They're talking about the new Directorate TIP: www.nsf.gov/tip/latest

Very happy to share that I just published a new paper from my thesis! 🎉 We analysed 546 species of ant to understand how extreme specialisation into reproductive and non-reproductive roles evolved.  Key discoveries in thread🧵 👇 Full paper here: academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

My story on the Borax Lake chub & how @nature.org protected the single lake it is found. #25DaysofFishmas

Doing the tardigrade shuffle.

My new paper on Amazonian biogeography and genomics is out in early view in Biological Reviews! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Our paper on tinamou evolution is finally out in @systbiol.bsky.social. academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...

Look forward to more about Solomon Island phylogeography in the future, but in the mean time, @lukemusher.bsky.social and I have a pre-print that highlights how a similar phenomenon can occur on continents (with bias in both topology and branch lengths): doi.org/10.1101/2025...

What an amazing resource, illustrating fundamental biogeographic patterns. Here are two closely related species of the minnow Alburnus, restricted to small areas of the Caspian sea and western Anatolia, respectively.

Fish diversity of the Fertile Crescent, origin of civilization.

The book documents all 632 species of freshwater fish in the region, including 597 native species, 467 of which are endemic and 35 non-native species. What is fascinating is that 41 % of the species have been described since the year 2000.

From the Preface: "From the outside, West Asia is not a hostile place for freshwater biodiversity. It is largely an arid region facing increasing water stress caused by unsustainable water use and climate change... Not every visit to a water body is a pleasant one."

Yet another study supporting the rule of allopatry between sister species of continental vertebrates.

🐢 The gigantic land-tortoises (living and extinct) in the collection of the British Museum London: Printed by order of the Trustees, 1877. [Source]

Huge News from the Western Amazon: it's the year 2025 and we are still describing entirely new, strikingly-distinctive large-bodied bird species! Behold Tinamus resonans sp. nov. the Slaty-masked Tinamou mapress.com/zt/article/v... #Ornithology @tetzoo.bsky.social 🪶

And just a reminder that this isn't the last new terrestrial bird from the wider region.... #ornithology 🪶

"The N.S.F. started the year with funding delays...it lost about a third of its employees in layoffs or forced retirements. The agency ended the year awarding 25 percent fewer new grants." The nuanced impacts of internal budget decisions made due to fiscal crisis. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Time to publish responsibly: DAFNEE, a database of academia-friendly journals in ecology and evolutionary biology url: academic.oup.com/jeb/article/...

Adult brains of human (A), Mormyrid (B), pigeon (C), and goldfish (D) are shown in lateral view (rostral to the left). Each animal has differentially developed specific parts of the brain. www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Then again, it does not always come down to microevolutionary causes. Species with extreme (large and small) body sizes have higher extinction risk, meaning ancestors tend to have intermediate body sizes. A similar pattern may exist for relative brain size too. www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

Large brains are useful when conditions favor plastic behaviors, smaller brains when reliable behaviors increase fitness. Or: why are there so many minnows?

From the Abstract: "cooler and varying brain temperatures reduce brain performance and thus fitness" But there are always trade-off, see: Robin, E. D. (1973). The evolutionary advantages of being stupid. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 16(3), 369-380. scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=e...

Same problem with this other paper in the recent PNAS issue with a grandiose title and tremendous variance. www.researchgate.net/publication/...

The title of this paper is silly, these are statistical correlations not evolutionary explanations. The trends are dwarfed by the exceptions (residuals), like the small brains of tunas and large brains of mormyrid fishes.

If you need a professional terrestrial phototroph you need a symbiont of plant+fungi. Lichen (Spongiophyton sp) colonized the land already at least in the Early Devonian: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio #EvoBio #Geology

I’m stuck in bed between chemo treatments for metastatic coloncancer, wearing a take-home chemo pump attached to my chest. I wanted to share my advice that you can benefit from ‘Letting Your Colleagues In’ don’t need to struggle alone @insidehighered.com www.insidehighered.com/opinion/care...

