Category Archives: adaptation

Hybridization in the depths of the last glacial period created a world-conquering clover

Plants’ flexibility with the structure of their genome — able to cope with proliferating transposons, whole-genome duplications, or even acquisition of complete sets of chromosomes from another species — is a big source of evolutionary novelty. Duplication of a single gene … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, evolution, genomics, hybridization, speciation | Tagged | 1 Comment

Move or adapt to changing climate? These chipmunks have had to do both

Climate change threatens to land many, many species in conditions for which they’re not adapted — too warm, too dry, too stormy, too flood-prone — and traditionally the ways that living things might respond to this are framed as a … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, comparative phylogeography, genomics, mammals | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Do we need to get to Mars first before we start understanding change in our oceans?

The current American administration is excited about its space program on extraterrestrial exploration and discovery. A mission to the moon, several ones to Mars, and perhaps others someday to other planets are part of the current funding plan. NASA has … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, evolution, journal club, population genetics, Science Communication, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Conference catch-up: The many colors of snow

Red snow … watermelon snow … green snow … did you know that snow came in so many different colors? I had never heard of watermelon ice (#🍉❄) until a talk given by Robin Kodner from Western Washington University at … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, bioinformatics, citizen science, community ecology, evolution, fieldwork, mating system, microbiology, natural history, phylogenetics, phylogeography, population genetics, selection, speciation, transcriptomics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Racing Against the Climate

Sarah Livett wrote this post as a final project for Stacy Krueger-Hadfield’s Introduction to Evolutionary Processes course at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Sarah was a 5th year MS student at UAB in Dr. Thane Wibbel‘s lab. She worked … Continue reading

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In it to win it: Selective Advantage through Host-Selected Mutations

Julian Jackson wrote this post as a final project for Stacy Krueger-Hadfield’s Science Communication course at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Julian is a MS student and investigates symbiotic relationships in microbial communities in Dr. Jeff Morris‘ lab. Outside of the … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, evolution, genomics, microbiology, Science Communication, selection | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Cricket Plays a Song of Systems Biology

Mina Momeni wrote this post as a final project for Stacy Krueger-Hadfield’s Science Communication course at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Mina earned her MS degree and is now a research technician at UAB in Dr. Nicole Riddle‘s lab. … Continue reading

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A Master Manipulator: How a bacterium tells a plant what to do

Katrina Sahawneh wrote this post as a final project for Stacy Krueger-Hadfield’s Science Communication course at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Katrina is working on her MS in Biology and her MA in Education. She currently is studying ER stress … Continue reading

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Are we restoring coral reefs for today or for tomorrow?

Elise Keister wrote this post as a final project for Stacy Krueger-Hadfield’s Science Communication course at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Elise studies the impact of climate change on coral as a PhD student in Dr. Dustin Kemp’s lab. Elise … Continue reading

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Evolution 2018: assortative mating, combinatorial speciation and genome dynamics

The Evolution conference in Montpellier is over, and as the sun, wine and great science become a memory, here is my recap of some conference highlights following on from a great first day: Sharon Strauss (University of California Davis) gave … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, conferences, evolution, genomics, natural history, next generation sequencing, phylogenetics, population genetics, speciation | Tagged , | Leave a comment