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Author Archives: Bryan McLean
The largest mammalian genome is not polyploid
Some 40 million years ago in South America, following the arrival of the common ancestor of caviomorph rodents from the Old World, big changes were afoot. Specifically, the caviomorph colonists were beginning to give rise to an extant evolutionary progeny … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, bioinformatics, genomics, RNAseq, transcriptomics
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The Hidden History of Kiwi Diversification
Of the millions of Earth’s species that likely remain to be described, a majority is thought to be invertebrates, plants, fungi, or microbes. Nevertheless, the pace of species description in some vertebrate groups has not slackened over the past few … Continue reading
A Comparative View of Comparative Phylogeography
A recent issue of PNAS includes papers from a Sackler Colloquium on comparative phylogeography. As stated by the organizers, a major purpose of that gathering “was to bring together leading scientists to address the current state of phylogeography as the … Continue reading
The Genomics of Rapid Adaptation
Phenology (the timing of life cycle events such as growth, breeding, or migration) is among the most sensitive organismal traits to climate and environmental change. In recent years, phenological shifts have been documented in numerous taxa, in traits such as … Continue reading
Greetings from Austin, with a look towards Evolution 2016.
As the yearly conference season approaches full swing, the minds of many evolution-oriented scientists turn, naturally, to Evolution. The Evolution conference is the annual conclave of three of the discipline’s foremost societies (American Society of Naturalists, Society for the Study … Continue reading
Posted in conferences
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On Integrative Species Delimitation…
Accurate delimitation of species is a fundamental first step that underlies much of what we do in biology. But this can prove challenging in many situations. Why? Let me count the ways. Incomplete lineage sorting, hybridization, morphological conservatism, and niche … Continue reading
Island-Hopping with an E.I.D.
If you live in the U.S. and feel like Zika virus is getting closer to home, that’s because it is. Although there are no known cases of Zika transmission by natural vectors in the lower 48, experts have stressed that … Continue reading
Posted in evolution, genomics, medicine, phylogenetics, Uncategorized
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The Evolution of Molecular Dating
Molecular dating is a key tool in deciphering the history of life. In a recent Molecular Biology and Evolution paper, Sudhir Kumar and Blair Hedges have reviewed the state of the subject, summarizing the philosophical and methodological history of this … Continue reading