Dr Morgane Milin

Biography and previous work

I have a Bachelor’s degree in Organismal Biology from the University of Rennes (France) and an International Master’s degree in Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolution from both the University of Rennes (France) and the University of Göttingen (Germany). I completed my PhD at the University of Rennes in 2024, where I investigated recurrent polyploidy and diploidization in Sporobolus section Spartina (Chloridoideae, Poaceae) genomes. During my PhD, I developed expertise in comparative genomics, polyploidization, chromosome evolution and bioinformatics. As part of this work, I developed a bioinformatics tool, WGD_Tracker, for detecting and dating whole-genome duplication events.

BlueSky - WGDip (@wgdip.bsky.social) — Bluesky

Outside of Work

Apart from academia, I enjoy spending time in nature, especially birdwatching.

Post-doctoral research

WGDip – Reappraising the role of whole genome duplication and rediploidisation in eukaryotic evolution.

I am a full-time BBSRC scientist in the Macqueen group at the Roslin Institute. My current research focuses on applying comparative genomic and bioinformatic approaches to better understand whole-genome duplication and rediploidization processes in Salmonidae.

Publications

Milin, M. WGD_Tracker: WGD_Tracker (v1.0). Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14672010 (2025).

Armel Salmon, Yan Hao, Morgane Milin (co-first authors), Oscar Lima, Armand Cavé-Radet, Delphine Giraud, Corinne Cruaud, Karine Labadie, Benjamin Istace, Caroline Belser, Jean-Marc Aury, Patrick Wincker, Bo Li, Linfeng Li and Malika Ainouche, “On the way to diploidization and unexpected ploidy in the grass Sporobolus section Spartina mesopolyploids” (2025) Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-56983-8

Dirk Granse, Paul Wendt, Sigrid Suchrow, Dieter Hanelt, Jörg Fromm, Morgane Milin, Oscar Lima, Armel Salmon, Malika Aïnouche, and Kai Jensen, 2025 “When genetic diversity is low: The effects of ploidy level on plant functional trait expression in Spartina under global change” (2025) Ecology and Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.71022