Scott Edwards awarded the 2019 Molecular Ecology Prize

Posted on 2 May, 2019 by Jeremy Yoder
(Edwards Lab website)

The 2019 Molecular Ecology prize has been awarded to Scott Edwards for an illustrious career that has combined rigorous scientific achievement with a long and consistent record of mentoring and promoting early-career scientists. Proficient at both empirical and theoretical studies, Edwards has made important contributions to coalescent modeling, phylogeographic inference, immunogenetics and other connections between genotype and phenotype, and the often-misunderstood difference between gene trees and species trees in nature, as well as many more specialized contributions to ornithology. Countless people from around the world have benefited from his work over many decades to support junior scientists and to promote diversity at all levels of the scientific enterprise.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Nominations open for the 2019 Harry Smith Prize

Posted on 16 Apr, 2019 by Jeremy Yoder

The editorial board of the journal Molecular Ecologyis seeking nominations for the Harry Smith Prize, which recognizes the best paper published in Molecular Ecologyin 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 and in the Molecular Ecologist.  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. The winner of this annual prize is selected by the junior editorial board.

The prize is named after Professor Harry Smith FRS, who founded Molecular Ecology and served as both 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 a PDF of the paper you are nominating, with a short supporting statement (no more than 250 words; longer submissions will not be accepted) directly to Nick Fountain Jones (nfountainjones@gmail.com) by Friday 31 May 2019. Self-nominations are accepted.

Posted in community, Molecular Ecology, the journal | Tagged | 1 Comment

Invasion by land, river, and sea

Posted on 7 Apr, 2019 by Katharine Coykendall

One obvious effect of climate change will be the spread of invasive species and the subsequent ecological, commercial, and health repercussions.  Therefore, studies that address the patterns of colonization and possible underlying genetic mechanisms that may lend to being a successful invader are worth paying attention to IMHO.  Three papers have come out recently that each focus on genetic components of invasive species in either the terrestrial, marine, or freshwater realm. 

First up, Sherpa et al. examined the role genetic admixture plays in the invasion biology of the Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus, the most invasive mosquito species in the world, with established populations now on every continent save Antarctica.  It is a vector for dengue, zika, and other nastiness so understanding where host invasions originated, how fast they can spread, and adaptive advantages of founder populations has important implications for epidemiology and vector and disease biology. The authors looked at A. albopictus populations from Reunion Island and Europe.  Tropical Reunion Island, with both a wetter and a drier coast represents an older invasion (>100 years). 

Continue reading →
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Population genetics takes the "co" out of snake-newt coevolution (maybe)

Posted on 2 Apr, 2019 by Jeremy Yoder
Taricha granulosa, photographed in Northern California. (Wikimedia: Don Loarie)

A textbook example of predator-prey coevolution could need revision, if the conclusions of a recently posted pre-print hold up more broadly. The manuscript, lead-authored by Michael Hague with Amber Stokes, Chris Feldman, and Ed and “Butch” Brodie, calls into question whether poisonous rough-skinned newts (Taricha granulosa) and the garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis) that prey on them truly exert reciprocal selection on each other. The data in the manuscript are consistent with newts creating selection for greater toxin resistance in the snakes — but not with the snakes selecting for more toxic newts.

Rough-skinned newt populations in Western North America are distinguished by one of the most over-the-top defenses against predation seen in a vertebrate: they secrete tetrodotoxin, the same neurotoxin produced by pufferfish and blue-ringed octopuses. Tetrodotoxin disables the molecular channels that allow nerve cells to generate electrical signals, which paralyzes just about any predator with nerves. Some populations of garter snakes (and other snakes that feed on tetrodotoxin-defended amphibians) have mutations to the channels that let them resist the paralyzing effect — and this should set the stage for a coevolutionary arms race between newts’ production of the poison and snakes’ ability to cope with it.

Continue reading →
Posted in Coevolution, natural history, population genetics, selection | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The Molecular Ecology Prize committee are continuing to accept nominations through Tuesday, April 2! Send nominations to committee chair Robin Waples at robinw3@uw.edu; see details here.

Posted on 11 Mar, 2019 by Jeremy Yoder | Leave a comment

Luck be a Korarchaeota tonight

Posted on 8 Mar, 2019 by Kelle Freel

Some tiny microbes are making a pretty big splash, and not just in the hot springs they call home in Yellowstone National Park. Recently, there was an interesting article published in Nature Microbiology about some amazing archaea, which are generally famous for inhabiting diverse extreme environments on the planet, including hot springs, hypersaline waters, and anoxic muds.

Photo credit: Natural Atlas

The first author of the paper, Luke McKay, wrote a succinct ‘Behind the Paper’ summary on the work reported in the study. In the article, the authors report the findings of a metagenomic analysis from samples collected from the Washburn Hot Springs in Yellowstone, which, as far as I can tell, looks like a beautiful place to hike. In 1870, an expedition led by General Washburn explored and mapped the land that eventually became Yellowstone National Park, and named one of the more famous geysers you might be familiar with, Old Faithful.

