Publications
Below find an selection of recent publications. For an updated overview of all publications consult the ORCID or GoogleScholar record.
ADAPTATION & SPECIATION
How cuckoo females solve co-evolutionary arms races without speciating
Merondun J, Fossøy F, Meshcheryagina S, Atkinson P, Bachurin G, et al. Wolf JBW. 2025. Genomic architecture of egg mimicry and its consequences for speciation in parasitic cuckoos. Science 390:527–532.
Balancing selection of female disguise unfolds on the matrilineal genome
Merondun J*, Marques CI*, Andrade P, Meshcheryagina S, Galván I , et al. Carneiro M*, Wolf JBW*. 2024. Evolution and genetic architecture of sex-limited polymorphism in cuckoos. Science Advances 10:eadl5255.
Insights from a yeast evolve-and-resequence speciation experiment
Tusso S, Nieuwenhuis BPS, Weissensteiner B, Immler S, Wolf JBW. 2021. Experimental evolution of adaptive divergence under varying degrees of gene flow. Nature Ecology & Evolution 5: 338-349.
HYBRIDIZATION
It’s complicated: adaptive introgression or resistance against genome-wide swamping?
Gwee CY, Metzler D, Fuchs J, Wolf JBW. 2025. Reconciling Gene Tree Discordance and Biogeography in European Crows. Molecular Ecology 34:e17764.
Genomic shock in yeast
Tusso S, Suo F, Liang Y, Du L-L, Wolf JBW. 2022. Reactivation of transposable elements following hybridization in fission yeast. Genome Research 32:324–336.
Admixture mapping reveals sexually selected barrier loci
Knief U, Bossu CM, Saino N, Hansson B, Poelstra J, et al.. Wolf JBW. 2019. Epistatic mutations under divergent selection govern phenotypic variation in the crow hybrid zone. Nature Ecology & Evolution 3: 570–576.
GENOME EVOLUTION
How do birds deal with the peril of aneuploidy in the heterogametic females?
Catalán A, Merondun J, Knief U, Wolf JBW (2023). Chromatin accessibility, not 5mC methylation covaries with partial dosage compensation in crows. PLOS Genetics 19:e1010901.
Toxic W: Infectious transposons dwell on the avian sex-limited chromosome
Warmuth VM, Weissensteiner MH, Wolf JBW. 2022. Ineffective silencing of transposable elements on the avian W chromosome. Genome Research 32: 671-681.
An inventory of structural mutations (probably called pan genomics these days)
Weissensteiner MH, Bunikis I, Catalán A et al. Wolf JBW. 2020. The population genomics of structural variation in a songbird genus. Nature Communications 11:3403.
TESTING THEORY
Long- and short-term measures of population size contain information on conservation status
Peart CP*, Tusso S*, Pophaly SD*, Botero-Castro F, Wu C, et al., Wolf JBW. 2020. Determinants of genetic variation across eco-evolutionary scales in pinnipeds. Nature Ecology & Evolution 4:1095-1104
Support for the central tenet of nearly-neutral evolutionary theory
Kutschera VE, Poelstra JW, Botero-Castro F, Dussex N, GEmmel NJ, et al., Wolf JBW. 2020. Purifying selection in corvids Is less efficient on islands. Molecular Biology and Evolution 37: 469–474.
Time dependency of dN/dS after speciation
Mugal CF, Kutschera VE, Botero-Castro F, Wolf JBW, Kaj I. 2020. Polymorphism data assist estimation of the nonsynonymous over synonymous fixation rate ratio ω for closely related species. Molecular Biology and Evolution 37:260–279.
METHODOLOGY
How to best catch DNA molecules from ancient bones
Gwee CY, Tassoni L, Boev Z, Tomek T, Bochenski ZM, Talamo S, Wolf JBW. 2026. Performance of Two Custom Probe Kits for In-Solution Enrichment of Ancient Avian DNA. Molecular Ecology Resources 26:e70071.
Insights into genome assembly and scaffolding
Peart CR, Williams C, Pophaly SD, Neely BA, Gulland FMD, et al., Wolf JBW. 2021. Hi-C scaffolded short- and long-read genome assemblies of the California sea lion are broadly consistent for syntenic inference across 45 million years of evolution. Molecular Ecology Resources 21, 2455–2470.
To what extent do bioinformatic pipelines bias biological reality?
Shafer ABA, Peart CR, Tusso S, Maayan I, Brelsford A, Wheat CW, Wolf JBW. 2017. Bioinformatic processing of RAD-seq data dramatically impacts downstream population genetic inference. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 16: 940–950.
REVIEW & OPINION
Exploring ways to assess the role of epigenetic variation for evolution
Mueller SA, Merondun J, Lečić S, Wolf JBW. 2025. Epigenetic variation in light of population genetic practice. Nature Communications 16:1028.
What happens when evolutionary biologists and philosophers brainstorm in dark december?
Roesti M, Roesti H, Satokangas I, Boughman J, Chaturvedi S, Wolf JBW, Langerhans RB.. 2024. Predictability, an Orrery, and a Speciation Machine: Quest for a Standard Model of Speciation. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology a041456.
Relevance and empirical access to a central biological parameter
Peñalba JV & Wolf JBW. 2020. From molecules to populations: appreciating and estimating recombination rate variation.Nature Reviews Genetics 21: 476-492
OLDER KEY PUBLICATIONS
Rapid and transgressive bio-diversification by shuffling genomes
Tusso S, Nieuwenhuis BPS, Sedlazeck FJ, Davey JW, Jeffares DC, Wolf JBW. 2019. Ancestral admixture is the main determinant of global biodiversity in fission yeast. Molecular Biology and Evolution 36: 1975–1989.
Interaction of socially transmitted hunting practice and population divergence
Foote A*, Vijay N*, Avila-Arcos M, Baird RW, Durban JW, et al., Wolf JBW. 2016. Genome-culture coevolution promotes rapid divergence of killer whale ecotypes. Nature Communications 7: 11693.
A comprehensive speciation genomic study in European crows
Poelstra JW*, Vijay N*, Bossu C* , Lantz H, Ryll B, et al. , Wolf JBW. 2014. The genomic landscape underlying phenotypic integrity in the face of gene flow in crows. Science 344: 1410-1414.
Pervasive isolation-by-ecology pattern is consistent with ecologcial speciation theory
Shafer A & Wolf JBW. 2013. Widespread evidence for incipient ecological speciation: a meta-analysis of isolation-by-ecology. Ecology Letters 16: 940-950.
The genomic landscape of speciation: an avian example
Ellegren H, Smeds L, Burri R, Olason PI, Backström N, et al.. Wolf JBW. 2012. The genomic landscape of species divergence in Ficedula flycatchers. Nature 491: 756-760.