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Category Archives: ecology
Recent reading: 4 March 2022
It’s now two weeks since I resumed in-person teaching, and so far, so good. It’s shockingly refreshing to actually interact with students directly, even with everyone masked, and to be able to just improvise with a specimen picked up on … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, ecology, evolution, journal club
Tagged milkweed, monarch butterflies, Muller's ratchet, mutualism, Red Queen, STRUCTURE
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Recent reading: 18 Feb 2022
Fieldwork in the spring is always a bit tricky, but I’ve fortunately been able to put my teaching commitment aside for a week to help plant Joshua tree seedlings in an ongoing experiment in climate adaptation. It was a scramble … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, climate change, Coevolution, ecology, evolution, journal club
Tagged adaptationism, Antonovics, host range
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Recent reading: 4 Feb 2022
It’s been an eventual two weeks in evolutionary biology. Meanwhile, I’ve somehow kept a lab-field course on track with minimal in person engagement, planned a bit for actual fieldwork in a couple weeks from now, and started wrangling a couple … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, ecology, evolution, journal club
Tagged convergence, drosophila, mutualism
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Recent reading: 21 Jan 2022
The period between semesters is supposed to be quiet. I’ve been mentally dumping things to do into this one — paper revisions, reviewing service, analysis of long-awaited new data, a first draft of a new grant, writing my (eek) application … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, ecology, evolution, genomics, howto, journal club
Tagged dispersal, mutualism
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The forest, the trees, and the fungal ties that bind
The following is a guest post by Erin Zess, a Postdoctoral Researcher with the MOI Lab in the Department of Plant Biology at the Carnegie Institution for Science. Erin is on Twitter at @ZessingAround. The Molecular Ecologist receives a small commission for … Continue reading
Posted in book review, ecology, fieldwork, natural history, plants
Tagged Finding the Mother Tree, forestry, mycorrhizae, Suzanne Simard
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An enduring evolutionary mystery – the consequences of sex are shaped by more than sex itself
Rather shockingly, sexual reproduction remains an enigma – despite over a century of study. Theory has identified the costs and benefits of sex, illustrating why almost all* eukaryotes go to the trouble, at least occasionally. * Even supposedly obligate asexuals … Continue reading
Shedding light on symbiotic relationships
Lots of critters glow in the dark, but most of them aren’t found in just any back yard…unless that back yard happens to be the beach. The ocean is full of bioluminescent critters that use light to attract prey (possibly … Continue reading
Posted in community ecology, ecology, microbiology, natural history, Symbiosis
Tagged coevolution
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Fieldwork in the time of COVID
Life as we knew it came to a screeching halt back in March. Almost a year ago, how is that possible??? Yet, at the same time it feels like several lifetimes have passed … At a recent editorial meeting, we … Continue reading
Posted in blogging, career, chat, ecology, evolution, fieldwork, haploid-diploid, just for fun, mating system, natural history, population genetics, postdoc, Science Communication
Tagged Algae, anemeones, COVID, fieldwork, mating system, natural history, population genetics, scicomm, Science Communication, Virginia
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Marmots, seasons, and climate change
I love when nostalgia for a project, place, or species intersects with a current interest, as happened this week for me with a paper by Cordes et al. 2020, about the contrasting effects of climate change on the seasonal survival … Continue reading
Posted in climate change, ecology, mammals
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A genomic march of the penguins
It’s undeniable that penguins are a marine representative of the charismatic megafauna group. I have an affinity for stuff we need microscopes to see, BUT I agree that penguins are cute (just LOOK at these National Geographic photos…they’re even in … Continue reading