I'm heading to LA this weekend to talk HERPS!
On Sat at 10am I will be doing a kid-friendly reptile talk and event with Paisley Ramstead at the Rancho Mirage library as part of Desert Wildlife Center Presents SYRCL’s Wild & Scenic Film Festival.
1/2
When we talk about Baby Boomers not getting off the stage: In 1997, the US president was born in 1946.
In 2007, the US president was born in 1946.
In 2017, the US president was born in 1946.
And next year in 2027? The US president will have been born in 1946.
Dawg if I was a cookie-cutter shark and found out that my species could have been known as the "demon whale-biter" instead I'd be fuckin' *pissed*. Absolute nomenclatural humiliation.
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
🚨 ATTENTION: TODAY IS ELECTION DAY! 🚨
If you live in North Carolina 🌲, Texas ⭐, or Arkansas 🦅 — your primary is happening RIGHT NOW!
🗳️ Polls are open TODAY — go cast your ballot!
The deadline for abstract submission for the Southern California Academy of Science meeting at Chapman University on April 18 has been EXTENDED! You now have until March 7 to submit an abstract.
Check out our new paper on clingfishes led by @fishtide.bsky.social!
GBE | The Genomics of Convergent Adaptation to Intertidal Gravel Beaches in Mediterranean Clingfishes Endemic Mediterranean gravel beach clingfish (Gouania ssp.) in a dynamic gravel environment. Using an integrative genomic and morphological approach, this study investigates how similar body shapes repeatedly evolve and what this reveals about the genomic basis of phenotypic convergence.
Wagner et al. combined phenotypic and genomic data to study convergence in Mediterranean gravel beach clingfishes, revealing convergence at the level of individual genes, variants, and biological pathways, but not across genomes.
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evag031
#genome #evolution
So I pleased to announce the conceptual spawn of FigTree: PearTree (acronym still to be finalised). If you want to dive right in it is hosted as a web app here: artic-network.github.io/peartree (click the “Example...” button for immediate candy and then click every button you can find).
An historic black and white illustration of a paper nautilus floating on the ocean. There are boats, a city and hills in the background.
🎉 Huge news for BHL: The Field Museum is taking over the hosting of BHL’s website, servers & infrastructure, ensuring long-term stability and access for its 63+ million pages of open biodiversity literature. Learn more:
blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2026/02/tran...
#BHLTransition #ILoveBHL 🌍 📚 🧪
Last week, amidst the hoopla over a new Speen, @fishfetisher.bsky.social suggested a review of naming papers in fancy journals in response to a post by @daveyfwright.bsky.social - I got bored after work and now I have (some) data!
🧵👇
#FossilFriday
#CharismaticTaxaAreOverrated
Flyer for the 2026 IMSI Summer Institute: Recruiting research interns. Join our interdisciplinary research training internship and study biomechanics, muscle physiology, biophysics, neurosciences, rehabilitation sciences and engineering. All career stages welcome, undergraduates especially encouraged to apply. Full time paid opportunity. Intensive research experience, practical skills development, supportive mentorship. Learn more at CIMS.uci.edu. One photo show a lab member collecting motion capture data as a person jumps. Another photo shows IMSI researchers setting up a camera for data collection in at a field research location showing a desert landscape in the foreground and a mountain range in the background.
Call for applications to the 2026 Integrative Movement Sciences Summer Institute!
This is a funded research internship, open to all career stages.
We especially encourage undergraduates to apply.
Application deadline is March 21.
More details here: cims.uci.edu/imsi-si-2026/
Please share!
Our paper on convergent regressive evolution of genes involved in oral anatomy of myrmecophagous mammals is now officially published @molbioevol.bsky.social
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msag009
Hey definitely call your senators about this. Like seriously.
Diego Vaz, Luke Tornabene and I caught up at the Natural History Museum to work on Eviota dwarf gobies last week. This was part of two Ocean Census species discovery awards. There are LOTS of gobies left to discover! @nhm-london.bsky.social @oceancensus.bsky.social #fishsky #fish #marinelife
Emily wearing a white lab coat and sitting at a lab bench pipetting mysterious liquids.
Me SCUBA diving writing on a note pad above some corals.
Hey it's me, a woman in science 😁
#InternationalDayofWomenandGirlsinScience
Summer courses at Friday Harbor Labs have launched many scientific careers. Including mine. I was more reluctant to leave at the end of the course than other students.
I promise you will have fun and learn more than you can imagine.
fhl.uw.edu/courses/cour...
🧪
There is a lot of financial aid, and it goes mostly to the early birds.
Priority deadline (Feb 16) for this years Fish Class at Friday Harbor is coming up quick! Get your applications in for what will be an amazing summer filled with great science, people, and tools!
Financial aid is available!!
@cmdonatelli.bsky.social @fishguy.bsky.social @karlycohen.bsky.social
Dawg are you fucking kidding me bsky.app/profile/horm...
Holy shit: it's an RFP for the NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology (PRFB). Hello old friend www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...
From 1,750–2,000 m deep, we collected one of the rarest deepsea fishes out there: a one-jaw eel (family Monognathidae). Only ~100 specimens of this group are known worldwide and we hold the largest collection (~46), most just a few inches long… The one we collected though, 6 inches or 154 mm!
Back in Pct 2023, @scrippsocean.bsky.social Professor Anela Choy invited me on a research cruise hundreds of miles off California to study open ocean Goodwin’s. I helped ID deep-sea fishes collected via a MOCNESS net system (opening–closing trawl with known capture depths)
A view of Friday Harbor Labs dock in the early morning with blowing sea fog in the background.
Want to do a postdoc at Friday Harbor Labs? We have two positions open. Apply by March 1st. I am happy to discuss potential projects with fish people.
apply.interfolio.com/180092
🧪
This paper has been a long time coming. I started it in the COVID-19 pandemic and made new software to collect data. There's more to it than what I mentioned here so please check it out.
Here is a FREE link to access the paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/J6UWIR...
8/8
Re: salamanders with multi-part life cycles. We find that they are not simply constrained intermediate forms. They are morphologically different from strictly aquatic and terrestrial taxa, they're diverse, and exhibit fast evolutionary rates. Thus, complex life cycles contribute to diversity!
7/8
Green salamander on a wall
What does this mean? External and internal limb bone traits are evolutionarily decoupled, allowing them to respond to different demands. Diverse cross-sections in strictly terrestrial species likely reflect diverse microhabitats and limb functions in plethodontid salamanders (i.e., climbing)
6/8
External limb bone morphospaces
We also looked at whole limb bone shape and found very different patterns. Patterns of disparity are inverse (i.e. aquatic species have constrained X-sections but diverse external shapes). Species with multi-part life cycles are NOT intermediates to aquatic and terrestrial taxa. They are unique
5/8
Negative correlations between stiffness and density
Negative relationships between density and stiffness suggest a functional trade-off. The correlation is strongest in strictly terrestrial species. In other words, many terrestrial salamander, namely direct-developers, have evolved stiff yet light-weight bones. It may increase mobility on land.
4/8
Variation in limb bone stiffness and density based on cross-sections
Using CT scans to look at cross-sections, we can infer limb bone stiffness and density. Strictly terrestrial species have stiffer bones, while strictly aquatic species have denser bones. Semiaquatic taxa and those with ontogenetic habitat shifts are in between. We find a trade-off...
3/8
gradient of salamanders showing diverse habitat and life cycles
Terrestrial animals experience more stress on their limb bones than aquatic taxa that manage their buoyancy. That may promote different morphological adaptations. However, many salamanders hatch in water and live on land later in life. Do competing ontogenetic demands affect adaptive evolution? 2/8
