Long Zhou

TL;DR: A genome-scale phylogenetic analysis of 48 species representing all orders of Neoaves recovered a highly resolved tree that confirms previously controversial sister or close relationships and identifies the first divergence in Neoaves, two groups the authors named Passerea and Columbea.

TL;DR: This work explored bird macroevolution using full genomes from 48 avian species representing all major extant clades to reveal that pan-avian genomic diversity covaries with adaptations to different lifestyles and convergent evolution of traits.

TL;DR: In this article, a male leopard gecko, Eublepharis macularius, was reported to have a 2.02 Gb genome, which was close to the 2.23 Gb estimated by k-mer analysis.

TL;DR: Assembly of the leopard gecko genome provides a valuable resource for future comparative genomic studies of geckos and other squamate reptiles.

TL;DR: Using the full genomes of 48 avian species representing all major extant clades, this first large scale analysis of vertebrate genome evolution outside of mammals finds the smaller size of avian genomes was largely the result of massive erosion of repetitive elements, large segmental deletions, as well as gene loss following the split from other reptiles.