Talk Title: Using machine learning to accommodate complexity in phylogenetics and population genetics

Date: Friday, December 6, 2025. 11:00 am Eastern Time (EST)

Speaker: Megan L. Smith, Mississippi State University

Join the webinar at https://iscb.junolive.co/Nucleus/live/mainstage/iscbacademycosi99

Non-ISCB members, please first register here: https://iscb.swoogo.com/ISCBnucleus-registration

Talk Abstract: As the availability of genomic data from across the tree of life has increased, the extent of heterogeneity in phylogenomic datasets has become increasingly evident. The diverse processes shaping genomic variation necessitate increasingly complex models that cannot always be accommodated in standard likelihood or Bayesian frameworks. In light of this heterogeneity, machine learning has emerged as a particularly promising approach. First, I’ll describe our applications of supervised machine learning to infer phylogenetic relationships and demographic histories. While promising, these approaches rely on the use of data simulated under the models of interest to train machine learning algorithms. When the models used to simulate these data do not include processes important in shaping genetic variation in our focal systems, it leads to a mismatch between training data and empirical data. Our results indicate that such model violations can mislead inferences of introgression. However, domain adaptation approaches aim to overcome this limitation of supervised machine learning. Using domain adaptation, we demonstrate that accurate inferences of introgression are possible, even in the presence of complex processes not modelled in the training data.

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We are delighted to announce that Québec City (Canada) has been selected to host our annual conference in 2027. The meeting will be held from June 20 to 24, 2027, at the Québec City Convention Centre. The facility is in the city center, within a 10-minute walk from the Historic District of Old Québec, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, major tourist attractions, and some of Canada’s finest restaurants. The Local Organising Committee will be Christian Landry, Nadia Aubin-Horth, Jullien Flynn, Jean-Baptiste Leducq and Edel Lopez from Université Laval, and Sophie Breton from Université de Montréal. They are working to make this a memorable event while keeping it affordable and accessible to our diverse community. They are looking forward to hosting you in 2027.

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The Society of Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE) is excited to announce Dr. Maud Tenaillon as a new Editor-in-Chief of Genome Biology and Evolution, starting January 2025. Maud will join Laura A. Katz, Smith College, who continues her term as EIC.  Maud is a Research Director for the CNRS at the Université Paris -Saclay where she studies plant population genomics, with a particular interest in the evolutionary genomics of domestication and the impact of domestication on plant-plant interactions. From 2016 to 2019, she served as a council member for SMBE, where she helped initiate interdisciplinary and regional meetings and addressed gender-related issues. She became an associate editor for GBE starting in 2019, overseeing genome reports for two years. We are very grateful to Adam Eyre-Walker, University of Sussex, who will complete his term at the end of 2024. Adam has been an outstanding leader for the journal, launching a variety of initiatives including special sections, the evaluation of journal inclusiveness, checking data availability, ensuring the journal has an inclusive waiver policy and appointing a social media editor. Working collaboratively with Laura, Adam has also worked hard to diversify the editorial board and expand the scope of the journal.

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Dear SMBE Members,

We're delighted to announce that the Society for Molecular Biology & Evolution is now accepting proposals for symposium for the 2025 Annual Meeting, taking place in Beijing, China, from July 20th – 24th, 2025. Selection of proposals will prioritize the interests of SMBE members, emphasizing innovative scientific developments while ensuring geographic and gender diversity among the participants. In light of the growing influence of new technologies, such as genetic editing, synthetic biology and AI, on evolution research (as outlined in our mission statement), we also encourage proposals that explore these topics.

SMBE 2025 will be held in the Beijing Conventional Center, with facilities allowing five parallel symposia to be held in the same building. We welcome proposals for symposia of 120 min duration, and the invited speaker will have 20 minutes, with 5 minutes for questions and 2 free minutes for participants to change symposium if they wish. Each contributed speaker will have 12 minutes, with 3 minutes for questions, and 2 free minutes for participants to change symposium if they wish. For the upcoming SMBE 2025 meeting, we are encouraging 5 min flash talks to give more opportunities to researchers around the globe to communicate their work. This means each symposium will accommodate 1 invited speaker, 2 contributed speakers, and 6 to 8 flash talks.

