Category Archives: evolution

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

Posted in adaptation, bioinformatics, blogging, evolution, genomics, mutation, natural history, Science Communication | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Microbiomes of a small conference

The conference season is almost over. There are still a few gems out there worth attending before school starts. I just came back from the Lake Arrowhead Microbial Genomics Conference which took place at a UCLA resort in the mountains. … Continue reading

Posted in blogging, career, community, conferences, evolution, genomics | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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

Posted in adaptation, blogging, evolution, genomics, plants, Science Communication, selection | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

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

Posted in adaptation, blogging, evolution, natural history, Science Communication, selection | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

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

Evolution 2018 Day 1: From genomics in the wild, to new models of selection

It’s Evolution conference time! Evolution has long been my favourite fixture in the conference calendar, with its diverse mix of theoretical and empirical studies that span the full range of evolutionary biology. This year it’s the second Joint Congress on … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, community, conferences, evolution, genomics, population genetics, speciation, theory | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Just So Stories addendum: How the stickleback keeps getting its stickles

Model organisms have been essential tools for genetics research since the field was formed.  Kelle Freel discussed the characteristics that make for a good model organism in a previous TME post.  Briefly, traits like short generation time, lots of offspring, … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, evolution, genomics, natural history, selection, stickleback | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

They joy of genome sequencing: when genomics meets natural history

When I have a massive pile of papers that I need to read, I can’t help but look at the ones with interesting natural history first. There’s something exceptionally satisfying about using modern tools to dig deeper into the features … Continue reading

Posted in evolution, genomics, RNAseq, transcriptomics | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The eyes have it!

Eyes are pretty darn complicated, which makes them cool models for studying complex trait evolution.  Maybe the first time I realized how interesting eyes are when I saw this by the oatmeal about the amazing-ness of the mantis shrimp (are they your … Continue reading

Posted in bioinformatics, evolution, genomics, next generation sequencing, phylogenetics | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

La vie en rouge … l'algue rouge

Best laid plans of a #NewPI … what happens to them? Well, they often get triaged for more urgent things that were triaged earlier for more urgent things that were also triaged even earlier for more urgent things … and … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, bioinformatics, blogging, conferences, evolution, fieldwork, haploid-diploid, mating system, natural history, population genetics, selection | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment