Category Archives: conservation

Experimental harvesting reduces gene expression variation

Human activities represent unique selective pressures for natural populations. This is especially true for fish species where we routinely harvest individuals from the wild, i.e., through fishing. It has been recognized for some time that overfishing can result in population … Continue reading

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#Evol2017 catch-up — or remember that time when someone stole your field gear?

To borrow from our lead in paragraph for post-Evol2017 wrap-ups: Two weeks after the closing day of the 2017 Evolution Meetings, the Molecular Ecologists have all dispersed from Portland, though items from the Krueger-Hadfield lab didn’t make the return journey! Still, the conference … Continue reading

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Mapping genomes and navigating behavior for wildlife conservation

Virginia Aida wrote this post as a final project for Stacy Krueger-Hadfield’s Science Communication course at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is currently evaluating a potential pharmacotherapy in traumatic brain injury and anticipates graduating with her MS in summer 2017.  Although she … Continue reading

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Like Turtles, Terrapin Research Moves a Little Slow

Marlee Hayes wrote this post as a final project for Stacy Krueger-Hadfield’s Science Communication course at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her primary interests focus on challenges in conservation and sustainability. Previously, she evaluated fitness of post-hatchling Diamondback terrapins (Malaclemys terrapin), … Continue reading

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Molting on the molecular level: how blue crabs become soft-shell crabs

Megan Roegner wrote this post as a final project for Stacy Krueger-Hadfield’s Science Communication course at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Megan spent her early years in Cape Town, South Africa playing in the tidal pools along the coast and developing … Continue reading

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Deep in the meadow, under the … seagrass, a bed of temporally stable diversity?

Genetically diverse populations are often more stable and productive. For habitat-forming organisms, such as seagrasses, this results in increased habitat complexity and more abundant associated communities (e.g., Hughes and Stachowicz 2004, Reusch et al. 2005).  Spatial patterns of genetic diversity … Continue reading

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What's left of the black rhino's genetic diversity?

With the current poaching epidemic we might lose rhinos before we even have time to get to know them. Luckily, the day has come and thanks to Yoshan Moodley, Mike Bruford and their team we know have a pretty good … Continue reading

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Resurrecting our ghosts: Helen Pilcher’s Bring Back the King

The Molecular Ecologist receives a small commission for purchases made on Bookshop.org via links from this post. On September 7, 1936, at the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart, Tasmania, a wolf-like creature named Benjamin paced up and down in his cage. As night fell, … Continue reading

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Diving into the inbreeding depression

This post is going to be a little melodramatic, but I hope that despite all the reading on inbreeding depression, you won’t get depressed. As the media finally started feeding us all the catastrophic news about the impact of global … Continue reading

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Artificial connectivity … have we overlooked the native range?

Invasive species are problematic throughout the world’s ecosystems, down even to their very name which incites heated debates. Every month, studies are published that describe the genetic structure and gene flow of non-native species in their introduced ranges. Often, these … Continue reading

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