why do males defend territories in some species while pairs or family groups defend territories in others? then-undergrad Shreyas Arashanapalli did a fantastic project to find out, analyzing 3177 playback experiments on 264 species the best predictor? latitude academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

Taxonomy and phylogeny are two sides of the same coin, but that doesn't mean they are always in agreement. I wrote a blog post on why the new Phylogeny Explorer in @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social is such a big deal in that regard, and what's in store next for us. eliotmiller.weebly.com/blog/birds-o...

If you thought regular bird listing was for nerds, wait til you get a load of phylolisting. @snacktavish.bsky.social

I've seen most of the taxonomic orders of birds out there, but I'm still missing three: kiwis, cuckoo-roller, and cariamas. Any of you all ticked all of them yet? #birds #birding

One of my favorite things in life is admiring the emergent structures of different tree species in winter

Me and Jesus, Julio, and Bobby. What a way to start your day…yo it’s like 1, 2, 3…

Sad twist of fate that I spend many dozens of hours a year processing venison so that my family can eat clean, local meat and somehow I end up basically subsisting on leftover chicken nuggets I find on the couch.

Short blog on an exciting collaboration using the #BirdsPlusIndex to document recovering biodiversity in NYC harbor. In partnership w Billion Oyster Project, Newtown Creek Alliance, & NYC Bird Alliance @newtowncreek.bsky.social @nycbirdalliance.org @abcbirds.bsky.social abcbirds.org/news/birdspl...

Definitely still in the horseshoes and hand grenades realm, but enough to catch my attention. @snacktavish.bsky.social Me: "Create a Newick string that exactly matches the topology of this phylogeny, with matching tip labels. Do not worry about branch lengths or support values." ChatGPT:

Introgression between species can shape #evolution. Study of the colorful American #warblers (Parulidae) by @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social @davetoews.bsky.social &co reveals intergeneric & interspecific introgression of genes related to carotenoid #plumage color @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/48MyfU2

NSF - Forced reorg - POs down ~ 40% (DRP, most rotators not renewed, retirements) - Forced move (and we have to pack and clean) to a building with no furniture, little to no conference space for panels, inadequate 🛜, …) I personally love the boxes they gave us for packing. “Details matter” 🙃

Check out our review/perspective piece on phylogenetic diversification analysis, intended for the 75th anniversary of @systbiol.bsky.social. I had the privilege of working with great coauthors, @fhenaodiaz.bsky.social, @tvasconcelos.bsky.social and @roszenil.bsky.social! doi.org/10.1093/sysb...

We've partnered on a groundbreaking global bird study revealing how human-driven habitat changes put biodiversity, and vital bird roles, at risk. 🐦 Dr. Alexander Lees stresses the urgent need to protect the diversity of avian roles 👉 https://bit.ly/4ixI4tl

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....

How are Pacific NW mountain birds responding to climate change? I got up at 4:00 am for a month to find out. but first the backstory, or "how I spent seven years telling everyone this project wasn't possible" new paper here: esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Going through some old pix. This remains the highlight of my engineering career. Successfully foiled Adirondack black flies and mosquitoes for a few hours.

Competition shapes the urban distribution of chickadee species nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

In all honesty, I wasn’t liking where this was headed at the start, but he turned it around pretty quickly there “The system is, by definition, us. We make these rules up and then choose to treat them like immutable laws of nature. They’re not.”

Out now on the cover of @journal-evo.bsky.social! Led by Sarah Khalil, we took a genomic approach to investigate the hybrid zone between different-colored Red-backed Fairywren subspecies. We found some interesting candidate genes under selection. Check it out! academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

A long and busy week ended on a high yesterday. So proud of Dr @jyang19.bsky.social for sailing through her PhD viva, the final step of a long journey in my lab from a Silwood masters degree to a doctorate. 💪 Big thanks to Profs Cris Banks-Leite and Gavin Thomas for examining.

Made a new friend on my walk yesterday. #americanchestnut www.inaturalist.org/observations...

Using automated acoustic monitoring, citizen science, and centuries of ornithological research and understanding to quantify ecological integrity at scale. The BirdsPlus Index, a novel method for assessing site-level conservation values. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

This is one of those, "well of course" sorts of papers that is actually *super* important and needed to be done. Well done @louisbackstrom.bsky.social @ali--johnston.bsky.social, excited to have a proper read! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Super proud of Dr. Dan Nesbit @dannesbit.bsky.social, who passed his viva today (with no corrections!). Thanks to @josephtobias.bsky.social and Sally Street for examining! 🥳

Although they seem to be going to sleep, temperate trees are very busy right now. Fine roots are growing, and inside the buds, next years leaves, stems, and flowers are being formed. That means that autumn weather determines some or all of next year's growth. Read about it at Our Trees.

