Populations of multiple North American bat species have been more than decimated by white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that spreads within roosting colonies and becomes deadly during hibernation. A paper just released online early at Molecular Ecology adds support to a hypothesis that the reason for the fungus’s virulence is that hibernation puts bats’ immune systems to sleep — and waking up to fight the fungus costs more than they can afford.
Continue readingModel 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, and easy-to-track developmental stages have been exploited to answer questions about molecular mechanisms behind transmission, cyto-, developmental, population and quantitative genetics and comparative genomics. A lesser-known model organism is the three spined stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus (though it has been mentioned or discussed in several previous TME posts).
Why? Because this fish has the rare honor of being an evolutionary and ecological model organism. Sticklebacks occur holarctically in marine, estuarine, and freshwater (freshwater) habitats in Europe, Asia, and North America. During the last retreat of the glaciers in the Pleistocene, this historically marine species began to invade freshwater habitats many times on different timescales in different places. What piqued researchers’ interests about these fish, in the pre-genomic age, was the striking phenotypic variation in various newly-formed freshwater populations and how quickly these divergences happened. Even though freshwater morphs can differ markedly from each other, even in the same lake, there are certain morphological changes that consistently happen in the evolution from marine/anadromous to freshwater forms, like the loss of body armor.
The 2018 Molecular Ecology prize has been awarded to Robin Waples for his work on conservation biology and management, particularly as the leading expert on approaches for using molecular markers to estimate and understand effective population size in natural populations, including subdivided and continuously distributed populations, and use of time series analyses. His studies of populations with overlapping generations have illuminated the evolution of life-history changes in species that are harvested by humans, and made important contributions to understanding fisheries populations. By adapting population genetic models to real-life situations, including structured populations with gene flow, and developing statistically rigorous analyses, his contributions have significantly advanced both conservation and evolutionary ecology.
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 that make each species so interesting. Many molecular ecologists, myself included, started a career in biology because of a love of natural history, and I think it’s great when this passion can be captured in modern research. One area where an understanding of an organism’s natural history is perhaps surprisingly important is in whole genome sequencing. While it’s becoming increasingly common to sequence, assemble and annotate genomes (though I’d still argue it’s challenging to do it well), many papers do more than just generate a genomic resource, and relate genomic variants to unique properties of a species. Even better is when these interesting features of a species can be related to other experimental work, or sequencing additional natural populations, to gain deeper insights into organismal biology.
Continue readingEyes 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 new favorite too?), or when I first listened to Colors (or the update) by Radiolab (which also mentions the majestic and clearly magical mantis shrimp).
Graphical Abstract (Picciani et al., 2018).
We don’t often make a big deal about it, but The Molecular Ecologist has long offered merchandise for purchase to help cover our operating expenses, which are chiefly web hosting and small stipends for contributors. The platform we’d used for that was less than ideal, though — and we’ve finally set up shop on Redbubble, which offers a wider range of products at better pricing.
Molecular Ecologist-supporting shirts, images by Redbubble
Julien Yann Dutheil, of the Institut des Sciences de l’Évolution de Montpellier, has a long track record of work in population genetics and genomics methods, particularly in the C++ programming language. He recently posted a video to YouTube, though, which suggests he’s trying out a new simulation platform: Lego bricks.
Posted on behalf of the Harry Smith Prize Selection Committee.
The editorial board of the journal Molecular Ecology has established a new prize to recognize the best paper published in Molecular Ecology in the previous year by graduate students or early career scholars with no more than five years of postdoctoral or fellowship experience.
The prize comes with a cash award of US$1000 and an announcement in the journal. The winner will also be asked to join a junior editorial board for the journal to offer advice on changing research needs and potentially serve as a guest editor. As with the Molecular Ecology Prize, the winner of this annual prize will be selected by an independent award committee.
The prize is named after Professor Harry Smith FRS, who founded the journal and served as both its Chief and Managing Editor during the journal’s critical early years. He continued as the journal’s Managing Editor until 2008, and he went out of his way to encourage early career scholars. In addition to his editorial work, Harry was one of the world’s foremost researchers in photomorphogenesis, where he determined how plants respond to shading, leading to concepts such as “neighbour detection” and “shade avoidance”; which are fundamental to understanding plant responses to crowding and competition. More broadly his research provided an early example of how molecular data could inform ecology, and in 2008 he was awarded the Molecular Ecology Prize that recognized both his scientific and editorial contributions to the field.
Please send your nomination with a short supporting statement (no more than 250 words; longer submissions will not be accepted) directly to Rose Andrew (randre20@une.edu.au) by Tuesday 31 July 2018.
With thanks on behalf of the Harry Smith Prize Selection Committee
When I heard the first time about 500 Queer Scientists (@QueerSci, #QueerSTEM) I thought for myself ‘Why do we need to support STEM scientists based on their sexual orientation?’. This is how ignorant and clumsy I am. We got sensitized against antisemitism at school. We were not taught much about minorities. We joked about them. We bullied. Nobody stopped us. I had to leave my home country to become a minority. I see many Europeans experiencing the same. I know about discrimination against women in leader roles and against parents in academia because I have experienced it, but I did not know about discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community. I assume the majority of us is as ignorant as I am. This is why I am writing this post – to inform you.
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