For each accepted symposium, the meeting will provide financial support up to 2,800 US dollars, along with fully covered conference registration for the invited speaker, to facilitate symposium organizers in attracting outstanding invited speakers. To submit your proposal please click on the link below and follow the instructions. Please complete and submit the form by 11:59pm GMT +8 November 5th, 2024. Successful applications will be confirmed by the end of November. Please email us at smbe2025@ioz.ac.cn for any questions.

Symposium proposals should include a description of the symposium (250 words max) and the name of the proposed invited speaker capable of delivering a talk of high quality and wide interest (each symposium will be limited to one invited speaker, however, you can nominate multiple invited speakers at this stage). At the time of proposal submission, the proposed invited speaker should have agreed to accept the invitation in principle. Please explain to the proposed invited speaker that the invitation is conditional on funding of the proposal. For the proposed invited speaker, please indicate whether they have been approached, whether they have expressed their interest in participating, and the likely topic for their talk. The symposium organizers will also select contributed speakers from the abstracts submitted by registered delegates.

Please CLICK HERE to access the submission portal.

The final decision on the selection of symposia, invited and contributed talks will be made by the Local Organizing Committee (LOC). Criteria will include quality of the proposals, breadth of interest to SMBE membership, and representation of the diversity of SMBE membership among speakers.

The meeting will be held as a hybrid conference, but the speakers

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Dear SMBE members, 

Greetings from the SMBE 2025 local organizing committee!

We are happy to announce the launch of the official SMBE 2025 website: http://www.smbe2025.org/

Key dates can be found on the website. Please bookmark & share the site!  

We would like to remind you that the portal for submitting symposia proposals will be open on September 20th, 2024.

Stay tuned! 

-The SMBE 2025 Local Organizing Committee 

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Each year, SMBE funds several SMBE SATELLITE, INTERDISCIPLINARY AND REGIONAL MEETINGS. These meetings are organized and held independently of the SMBE annual meeting. 

SMBE is now calling for proposals for meetings and actions to be held between Jan 2025 and Dec 31st 2025. Funds will be awarded on a competitive basis to members of the molecular evolution research community to run meetings on an important, focused, and timely topic of their choice. The number of awards will depend on the quality of proposals, total cost and the budget available.
The deadline for submission of proposals is August 15 2024. Decisions will be communicated to the applicants mid-September 2024. 

List of upcoming and previous SATELLITE/INTERDISCIPLINARY/REGIONAL SMBE meetings:
Upcoming meetings: 
http://www.smbe.org/smbe/MEETINGS/SatelliteInterdisciplinaryRegionalMeetings/Schedule.aspx

Please also consult our archive for further information on previous Satellite, Regional and Interdisciplinary meetings: 
http://www.smbe.org/smbe/MEETINGS/SatelliteInterdisciplinaryRegionalMeetings/Archive.aspx

Participants of Satellite/Interdisciplinary/Regional meetings are eligible for SMBE Caregiver Award:
https://www.smbe.org/smbe/AWARDS/CaregiverAward.aspx 

SMBE SATELLITE MEETINGS
These are small, topically focused meetings with fewer than 100 participants that are organized and held independent of the SMBE annual meeting. In the past five years, SMBE has supported multiple Satellite meetings on diverse topics, a sample of our most recent Satellite meetings include:

● “Ancient DNA beyond allele frequencies” 2024
● “Long-term population resilience” 2024
● “Pathogen Pangenome Evolution” 2024
● “Evolutionary and genomic consequences of drive” 2023
● “De novo gene birth” 2023
● “Molecular evolution in small populations” 2023
● “Fungal pathogens” 2022
● “Molecular Biology and Evolution of Cancer” 2019
● “Towards an integrated concept of adaptation: uniting molecular population genetics and quantitative genetics” 2019
● “Molecular evolution and the cell” 2018
● “Genome Evolution in Pathogen Transmission and Disease” 2018
● “Modern Methods for the study of ancient DNA&rdquo

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