Halloween logicals, still the best 10/31 venn

Sharing this cool animation of #Aquilolamna, a fossil shark from the Late Cretaceous Agua Nueva Formation of Mexico. This species was cosplaying as a manta ray long before the first manta rays appeared in the fossil record. #FossilFriday www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfdd...

Although many ecosystems can weather several years of moderate drought, consecutive years of extreme dryness push them past a tipping point, resulting in dramatic declines in plant growth, researchers report in Science. https://scim.ag/4ogN9I8

An invited speaker told me today they share my paper with their students to show them what's possible, and I'm going to ride that validation for a while. In this paper we applied comparative genomics to study genome evolution: elifesciences.org/articles/65394

#Oregon: Just months after the historic removal of four major dams on the Klamath River, scientists and tribal leaders are stunned by what they’re seeing—salmon are returning in far greater numbers, and much faster, than anyone expected. www.activenorcal.com/salmon-are-s...

Fewer grad students means less science, but many STEM PhD programs in the US are cutting back on admissions this year due to federal funding uncertainties. Words by me for @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/d41... @emsque.bsky.social @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social @julieposselt.bsky.social 🧪

Welp. Thanks to the Republican gov shutdown I have a bunch of hours back in my week due to a NIH study section not meeting. These poor applicants. They will be waiting week by week for government to reopen and to find out what will happen to their grant application.

For Stomiiformes, an elongate body shape is ancestral, deep body derived.

Good evening. We estimate that between 4.2 and 7.6 million people turned out for the No Kings Day demonstrations held around the country on Saturday. This makes Oct 18 very likely the biggest single-day U.S. protest event since 1970. www.gelliottmorris.com/p/second-no-...

Unlike the blind walk of phylogeny, ontogeny is a goal directed process.

The energy at the #NIH rally today was amazing and contagious. Huge turnout, huge pro-science energy. 1/ 🧪#NoKings

A big bowfin skull (presumably Amia pattersoni) on display at the Grand Rapids Public Museum. Pretty rare Green River fish.

Because I still find people who don't know how the story ends: Christopher Columbus was returned to Spain in chains in 1500 AD, convicted of barbaric torture of colonists, but released 6 weeks later by order of King Ferdinand II. Neither he nor his brothers ever governed a Spanish holding again.

Seems worth noting this award in light of the present circumstances. Get the troops out of our fair city please, perhaps after they enjoy a great Malnati’s pizza!

The C-value paradox: no simple correlation between the total amount of genomic DNA (C-value) and perceived biological complexity.

If conservationists work from a compromised baseline, our notions of abundance, scarcity, and ecological wellbeing will keep getting defined downward: "The researchers show that using the 1970s as a baseline tends to normalize an already severely degraded state." phys.org/news/2025-10...

There’s a straight line from Republican talking points to this gutless destruction

“The insect populations were found to have declined by an average 6.6% annually — a 72.4% drop over the 20-year period.” 🌎 🪲 🪳 🧪

The transition of vegetation from the lowly water-stressed forest with high tree cover to a savanna-grassland regime with low tree cover and the utilization of rootzone storage capacity to cope with the spatial change to a drier climate. www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Cosmic microwave background radiation in 1965 by American radio astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. Primary evidence of the Big Bang.

A 2024 study found that ants best humans at tests of collective intelligence. Learn more on #WorldAnimalDay: https://scim.ag/42nMvQJ

🐟 Not all fish are cold-blooded! New research led by @arciladk.bsky.social, curator of the Marine Vertebrate Collection & recent PhD grad Fernando Melendez, explores how ecological interactions + evolutionary innovation reshaped life in the ocean. 🌊

New paper alert!!!🚨 in our new study we find that Antarctic icefishes added a new module in their skulls during their adaptive radiation special shout out to @mayaranevesbio.bsky.social who led this project! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Brazil soy expansion drives deforestation fears ahead of Cop30 summit ->New Zealand Herald | #Deforestation | More from BigEarthData.ai