I am recruiting a MS student in Biology at New Mexico Tech with an anticipated start date of Fall 2026 to work on the applied evolutionary genetics of wild populations with conservation or management concerns (butterflies, bighorn sheep). Please see the attached advertisement for more info.

new PhD position available! The student will develop remote sensing tools to support land management in the western United States, contributing to ongoing USDA-funded research on monitoring and restoring mesic and riparian ecosystems. For more details, please see: caughlinlab.com/join-the-lab/

Big bluestem has been a lovely and complex system to work with for the majority of my PhD and will always have a piece of my heart! Very excited to share this work with the community.

I'm looking to recruit a PhD student to study patterns of local adaptation and introgression across the spruce hybrid zone in the Rockies near Calgary. Projects can include field work, bioinformatics, pop gen theory, or comparison to plant/ conifer species yeamanlab.weebly.com/uploads/5/7/...

New Paper! In 2019, my first dissertation chapter revealed complicated polyploidies in the cotton family (Malvaceae) but we lacked the tools and genomes to truly understand it. Now with better genomes and improved methods, it's much more complicated than we thought. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Hi #Botany2025 - In my quest to never do flow cytometry again, I am collecting sequence data (radseq, target enrichment, WGS, ect.) with confirmed ploidal level. If you have samples, reach out!

Very excited to have our study come out looking at multiple plant mosaic hybrid zones and their implications for hybrids to act as "sutures" of species ranges. We use genomic data to project shifts into future climates and discuss impacts on conservation/management. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Find here my announcement for a 2-year post-doc position in ecological genomics of white oaks in the framework of the Horizon project OptFORESTS. I am looking for somebody with strong skills in bioinformatics, landscape genomics, forest genomics, GWAS, and population genetic simulations.

In this new preprint, we characterize interannual variation in the outcomes of hybridization between Colias butterflies from a contact zone in California

So excited for this paper by the Insect Loss RCN led by Chris Halsh! #insectloss @cbahlai.bsky.social academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...

In this economy, I did not expect any PhD stipend raises. Big shout-out to Texas Tech University which has gone from paying $15,984 to $21,500! and big thanks to @mossmatters.bsky.social for keeping our database up-to-date! rhettrautsaw.app/shiny/Biolog...

In "Dynamics of Mixed-Ploidy Populations under Demographic and Environmental Stochasticities", Gaynor et al. discover a tetraploid advantage in times of high environmental stress! Read now ahead of print! www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

In this new preprint, we use genetic data to reconstruct the history of diversification for bighorn sheep, with a particular focus on the contentious "California" lineage. This work is the product of an amazing collaboration between managers and researchers from across western North America.

For every 5 butterflies seen 20 years ago, now there are only 4. While a few species have actually increased, many more have declined—some dramatically. Of 554 species, 107 declined by over 50%. Even still, providing habitat & reducing pesticides can change things! Learn more🔗 xerces.org/press

Join us on Wednesday, March 5, at 11 AM PST for the next #PolyploidyWebinar! This month features Maya Wilson Brown on Capsella genetic variation and Nomar Waminal on the Crocus panrepeatome! Sign up (if not already!) to get the zoom: www.barkerlab.net/polyweb

Firings are happening right now at the National Science Foundation. Essential staff are being cut. This isn’t about the budget. If it was, they’d be going after the military (17%) or state appropriations (38%). NSF is 0.7% of the federal budget. All federal employees make up only 4% of the budget.

Had the opportunity to chat with In Defense of Plants about my favorite plant, Galax urceolata. We dive into its ecology, genome evolution, and the fascinating world of polyploidy. Check out this week’s episode:

www.indefenseofplants.com/podcast/2025... awesome episode of @shellygaynor.bsky.social work on Galax!

3500 scientists, biologists and experts in human sexual development write to the US government saying that sex isn't binary www.evolutionsociety.org/news/display...

I will be talking next week at the polyploid webinar on simulations in mixed-ploidy data land! Signup to get the zoom link.

Big news today from our Border Wildlife Study collaboration with Wildlands Network: Our study on the crossing rates of animals through different types of border wall has just been published, showing which species are able to cross and through which barriers: ow.ly/mMrG50Ucesj

Vince and I are currently recruiting grad students for a variety of projects. Please pass on this flier to anyone you think would be interested!

A new program from NSF is targeting graduate fellowship money to people who received Honorable Mention on a GRFP within the past three years, who are currently enrolled in grad school in EPSCoR states. here is the solicitation: new.nsf.gov/funding/oppo... and a map of EPSCoR eligible states:

Finally making my first bluesky post! And it's to share that we're excited that rabbitbrush and our paper on mosaic hybrid zones is featured on the cover of Evolution this month! doi.org/10.1093/evol...