Nadia Haghani

This is so great to hear—thanks for the hype! Excited to continue studying “sparkle” and share what we learn!

Thank you so much! I love to hear that “sparkle” is going strong post BoG✨

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...

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

Thanks so much! We really appreciated your feedback and incorporated some pop gen into the paper!

Beautiful work by @nadiahaghani.bsky.social and @mollyschumer.bsky.social on perhaps the most charismatic coloration trait in swordtails and platys!

i remember this great talk from Biology of Genomes - the sparkle phenotype!

Very happy to see this project submitted! Congrats @nadiahaghani.bsky.social !!

Thank you for the kind words! Love that the “sparkle” trait is still going strong after BoG!

Thank you so much, Raquel! Greatly appreciate all your advice and support ✨🎸

also great photo featuring false gravid spot ;)

Thank you!! Grateful for all your help in assembling sparkle genomes

Thank you for all your help and mentorship throughout the years! Couldn't have done it without your support!

This is the best post ever hahaha! You are the OG sparkle research queen ✨

✨ this is the skin of a swimmer, Bella ✨

awesome work led by @nadiahaghani.bsky.social that identifies what makes a swordtail fish sparkle 🪩

Beyond excited to share my PhD work thus far, now up as a preprint! We found that a transposable element insertion is responsible for the recent evolution of an novel color trait. Feeling thankful to everyone who has helped in this project and thrilled to continue learning about "sparkle"!

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...

Insertion of an invading retrovirus regulates a novel color trait in swordtail fish https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.07.687308v1