My lab is hiring a 2-yr hummingbird evolution and genomics postdoc and a 1-yr salaried research and lab tech. Both with full U. Wyoming benefits. Please spread the word! Info below. Best consideration date Nov 1, start dates early Spring 2026.

Remember how viewing big phylogenies in your browser used to be hard? Got something to share with you all in a few weeks. My bird nerd tanks are so full right now, can't wait to share some with you all. @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social

Well, it's official. After our paper last year (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....), the Slender-billed Curlew is officially declared Extinct today. Scientists dream of describing new species, not writing their obituary and epitaph, knowing that they are gone forever #ornithology

Another massive movement of migratory birds underway tonight — nearly 1 Billion Birds! With the full moon, you might be able to see some silhouettes zipping by. You can make your own flow maps here (just hit record): aeroecolab.com/uslights

Today was a hard day for Ph.D. students who found out that they can no longer apply for NSF's prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship Program. "Devastating“ was how one student described it to me. #GradSchool #NSFGRFP www.science.org/content/arti...

**PhD POSITIONS** I am recruiting 1-2 PhD students to work on sociality and cognition in Monk Parakeets, starting Fall 2026. Full ad is here: hobsonresearch.com/index.php/20... (please help spread the word!)

I had no idea there used to be a marine-based mink species in eastern North America! Super interesting, also sad. Only recently pushed to extinction en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_mink

How many species have been rediscovered? Which were surprising? What are the prospects for finding the remaining lost species? Learn more in a free webinar from @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social on Sept. 18 @ noon ET: birdsoftheworld.org/bow/news/sea.... #birds 🌎

We just pushed a new version of the global bird phylogeny to Github. Updated topology (v1.5), and now in the most recent Clements/eBird taxonomy. We'll push to CRAN soon too, but head over and grab the most recent clootl version now. @snacktavish.bsky.social github.com/eliotmiller/...

The GRFP lives!! (due end of October) www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

Like woodpeckers? Or population genomics? Or three-species hybridization? Or selective sweeps? Then this is for you! The typeset version of "Evidence for ancient selective sweeps followed by differentiation among three species of Sphyrapicus sapsuckers" is published today: doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

Some validation for my recent efforts in uploading some old images of unidentified species to @inaturalist.bsky.social – turns out I photographed an undescribed poison-dart frog in the Western Amazon 18 years ago 🌎 🧪🐸🪶 #ornithology #herpetology 🧵1/21

our paper on how light pollution affects bird vocal behavior is out today in Science!! w/ @brentpease.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Bad plan. Definitely get a rabies shot.

🐦🔬 Recruiting PhD students! 🌎🧬 I’m looking for 1–2 PhD students to join our team starting Fall 2026 at the Sam Noble Museum & University of Oklahoma. Our research: 🐦 birds • 🌍 biogeography • 🌴 Neotropics • 🧬 population genomics • 🌱 speciation 👉 Learn more: www.moncriefflab.org Please share!

A big congratulations to William Farhan-Rios on this paper in @pnas.org, featuring a study of tropical-forest change over four decades along the Amazon-to-Andes elevational gradient in Bolivia and Peru 🌴 ⛰️ 🌐 @mobotgarden.bsky.social @livingearthcollab.bsky.social 1/3 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Poison sumac is like poison ivy. Only worse.

Happy to see this one out. We did a phylogenetic analysis of African Sesuvium using herbarium collections and genome skimming. We assembled ~9000 loci from orthologous genes identified from transcriptome data. We also described a new species! 🌿 #evobio #iamabotanist www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

One of our most beautiful native trees is Franklinia, Franklinia alatamaha. First seen on the Altamaha River in what is now Georgia in 1765 and transplanted to the northeastern US, it is now extinct in the wild. Read the amazing story of this tree at Our Trees.

Don't be me! Fairly new to Python, transforming data, and I discovered log1p, a "more numerically accurate way to compute log(1+x) when x is very close to zero". Genius! The number of times I've had to hand-code this in R, and it's more accurate?! Just realized log1p is also a base fxn in R 💩

Great graphics and article, featuring a highly technical and very scientific quote by a sassy bird doctor www.allaboutbirds.org/news/birds-d...

It's nice to see more discussion about the origin of pigeons that, like gentle and humble dandelions, follow in the dismissive wreckage of human history, without any fault of their own.

Just spent two late weekend nights nerding the f* out, and now I'm going to spend a little of my Sunday morning bringing you the fruits of my labors! Stare at these trees with me. What do you see?

In case you were wondering what to get me for Christmas www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCwn...