GECO Evolutionary and Computational Genomics

Bioinformatics, Phylogeny and Evolutionary Genomics Group

Lartillot Nicolas

Directeur de recherche

CNRS

Address: 43 bd du 11 novembre 1918
69622 VILLEURBANNE cedex

Tel: 04 72 44 84 87

Email

My research focusses on the general question of modeling the evolution of genetic sequences and genomes, with applications to phylogenetic inference and molecular evolution more generally.

For phylogenetic inference, my work is mostly based on Bayesian inference: once we have defined a stochastic model of genetic sequence evolution, we develop and implement algorithms for inferring probable values for the parameters of the model (including the phylogeny itself) which best explain the data. The phylogenetic models that we have developed, through multiple collaborations and with several PhD students, are then used for inferring the evolutionary history of living species (i.e. reconstructing the tree of life), but also for characterizing the adaptive regimes experienced by protein coding genes. Or particular interest is to understand which genes are under strong adaptive pressures, such as typically induced by evolutionary arms races between hosts and pathogens.

More recently, I got interested in confronting approaches working within and between species. Thus, on one side, phylogenetic analysis compares genomes of different species, whose genetic differences have accumulated over millions of years. Population genetics, on the other hand, focus on the genetic variation within species, which typically builds up over much shorter evolutionary time scales (for humans, of the order of a few 100,000 years). With increasing genomic sequences now available, it now becomes possible to integrate those two time scales and investigate to what extent the methods developed for each of them are congruent between each other -- and ultimately, how to directly integrate these macro- and micro-evolutionary perspectives in one single model. See the work of Latrille et al, 2023 and Bastian et al, 2025 on this subject.

Finally, I am also engaged in the development of theoretical and simulation-based models of genome evolution. Unlike those mentioned above, these models are not meant to be directly fitted to the currently available empirical genetic data. Instead, they can be used to explore and better understand the evolutionary phenomena that can spontaneously emerge from various aspects of the mechanisms of reproduction, mutation and recombination. In this direction, see the work of Luiselli et al, 2024, et Genestier et al, 2024

Publications

Display of 1 to 30 publications on 74 in total

Genome Streamlining: Effect of Mutation Rate and Population Size on Genome Size Reduction

Juliette Luiselli, Jonathan Rouzaud-Cornabas, Nicolas Lartillot, Guillaume Beslon

Genome Biology and Evolution . 16

DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evae250

Journal article

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From Inquilines to Gall Inducers: Genomic Signature of a Life-Style Transition in Synergus Gall Wasps

Erik Gobbo, Nicolas Lartillot, Jack Hearn, Graham N Stone, Yoshihisa Abe, Christopher W Wheat...

Genome Biology and Evolution . 12 : 2060 - 2073

DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evaa204

Journal article

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Bridging the gap between the evolutionary dynamics and the molecular mechanisms of meiosis.

Nicolas Lartillot, Alice Genestier, Laurent Duret

RecomBern .

Conference paper

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Imbalanced speciation pulses sustain the radiation of mammals

Ignacio Quintero, Nicolas Lartillot, Hélène Morlon

Science . 384 ( 6699 ) : 1007-1012

DOI: 10.1126/science.adj2793

Journal article

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The evolution of GC-biased gene conversion by means of natural selection

Nicolas Lartillot, Julien Joseph, Augustin Clessin

ETEE'2023: Empiricism & Theory in Ecology and Evolution .

Conference paper

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Phylogenomic analysis of protein‐coding genes resolves complex gall wasp relationships

Jack Hearn, Erik Gobbo, José Luis Nieves-Aldrey, Antoine Branca, James Nicholls, Georgios Koutsovoulos...

Systematic Entomology .

DOI: 10.1111/syen.12611

Journal article

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Compositionally Constrained Sites Drive Long-Branch Attraction

Lénárd L Szánthó, Nicolas Lartillot, Gergely J Szöllősi, Dominik Schrempf

Systematic Biology . 72 ( 4 ) : 767 - 780

DOI: 10.1093/sysbio/syad013

Journal article

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Identifying the Best Approximating Model in Bayesian Phylogenetics: Bayes Factors, Cross-Validation or wAIC?

