Category Archives: phylogeography

The glaciers of the last ice age left their mark on the genetic diversity of species across the globe

For the last two and a half million years or so — up until a certain species of upright-walking ape descendants really started making their presence known — the greatest force shaping Earth’s biological diversity may well have been ice. … Continue reading

Posted in evolution, insects, mammals, mutation, phylogeography, plants, population genetics | Tagged , | Leave a comment

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

Posted in adaptation, association genetics, bioinformatics, birds, ecology, evolution, genomics, phylogeography | Leave a comment

Where Did This Flower Come From?

Sam Gregory wrote this post as a project for  Dr. Stacy Krueger-Hadfield’s Scientific Communication course at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Sam earned a BS in biology and BFA in studio art from Birmingham-Southern College, and is currently pursuing an MS in … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, bioinformatics, blogging, Coevolution, demography, ecology, evolution, phylogeography, plants, Science Communication | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The spirit of Antarctic invasions future?

Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol during a change in how Victorian England viewed the Christmas holiday. It’s clearly not Christmas … and certainly isn’t a jolly time. But, taking some artistic liberty from how Dickens outlined the five chapters of … Continue reading

Posted in blogging, community ecology, comparative phylogeography, conservation, DNA barcoding, ecology, evolution, mini-review, natural history, phylogeography, Science Communication | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The crows have eyes — but not only for members of their own species

If you are a moderately bird-interested person who’s spent much time in Seattle or Vancouver, you’ve probably had a version of the following conversation with a less bird-interested friend or family member from out of town, after one of you … Continue reading

Posted in birds, phylogeography, species delimitation | Tagged | 1 Comment

Conference catch-up: The many colors of snow

Red snow … watermelon snow … green snow … did you know that snow came in so many different colors? I had never heard of watermelon ice (#🍉❄) until a talk given by Robin Kodner from Western Washington University at … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, bioinformatics, citizen science, community ecology, evolution, fieldwork, mating system, microbiology, natural history, phylogenetics, phylogeography, population genetics, selection, speciation, transcriptomics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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

Molecular ecology, the flowchart

Update: You can now buy a poster print of the Flowchart, with proceeds going to support The Molecular Ecologist! Towards the end of last semester my department’s evolutionary genetics journal club read Rasmus Nielsen’s terrific 2005 review of tests for … Continue reading

Posted in association genetics, bioinformatics, genomics, howto, infographic, linkage mapping, next generation sequencing, phylogenetics, phylogeography, population genetics, selection | 2 Comments

#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

On hyRAD-X, another option for museum genomics

Last year, I profiled Suchan et al.’s “hyRAD” method for reduced-representation genome sequencing of degraded sources of DNA using RAD probes. While it’s too early to say whether hyRAD will be widely used by molecular ecologists looking to integrate historic … Continue reading

Posted in genomics, methods, natural history, next generation sequencing, phylogenetics, phylogeography, population genetics, RNAseq, selection, transcriptomics | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment