Category Archives: natural history

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

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

Posted in adaptation, bioinformatics, blogging, evolution, genomics, mutation, natural history, Science Communication | 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

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

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

Walking, galloping, and sauntering towards genetic differentiation

“This validates, at a major scale (across all vertebrates), what a handful of studies have found within narrow taxonomic groups…” My citation manager has a special folder—elegantly named “TEACHING??”—where papers get stored for eventual use in a classroom. These papers tend to … Continue reading

Posted in comparative phylogeography, natural history, speciation | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Genomic signatures of ancient rendezvous and separation in elephant evolution

Evidence from various levels of the tree of life is showing that we’ve been picturing ancient encounters between related species all wrong and admixture events are probably more common than expected. Even rendezvous among primates, caniforms, and majestic proboscideans often … Continue reading

Posted in conservation, evolution, genomics, hybridization, natural history, Paleogenomics, phylogeography | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

In the aftermath of fire, bluebird species boundaries may blur

One of the most clear-cut reasons that species evolve to fill different ecological niches is competition. Two otherwise similar species that use the same resources experience strong selection favoring the use of less-similar resources, if they have the option. The … Continue reading

Posted in birds, evolution, hybridization, natural history, population genetics | Tagged , | Leave a comment

#Evol2017 catch-up — Effects of range expansions on mating system

Two weeks (more about that in a post I’ve written for Wednesday!) after the closing day of the 2017 Evolution Meetings, the Molecular Ecologists have all dispersed from Portland, though some may have left things behind! Still, the conference was so … Continue reading

Posted in conferences, evolution, mating system, natural history, phylogeography, plants, selection | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment