:

Is there any new result about the origins of old (i.e. pre-european) Native American DNA in Rapanui genomes? Also, have we ever found traces of Rapanui DNA in Native American genomes? Asking for a friend :)

Ancient Rapanui genomes reveal resilience and pre-European contact with the Americas - Nature An analysis of 15 ancient genomes from individuals dating to AD 1670–1950 from Rapa Nui (also known as Easter Island) addresses questions about the population history of the island.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

For its 2025 instalment, the conference "Mathematical and Computational Evolutionary Biology" (MCEB) will take place in Granada, Spain ! It will focus on methods and models for phylogenomics and population genomics, with a great lineup of keynote speakers.
mceb2025.sciencesconf.org?lang=en

How fast are viruses spreading in the wild? Check out our latest study now published in @plosbiology.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1371/jour.... A study performed with Paul Bastide, Pauline Rocu, Denis Fargette, Olivier Hardy, @msuchard.bsky.social, @stephaneguindon.bsky.social, and Philippe Lemey (1/7)

PIV models are available in BEAST (beast.community) and PhyREX (github.com/stephaneguin...).

We applied this technique to the West Nile virus in the USA and showed that PIV models were indeed able to predict the arrival of that virus on the West Coast in 2002 using data collected before the end of 2001, for instance.

Also, since PIV models enable the estimation of speed at the tips of a phylogeny, we used them to predict future dispersal patterns.

Simulations show that "Phylogenetic Integrated Models" (PIV) provide estimates of dispersal speed that are more accurate than that obtained with previous approaches.

We devised a new model which, instead of describing the evolution of coordinates, focuses on the evolution of velocity. The coordinates are then obtained by integrating out velocities, which can be done at no extra computational cost.

-> Brownian trajectories have infinite variation: no matter how much you zoom in a trajectory, it will never be smooth... The concept of instantaneous speed simply does not exist here! This leads to difficulties for assessing the speed of dispersal under models such as the "Relaxed Random Walk".

Inferring speed of dispersal/migration in phylogeography is not trivial. For instance, assuming a Brownian process to model the evolution of spatial coordinates is a sensible approach overall but does not provide adequate means to measure speed. Why?

Modeling the velocity of evolving lineages and predicting dispersal patterns
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Models and Methods for Biological Evolution Biological evolution is the phenomenon concerning how species are born, are transformed or disappear over time. Its study relies on sophisticated methods that involve both mathematical modeling of the biological processes at play and the design of efficient algorithms to fit these models to genetic and morphological data. Models and Methods for Biological Evolution outlines the main methods to study evolution and provides a broad overview illustrating the variety of formal approaches used, notably including combinatorial optimization, stochastic models and statistical inference techniques. Some of the most relevant applications of these methods are detailed, concerning, for example, the study of migratory events of ancient human populations or the progression of epidemics. This book should thus be of interest to applied mathematicians interested in central problems in biology, and to biologists eager to get a deeper understanding of widely used techniques of evolutionary data analysis.

Models and Methods for Biological Evolution | Wiley Online Books onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10....

Philippe Martin - Ecologue photographe - Reportage YouTube video by PHOTOGRIFFON

J'ai eu le privilège de rencontrer (presque par hasard) Philippe Martin hier, à Lodève. Incroyable naturaliste, qui, grâce à ses techniques photographiques, nous donne une vision de la nature allant bien au delà de ce que l'oeil peut percevoir. www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGOW...