Subscribe by email
Join 889 other subscribersMeta
Category Archives: evolution
Chromosomal inversion determines male morphs in the ruff
The ruff is a wading bird where the male becomes especially spectacular during mating season with its colorful and variable breeding plumage. Two papers published together in Nature Genetics in November have now identified the genetic source of the large variation … Continue reading
Posted in evolution, genomics
Tagged genome, inversion, morphs, ruff, structural variation
Leave a comment
A different perspective on genetic architecture
As an ecological geneticist, I’m constantly reminded how much we don’t understand about the genetic nature of adaptive variation. Sure, we have lots of examples of genes/pathways/regions that seem to be responsible for adaptation, but we don’t really know if … Continue reading
There and back again: an angiosperm's tale
Eelgrass (Zostera marina) is the dominant seagrass in the northern hemisphere and provides the foundation of highly productive ecosystems that rival tropical rain forests and coral reefs in ecosystem services. Zostera isn’t really a grass, but a monocot, like a … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, bioinformatics, community ecology, evolution, genomics, plants
Tagged Evolution, genome, plants, salinity, seagrass
Leave a comment
The Carnivorous Rodents of Southeast Asia
Whoa, Wallace. There be carnivorous rats on those islands. Sixty-two species, to be exact, across the broader Indo-Australian Archipelago. Among them are small- and large-bodied rats, worm-eaters with elongated snouts (“vermivores”), and even amphibious forms (Fig. 1), and they are … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, evolution, natural history, phylogenetics, theory
Leave a comment
Supergenes and Sparrows with Four Sexes
Supergenes are groups of tightly-linked genes that influence suites of traits relevant to fitness. While long a fixture of evolutionary genetics theory, their role in empirical studies of non-model organisms has been relatively limited, due to limitations in both our … Continue reading
Single dispersal of modern humans to Eurasia
In a typical ancient DNA study where the number of authors exceeds the number of specimens (actually, equals this time), Cosimo Posth and colleagues sequenced 35 pre-Neolithic modern humans from Europe. By sequencing 35 mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) genomes, Posth et … Continue reading
Posted in evolution, genomics, natural history, Paleogenomics, population genetics
Tagged ancient DNA, human evolution, mitochondrial DNA, paleogenomics
5 Comments
How to build a mimic
The history of evolutionary and ecological studies on mimic species is deep and chock-full of familiar names (Bates, Darwin, Muller, Wallace are just a few). There has also been no limit on the number of jaw-droppingly gorgeous species that have been under … Continue reading
A race to the bottom with a new card from the coevolutionary deck
I’m a sucker for a clever, amusing title, though I’ve recently read that amusing titles are cited less (see here). Alas, maybe a well placed metaphor can enliven a manuscript and also not get lost in a citation-less abyss? In basic … Continue reading
Posted in Coevolution, evolution, horizontal gene transfer, microbiology, selection
Tagged Black Queen Hypothesis, co-evolution, microbes
Leave a comment