Continue reading →
Posted in community ecology, ecology, evolution, genomics, metagenomics, microbiology, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Where credit is due

Posted on 27 Feb, 2019 by Laetitia Wilkins

I am trying to keep this short. You might remember my recent blog post on data sharing. I basically wanted to point out that data acquisition can be an art on its own. It can take months of planning, applying for permits, securing money, coming up with an elegant sampling design, and finding what you had been looking for. This is usually followed by weeks in the laboratory extracting the right molecules and preparing them for sequencing. Some people are really good at this and they should get credit for it. How can we make this happen?

  • Underwater data storage stays cool and is close to coastal cities. http://theliquidgrid.com/2017/10/24/underwater-data-centers/
Continue reading →
Posted in bioinformatics, career, community, data archiving, genomics, science publishing | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Science Rapture

Posted on 18 Feb, 2019 by Katharine Coykendall

I’ve been talking myself into and out of writing this post since the 12th day of the government shutdown.  It temporarily ended after a record breaking 35 days.  My delay has partly to do with procrastination (because of course), but also was impossible to predict when the legislature would actually mobilize to open the government, then prevent the next one.  The results were that the negotiations went down to the wire, again, (which is incredibly disruptive and harrowing for government scientists) and, bewilderingly, there is increased funding for a select few science-related activities in the continuing resolution… along with a national emergency.  

There’s an emergency all right, but it’s not a groundswell of immigrants clambering across bulldozed butterfly sanctuaries in southern Texas.  It’s the negligent if not disdainful regard for the role of basic research in government agencies and the role of science in informing policy decisions by the very leaders appointed to uphold the missions of those agencies. This “partial” shutdown affected only about 25% of the government, but disproportionately affected science agencies such as the Department of the Interior that houses the USGS, the National Park Service, and the  Bureau of Land Management; the Department of Commerce that houses NOAA and the National Marine Fisheries Service; The Department of Agriculture, the EPA, and of course, the National Science Foundation. Noticeably absent from the list of science agencies impacted were the CDC and the NIH – those focused on human health.  Others that predict where earthquakes and hurricanes will hit and if volcanos will erupt weren’t funded, but were deemed essential and so worked without pay through the furlough. But those that work on the natural world outside of human health?  Those that work at the world class Smithsonian museums or Water Science Centers and study invertebrates, early hominid evolution, or fish disease and taxonomy? Not funded and not essential. However, it is inherently valuable and worthwhile to study our natural world.  Even if we can’t grind it up and cure cancer with it.  I worry about the fate of this basic research.

Continue reading →
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nominations open for the 2019 Molecular Ecology Prize

Posted on 11 Feb, 2019 by Jeremy Yoder

We are soliciting nominations for the annual Molecular Ecology Prize.

The field of molecular ecology is young and inherently interdisciplinary. As a consequence, research in molecular ecology is not currently represented by a single scientific society, so there is no body that actively promotes the discipline or recognizes its pioneers. The editorial board of the journal Molecular Ecologytherefore created the Molecular Ecology Prize in order to fill this void, and recognize significant contributions to this area of research. The prize selection committee is independent of the journal and its editorial board.

The prize will go to an outstanding scientist who has made significant contributions to Molecular Ecology. These contributions would mostly be scientific, but the door is open for other kinds of contributions that were crucial to the development of the field.  The previous winners are: Godfrey Hewitt, John Avise, Pierre Taberlet, Harry Smith, Terry Burke, Josephine Pemberton, Deborah Charlesworth, Craig Moritz, Laurent Excoffier, Johanna Schmitt, Fred Allendorf , Louis Bernatchez, Nancy Moran, and Robin Waples.

Please send your nomination with a short supporting statement (no more than 250 words; longer submissions will not be accepted) directly to Robin Waples (robinw3@uw.edu) by Tuesday, April 2, 2019.  Organized campaigns to submit multiple nominations for the same person are not necessary and can be counterproductive.  Also, note that nominations from previous years do not roll over.

With thanks on behalf of the Molecular Ecology Prize Selection Committee.

Posted in community, Molecular Ecology Prize, Molecular Ecology, the journal | 1 Comment

The Ultimate Party Animal

Posted on 6 Feb, 2019 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

Michelle Curtis wrote this post as a final project for Stacy Krueger-Hadfield’s Conservation Genetics course at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In pursuit of her life-long passion for learning about the ocean, Michelle earned a BS in Marine Science from the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and a MS in Marine Biology from the Florida Institute of Technology. She is currently working towards her PhD in Dr. Jim McClintock’s lab where she is investigating how sea stars from the northern Gulf of Mexico might be impacted by ocean warming. Michelle tweets at @CurtisMichelleD.

What do an octopus, a Chewbacca action figure, and a notorious party drug have in common?

They were all key components in an experiment that helped researchers uncover the evolutionary conservation of the neurotransmitter systems guiding social behavior in octopuses and humans. 

Continue reading →
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment