Dear Colleagues, The annual meeting of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE), will be held in Beijing China, July 20-24, 2025. We are inviting abstract submissions for our symposium, "Phylogenomics in the presence of gene flow: opportunities and challenges" (Symposium #11). All the scientists who have been developing models and methods or doing empirical studies inferring gene flow are highly encouraged to submit abstracts to this symposium. **The deadline for abstract submissions is January 30, 2025** Details are as follows: SMBE 2025 Annual Meeting of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolutionhttps://smbe2025.scimeeting.cn/en/web/index/25070_2131033 Symposium 11: Phylogenomics in the presence of gene flow: opportunities and challenges Organizers: Xiyun Jiao, Southern University of Science and Technology, China Thomas Flouris, University College London, UK Invited Speaker: Anne Yoder, Duke University, USA Comparative analyses of genome-scale data have revealed the prevalence of cross-species gene flow in organisms. This phenomenon causes discordance of genealogical relationships in different genomic regions, creating difficulties in phylogenomic inference. There are other biological processes which can lead to gene tree incongruence, such as incomplete lineage sorting, recombination, etc. It is important to take them together with gene flow into account when inferring species histories. Treating different types of genomic data differently is also necessary, such as coding vs. noncoding data, which may contain different amounts of signal. The multispecies coalescent model with gene flow provides a natural framework to incorporate all these factors, and analyses using genomic sequence data under this model have already unveiled intriguing speciation patterns. However, the model is complex and the processes of coalescent, introgression/migration, and sequence evolution are highly stochastic, which makes it difficult to analyze genome-scale data efficiently. Thus so far, the field faces not only statistical challenges of developing suitable models and methods, but also computational challenges of analyzing genome-scale data. This symposium will highlight advances and challenges in developing models and methods for phylogenomic inference with gene flow and also exciting patterns of species divergence and cross-species gene flow revealed by analyses of genomic data. Dates: Abstract submission deadline: Jan 30, 2025 Early bird registration deadline: Apr 20, 2025 Abstract submission details: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://smbe2025.scimeeting.cn/en/web/index/25070_2367426__;!!Mak6IKo!MdiJ9HX13kwd5zLE4INfQKkgzbcbMZ1dnWOtayLicrSVceTmMQgzbu4wI2GuNCrYSm0oxLzH1zocuM9sREzAozHE7T68rf3ajQBlkg$ Look forward to seeing you in Beijing! Xiyun Jiao Xiyun Jiao (to subscribe/unsubscribe the EvolDir send mail to golding@mcmaster.ca)