J

Que grande este primer día del Congreso Latinoamericano de Herpetologia aquí en San Jose. Looking forward to another great day of talks and conversations #ASOHerp2026

Just read blatantly false information in the intro of a published paper claiming that many species of female anoles can clone themselves and it helps them recover from natural disasters. How do these things get through peer review??? I should not have expected much better of MDPI but still.

So bittersweet when our best students defend! Another great one defends at Auburn here explaining what a reaction norm is! Congratulations Morgan! Great job! @ranitomorgan.bsky.social

Thank you so much for your kind words and mentorship Laurie! I’ll miss you all!

Only two weeks left until my PhD defense

Whales and Climate Change: The Whale Pump Explained - Campbell River Whale Written by Maddie Lemke Whales are not only magical creatures, but also play a vital role in the health of our planet. As we struggle with the effects of climate change, it is crucial to understand

The limiting nutrient in these waters is iron & whales are the final step in a chain that moves iron from lower levels back up to the surface waters, where it can cause phytoplankton blooms.

Guess what eats phytoplankton? That's right: krill.

The whales are farming their food.

Oh how I wish for public health leadership to follow a mission like this…

Reading older papers as I write my dissertation and this quote from Stearns (1976) on the nature of science really hits:

“Our purpose is not to have beautiful ideas, or profoundly obscure ideas, but to arrive at explanations that meet the most rigorous challenges that evidence and logic can pose.”

ASTER: A Package for Large-Scale Phylogenomic Reconstructions Abstract. Many algorithms are available for inferring species trees from various input types while accounting for gene tree discordance. Several quartet-ba

C. Zhang, R. Nielsen and S. Mirarab integrate all ASTRAL-like methods into a single package called ASTER, comprising several tools that collectively enhance the scalability, accuracy, and versatility of species tree inference.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf172

#evobio #molbio #compbio

A screenshot of the article in Nature Ecology and Evolution, with the title: "Museums in the age of extinction" by Claire Browning, reviewing Nature's Memory: Behind the Scenes at the World's Natural History Museums by Jack Ashby

"In our age of extinction, natural history museums can be powerful catalysts for change, spaces for honest narratives & places where science meets society. #NatureMemory makes a thoughtful, readable & urgent case for why that matters."
🤩Review in @natecoevo.nature.com:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

What a cutie!

Check out our latest blog post in celebration of #Pride 🏳️‍🌈

In this post, @zoomingbio.bsky.social‬ shares fieldwork advice for researchers with marginalized identities.

Read the post here 👉 buff.ly/rJhjheF

#RainbowResearch

Excellent alt text on the images here

A diagram showing clearly lovingly hand-drawn in MS Paint images of leafcutter ants. The top four panels show the four major Atta cephalotes castes, the major being the soldier, defense class with extremely large muscled arms holding a sword and a club. The second panel, the media class, is more typical looking ants carrying clippers and leaves. The minor class is even skinnier and smaller and shown with a shovel and is described as the caretaker class. And the smallest, the minim class are shown holding mushooms with the description of fungal care. In the bottom for panels it shows what happens when the Major class is chemically altered; they can be reprogrammed to do leaf harvesting and caretaker caste rolls and it shows the beefy ant holding a leaf and hammer in one panel, and in the other holding a baby bottle and a stroller with a larva in it

God, I love this visual abstract for a paper on leafcutter ants

www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...

Cartoon drawings of a Hawaiian shirt, flashlight, compass, and camping tent. Text: Evolution 2025 Field Gear Swap, Diversity Committees Booth.

Packing for #Evol2025? Bring your new and gently used field gear and clothes that you no longer use to donate to the Field Gear Swap! Hosted by the tri-society Diversity Committees - drop by their booth to donate or pick up! www.evolutionsociety.org/news/display... @evolmtg.bsky.social

Water anole (Anolis aquaticus) on the side of a mossy rock

A lizard (Anolis polylepis) on the side of a tree trunk

Peruvian shield mantis (Choeradodis rhombicollis) on a doorframe

Blurry shot of a forest racer snake (I think; genus Dendrophodion) high up in a palm tree

Of course I would be remiss not to share my favorite animal observations as well. Dream come true to see Anolis aquaticus in the wild and some other cool finds too!

View of a mountain and sky through trees

Flowe

Very tall tree in the rainforest

Bromeliad with tall flower

Observation tower view and some of my favorite plant observations from Las Cruces Biological Station in Costa Rica. How anyone could come to the botanic gardens here and not leave fascinated by plants and tropical ecology is beyond me. Super grateful to visit here with OTS

Frog in a chair with eyes half open

Oh to be as sleepy as a tree frog in a chair on a rainforest morning

I wish people would approach my insect observations on iNaturalist with the same ferocity as my incorrect bird observations

so a man can’t have hobbies

😍

My other main reason to oversleep

Auburn really did us a solid by scheduling spring break to overlap with the time change. I am so excited to oversleep all week

Amphibians are at risk of overheating due to climate change in both hemispheres
2% species are currently exposed to overheating even in shaded conditions, so water bodies are essential for them to buffer the effects of heat waves @patricepottier.bsky.social @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Stand Up for Science rallies will be held in DC and state capitals on March 7th. Share with friends. Sign-up here to get email updates with details: www.eventbrite.com/e/stand-up-f...

New preprint from myself and @snaildit.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1....

We looked at how domain adaptation can overcome errors caused by model violations when using neural networks to test for introgression between two populations.

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Text: SICB 2026 Symposium Sex across origins: Questioning animal-centric assumptions and developing integrative frameworks. Talk to us if you're interested in any way! There's a QR code to a link to: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeEndqEYOf-J3m2ZkO6qkv0ithWGHUJVsUnvDzYqusxF0KmIQ/viewform

#SICB2025! Have you been sad about an animal-centric view of sex in your daily life? Well!

Next year, at #SICB2026! Aramati Casper, Karen Warkentin, and I are excited to be hosting the symposium ✨Sex across origins: Questioning animal-centric assumptions and developing integrative frameworks✨

Join our team!

CURRENTLY running to Atlanta for this