Erica collaborated with an amazing team to survey the scope and role of postmating prezygotic (PMPZ) barriers in speciation. This was a massive and comprehensive survey of the literature and should be a landmark paper for studies of PMPZ barriers!

Garlovsky MD, Whittington E, Albrecht T, Arenas-Castro H, Castillo DM, Keais GL; Larson EL, Moyle L, Plakke M, Reifová R, Snook RR, Ålund M, AAT Weber. 2023. Synthesis and scope of the role of postmating prezygotic isolation in speciation. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology. 15: a041429. https://doi.org/10.1101/cshperspect.a041429

“On September 4, 2023, the sky cleared over Nynäshamn, Sweden, and researchers from across the globe gathered for the 16th Biology of Spermatozoa (BoS) meeting. What followed was a week fuelled by tasty food (find out below about the gelato!) and beautiful weather discussing sperm, eggs, reproductive fluids, fertility, and all things reproductive evolution.”

Whittington, Emma, and M. Alund. "Sperm, eggs, pollen, and gelato, oh my!." Molecular Reproduction and Development(2023).

Erica attended the Biology of Spermatozoa meeting in Nynäshamn, Sweden. As always, it was a great meeting! Information about this unique meeting is available HERE.

Our paper won the 2018 GENETICS Editors’ Choice Award for Population Genetics!

The Evolution of Polymorphic Hybrid Incompatibilities in House Mice

Erica L. Larson, Dan Vanderpool, Brice A. J. Sarver, Colin Callahan, Sara Keeble, Lorraine L. Provencio, Michael D. Kessler, Vanessa Stewart, Erin Nordquist, Matthew D. Dean, and Jeffrey M. Good

Genetics July 2018 209: 845–859

Reproductive barriers are often assumed to arise from fixed genetic differences between species, despite frequent individual variation in the strength of reproductive isolation between populations. Larson et al. report polymorphism at several hybrid male sterility loci in house mice, and their results demonstrate that selection against deleterious hybrid interactions can drive the introgression of hybrid incompatibilities, highlighting the need for more extensive sampling of natural variation in speciation studies.

Automated Nuclear Cartography Reveals Conserved Sperm Chromosome Territory Localization across 2 Million Years of Mouse Evolution

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/10/2/109

The second installment of our collaboration with Peter Ellis' group to quantify sperm nuclear morphology in classic and wild mice. A great paper lead by Ben Skinner. Preprint

Spermatogenesis and the Evolution of Mammalian Sex Chromosomes

Erica L. Larson, Emily E.K. Kopania, and Jeffrey M. Good  

Developmental constraint and sexual conflict shape the evolution of hetero- morphic sex chromosomes. These contrasting forces are perhaps strongest during spermatogenesis in species with XY males. In this review, we consider how the unique regulatory environment and selective pressures of spermato- genesis interact to impact sex chromosome evolution in mammals. We explore how each developmental phase of spermatogenesis influences sex chromo- some gene content, structure, and rate of molecular evolution, and how these attributes may contribute to speciation. We argue that a developmental context is fundamental to understanding sex chromosome evolution and that an evolutionary perspective can shed new light on our understanding of sperm development. PAPER

Our paper in the July issue of Genetics is the featured research on the Genetics homepage

We review the Biology of Spermatozoa 2017 meeting, just in time to start planning on attending BoS 2019! Article Here

A collaboration with Peter Ellis' group to quantify sperm nuclear morphology in classic and wild mice. Preprint. 

A high-throughput method for unbiased quantitation and categorisation of nuclear morphology

Benjamin Matthew Skinner, Claudia Cattoni Rathje, Joanne Bacon, Emma Elizabeth Philippa Johnson, Erica Lee Larson, Emily Emiko Konishi Kopania, Jeffrey Martin Good, Gullalaii Yousafzai, Nabeel Ahmed Affara, Peter James Ivor Ellis

Re-thinking incompatibilities as fixed between species

The Evolution Of Polymorphic Hybrid Incompatibilities In House Mice

Erica L. Larson, Dan Vanderpool, Brice A. J. Sarver, Colin Callahan, Sara Keeble, Lorraine P. Provencio, Michael D. Kessler, Vanessa Stewart, Erin Nordquist, Matthew D. Dean and Jeffrey M. Good

GENETICS Early online April 24, 2018