Congratulations to David Marques and Joana Meier on each having new papers in press at Molecular Ecology!

David’s paper, “Genomic landscape of early ecological speciation initiated by selection on nuptial color,” takes a look at genome-wide patterns of divergence in a neat little Swiss pond with stickleback that have a bimodal color distribution. Take note of his beautiful figures. Nice work David!

Joana’s paper, “Demographic modeling with whole genome data reveals parallel origin of similar Pundamilia cichlid species after hybridization,” offers a totally revolutionary view of the history of the famed red and blue Pundamilia cichlid species in the Mwanza gulf. It provides a glimpse of the complex spatial genetic structure that many of the Victoria species are likely to have, and suggests that introgression, fine-scale spatial divergence, and repeated parallel local divergence are common among Lake Victoria cichlids. Nice work Joana!

David and Joana are a Swiss affiliates of the Wagner Lab, as Katie co-supervised their PhDs at the University of Bern. David and Joana both defended in May of this year and are on to more great work as postdocs. Both will continue working with the Seehausen group on Lake Victoria cichlid genomics, and David is additionally working on Canadian stickleback genomes at the University of Victoria.