Nicolas Lartillot

Systematic Biology . 72 : 616 - 638

DOI: 10.1093/sysbio/syad004

Journal article

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Genes and sites under adaptation at the phylogenetic scale also exhibit adaptation at the population-genetic scale

Thibault Latrille, Nicolas Rodrigue, Nicolas Lartillot

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America . 120 ( 11 ) : e2214977120

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2214977120

Journal article

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Bridging the gap between the evolutionary dynamics and the molecular mechanisms of meiosis : a model based exploration of the PRDM9 intra-genomic Red Queen

Alice Genestier, Laurent Duret, Nicolas Lartillot

PLoS Genetics . 20 ( 5 ) : e1011274

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1011274

Journal article

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An Improved Codon Modeling Approach for Accurate Estimation of the Mutation Bias

Thibault Latrille, Nicolas Lartillot

Molecular Biology and Evolution . 39

DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msac005

Journal article

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Quantifying the impact of changes in effective population size and expression level on the rate of coding sequence evolution

Thibault Latrille, Nicolas Lartillot

Theoretical Population Biology . 142 : 57-66

DOI: 10.1016/j.tpb.2021.09.005

Journal article

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Inferring Long-Term Effective Population Size with Mutation–Selection Models

Thibault Latrille, Vincent Lanore, Nicolas Lartillot

Molecular Biology and Evolution . 38 ( 10 ) : 4573-4587

DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msab160

Journal article

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Long-Lived Species of Bivalves Exhibit Low MT-DNA Substitution Rates

Mathieu Mortz, Aurore Levivier, Nicolas Lartillot, France Dufresne, Pierre Blier

Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences . 8

DOI: 10.3389/fmolb.2021.626042

Journal article

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Natural Selection beyond Life? A Workshop Report

Sylvain Charlat, André Ariew, Pierrick Bourrat, María Ferreira Ruiz, Thomas Heams, Philippe Huneman...

Life . 11 ( 10 ) : 1051

DOI: 10.3390/life11101051

Journal article

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Reconstruction of body mass evolution in the Cetartiodactyla and mammals using phylogenomic data.

Emeric Figuet, Marion Ballenghien, Nicolas Lartillot, Nicolas Galtier

Peer Community Journal . 1 : e42

DOI: 10.24072/pcjournal.42

Journal article

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A Bayesian Mutation–Selection Framework for Detecting Site-Specific Adaptive Evolution in Protein-Coding Genes

Nicolas Rodrigue, Thibault Latrille, Nicolas Lartillot

Molecular Biology and Evolution . 38 ( 3 ) : 1199-1208

DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msaa265

Journal article

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Reconstructing the History of Variation in Effective Population Size along Phylogenies

Mathieu Brevet, Nicolas Lartillot

Genome Biology and Evolution . 13 ( 8 )

DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evab150

Journal article

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Universal probabilistic programming offers a powerful approach to statistical phylogenetics

Fredrik Ronquist, Jan Kudlicka, Viktor Senderov, Johannes Borgström, Nicolas Lartillot, Daniel Lundén...

Communications Biology . 4 ( 1 ) : 244

DOI: 10.1038/s42003-021-01753-7

Journal article

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Scalable Empirical Mixture Models That Account for Across-Site Compositional Heterogeneity

Dominik Schrempf, Nicolas Lartillot, Gergely Szöllősi

Molecular Biology and Evolution . 37 : 3616 - 3631

DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msaa145

Journal article

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The Bayesian Approach to Molecular Phylogeny

Nicolas Lartillot

Phylogenetics in the Genomic Era . : 1.4:1--1.4:17

Book chapter

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PhyloBayes: Bayesian Phylogenetics Using Site-heterogeneous Models

Nicolas Lartillot

Phylogenetics in the Genomic Era . : 1.5:1--1.5:16

Book chapter

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Detecting adaptive convergent amino acid evolution

Carine Rey, Vincent Lanore, Philippe Veber, Laurent Guéguen, Nicolas Lartillot, Marie Sémon...

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences . 374 ( 1777 ) : 1-11

DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2018.0234

Journal article

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Conditional Approximate Bayesian Computation: A New Approach for Across-Site Dependency in High-Dimensional Mutation–Selection Models

Simon Laurin-Lemay, Nicolas Rodrigue, Nicolas Lartillot, Herve Philippe

Molecular Biology and Evolution . 35 ( 11 ) : 2819-2834

DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msy173

Journal article

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Life History Traits Impact the Nuclear Rate of Substitution but Not the Mitochondrial Rate in Isopods

Nathanaëlle Saclier, Clémentine François, Lara Konecny-Dupré, Nicolas Lartillot, Laurent Guéguen, L. Duret...

Molecular Biology and Evolution . 35 ( 12 ) : 2900-2912

DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msy184

Journal article

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The Red Queen model of recombination hot-spot evolution: a theoretical investigation

Thibault Latrille, L. Duret, Nicolas Lartillot

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences .

DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2016.0463

Journal article

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Improved Modeling of Compositional Heterogeneity Supports Sponges as Sister to All Other Animals

Roberto Feuda, Martin Dohrmann, Walker Pett, Herve Philippe, Omar Rota-Stabelli, Nicolas Lartillot...

Current Biology . 27 ( 24 ) : 3864-3870.e4

DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.11.008

Journal article

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