Russel just presented his dissertation work on the population genomics of the newly-crowned state shrimp of Hawaii, Halocaridina rubra, at the 2026 Population, Evolutionary, and Quantitative Genetics Conference (PEQG). This is a really cool story that has, in some ways, been over 20 years in the making. Its both a great example of how population genetics can inform conservation decisions, why signals from mitochondrial genes should be revisited with nuclear genomic data, and how gene flow works in a really unusual ecosystem.
Russ is writing up this work now, so keep an eye out for it before too long. It has involved dozens of researchers, most notably many folks in Hawaii that have been kind enough to help us out over many years.
Sounds like Russ had an awesome time at the conference – I’m jealous I didn’t get to go!