Tag Archives: Birds

Does it pay to be parasitized?

Posted on 1 May, 2020 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

Raven Edwards wrote this post as a project for Dr. Stacy Krueger-Hadfield’s Evolution course at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is a Master’s student in Dr. James McClintock’s lab where she is studying the growth of variegated sea urchins. Raven completed … Continue reading →

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How many samples do you need to investigate relationships between genetic make-up & immune function?

Posted on 24 Feb, 2020 by Kathleen Grogan

When an organism is exposed to a pathogen, what determines their ability to resist or recover from infection? Mounting an effective immune response is a complex dance with multiple partners, changing tempos, and maybe even a costume change or two: … Continue reading →

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Genomics of Hybridization – Part 1

Posted on 21 Jan, 2016 by Arun Sethuraman

In a series of articles, I will discuss recent advances in hybridization genomics – the fundamentals of adaptive introgression, “islands of speciation”, differential gene flow, and linked selection have been discussed in my previous posts (here, here, and also at … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, evolution, genomics, methods, natural history, next generation sequencing, pedigree, phylogenetics, plants, population genetics, RNAseq, software, speciation, species delimitation, STRUCTURE, theory, transcriptomics | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

On background selection in Ficedula flycatchers

Posted on 8 Oct, 2015 by Arun Sethuraman

Several recent studies (including those I wrote about last week) use genome-wide scans of differentiation to understand evolutionary mechanisms behind high or low divergence. However, there has been contentious support for and against these differentiation islands being due to differential … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, Coevolution, evolution, genomics, natural history, population genetics, selection, speciation, theory | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fossils and phylogenetics meet in the evolutionary middle

Posted on 19 Aug, 2015 by Rob Denton

…if evolutionary biologists are intent on documenting the history of life, we need methods that can at least approximate patterns of evolution in deep time for clades without fossil information. A scientists who wants to understand the evolutionary history of … Continue reading →

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Adapting to the new wave of isolation by environment

Posted on 17 Jun, 2015 by Rob Denton

Isolation by environment, not distance, explains the genetic relationship between an avian taxon among Madrean Sky Islands, according to a new study appearing in Molecular Ecology by Manthey and Moyle. The authors throw the kitchen sink of new analyses at a combination … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, Molecular Ecology, the journal, phylogeography | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

C.L. Gloger's favorite owl

Posted on 10 Dec, 2014 by Rob Denton

Biologists love clines. We’ve been mentally masticating on clines for decades. Clines in body size. Clines in color. Clines in heart size! Clines that go in circles! Recognizing clinal patterns in phenotypes or genotypes is fun, but discovering the mechanisms behind … Continue reading →

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