I mean, the title says it all: Genetic confirmation of an “uncommon mourningthroat” (Geothlypis philadelphia  ×  G. trichas): A rare but persistent hybrid warbler. Fun stuff with @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social and Kurt Gielow, OA in @wilsonornithsoc.bsky.social! 🦉 🧪 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Just out in Systematic Biology, we explore the role of gene flow in island phylogeography of the Solomons Black-and-white Monarch complex. doi.org/10.1093/sysb... Up first, strong genetic structure between islands groups and weak (but present!) structure between Pleistocene-connected islands (🧵)

Almost PhDone! I'll be giving my PhD exit seminar in the morning (Thursday), and defending on Friday.

Something cool to start your weekend: a Blue Jay x Green Jay hybrid from Texas! #ornithology

Join this trans-hemospheric collaboration to get skuas elected as bird of the year in New Zealand #teamskua Loud, Proud #seabirds

It's family values day here at Team Hākoakoa. You'll struggle to find a bird more devoted to its chicks than Skua. Just look at that fuzzy brown face. How could you not vote Skua for #birdoftheyear2025? #Skua @forestandbird.bsky.social

Hybridization and introgression are major evolutionary processes. Since the 1940s, the prevailing view has been that they shape plants far more than animals. In our new study (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... ), we find the opposite: animals exchange genes more, and for longer, than plants

super excited to share this big project with @daeaton.bsky.social out now in Systematic Biology! We derived distributions for -- given an arbitrary species tree model -- how far you have to move along a genome before observing a change in the underlying genealogy: doi.org/10.1093/sysb...

Why do treehoppers look so weird?! Our latest paper, out this week in @pnas.org, suggests a perhaps unexpected reason - static electricity ⚡ We show that treehoppers can detect the electrostatic cues of predators and that their crazy shapes may boost their electrosensitivity! doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Hi y'all. In the midst of [gestures all around], I managed to write a thing. If you work with mitochondrial DNA sequences in groups such as birds, butterflies, or snakes, you might find it interesting. Feedback welcome. The "Driving W Hypothesis" for low mtDNA diversity: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Meet the Bridge Orbweaver — reconstructed in full detail from a male specimen collected in Scarborough, Ontario (2025). skfb.ly/pxLos #3DModeling #ScientificVisualization #Arachnology #Biodiversity #DigitalTaxonomy #Larinioides #RaspberryPi #Zoology #UrbanWildlife

you might think N American species are getting common at their north range limit and rare at their south range limit as temps get warmer but you would be wrong new paper in GEB w/ @eliotmiller.bsky.social & Matt Strimas-Mackey, eBird Status & Trends ftw onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

New paper out in Ecology Letters (open access): I and Daniel Matute consider 'species sorting' -- a bias in the outcome of secondary contact following the allopatric stage of speciation -- as a reason for the much-observed pattern of elevated trait differences in sympatric close relatives

OK who's ready for some science? Do you like speciation? Genomics? Hybridization? Bioinformatics? Then this is for you: Published today: "The Distribution & Dispersal of Large Haploblocks in a Superspecies" Bonus interest if you like ring species and cute greenish birds: doi.org/10.1111/mec....

This excellent interactive tutorial on misleading data visualizations explores the idea of a "counter chart" — the graph you draw in response to refute a misleading claims flowingdata.com/projects/dis...

Excited to announce our work on kelp genomics is now out at Current Biology. Lead by Postdoc extraordinaire Jordan Bemmels, we sequence WGS for 600+ bull and giant kelp across BC and Washington. authors.elsevier.com/a/1kSP93QW8S...

OK folks this is my first announcement of a lab publication on Bluesky: Congrats to PhD Candidate Rashika Ranasinghe on today's publication of her paper "Cryptic Hybridization Dynamics in a Three-Way Hybrid Zone of Dinopium Flamebacks on a Tropical Island." Happy holidays! doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

New preprint by butterfly wizard @lucalivraghi.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... We mapped optix (again?!) as the switch gene of a natural polymorphism, this time controlling silver patches of a mountain butterfly. Gorgeous RNAi validation, evidence of selective sweeps, introgression

Earlier this year, I received news that fake peer reviews were allegedly being submitted impersonating me and approximately six others I shared my story with Science to, hopefully, reduce the chance of this kind of breach happening again www.science.org/content/arti...

I'm recruiting a PhD student to join my lab at the University of New Orleans starting in Fall 2025. Research topics will focus on building and using phylogenies to study the diversification of birds, with an emphasis on Neotropical bird radiations. Contact me if interested.

New preprint up! We sequenced hundreds of samples from across one of Earth's oldest living organisms - the Pando aspen clone - to understand how mutations accumulate and spread in long-lived clonal organisms. Our results were…surprising. 1/30

Gonna write a paper on this. PLEASE DON'T USE VCFTOOLS TO CALCULATE π. It is a random number generator, as the software assumes all bp that aren't SNPs are invariant (i.e. ignores missing data). This is especially bad in plant genomes, with abundant TEs where you can't map reads.