Why do some palm clades in Madagascar thrive while others stagnate? Why do some have 1 species, and others 180+? Turns out it's less about that Island Magic & more about inherited traits and timing (when is it not?)! 🌍🧪👇 doi.org/10.1093/evol... @linneansociety.bsky.social

Magic traits may assist sympatric #Ecological speciation, but few examples exist & evidence for their role is rare. Yet, this study found #pleiotropy affected soil preference & flowering time in #Hawea, consistent with speciation! Check out the full paper 🌍🧪👇

Who you gonna call? EVOLUTIONARY SCIENTISTS! Ghost species (no, not species of ghost) are extinct, unknown & unsampled taxa...and they vastly outnumber those included in phylogenetics. This hidden diversity can complicate phylogenetic signals of horizontal gene flow, impacting their study...(1/2)🧪

It's #PeerReviewWeek and what better opportunity exists to say a huge thank you to our excellent reviewers from across the globe. It is your hard work & commitment that enables us to continue publishing ground-breaking research in Biology, Botany, Evolution and Zoology. (1/2)

Did you know male wasps can get tricked by orchids into thinking they're females? Pterostylis orchids use sexual deception as a pollination strategy, with fungus gnats (Diptera) falling victim, acting as the main pollinators of these deceptive plants! 🌍🧪👇 academic.oup.com/botlinnean/a...

How are phylogenetic trees built? Unlike real trees, they don't sprout on their own. Here, Bruce Rannala explores how recombination affects phylogenetic tree building...check out what they found below 🌍🧪👇 doi.org/10.1093/evol... @linneansociety.bsky.social

Scientists often use models to study how species evolved, but these models are not always perfect. Here, Ziheng Yang (Darwin Wallace Medal winner) looks at how small changes in data or assumptions can affect the results of these studies. Check it out below 👇🌍🧪

Speaker Spotlight! Today we're sharing molecular biologist Glenn Yannic, whose research focuses on the consequences of environmental & anthropogenic changes on the genetic diversity of alpine & arctic species. Book to see Glenn Nov 20 🌍🧪👇 buff.ly/bLADJcs.?mso...

Speaker Spotlight! 📣 Today we're highlighting Chloe Haberkorn, a biologist who specialises in evolutionary genomics, currently in yeast! Her PhD focused on resistance mechanisms in bed bugs (scream). Come see Chloe on Nov 20 🧪🌍👇 buff.ly/bLADJcsmsock... @chloehbk.bsky.social

New Blog Day! 📣 Who's your daddy? This is the question asked by guest blogger @katyakolesnykova.bsky.social, breaking down Gabriela Bispo & co's paper on leatherback turtle mating systems! A long-time mystery, DNA analysis revealed a surprising truth 🌍🧪👇 A 🧵 (1/6) buff.ly/iVBnhAO

Are you a PhD student ready to publish a paper? Submit your research to our journal today & enter one of our new journal prizes, celebrating PhD student work in #Botany or #Biology !🧪🌍👇 academic.oup.com/evolinnean/p... @linneansociety.bsky.social

Body shape, a key trait in fish (they'd do wonders on Hinge), varies between geographic regions & sexes, reflecting adaptations to local environments. Here, body-shape variation among 3-spine sticklebacks was studied, revealing shape was mostly affected by sexual dimorphism! How? (1/2) 🧪🌍

Terrestrial flatworms have helped uncover the evolutionary processes shaping #Biodiversity in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, as their limited dispersal & sensitivity to environmental change reflect the evolutionary history of the forest! 🌍🧪👇

Tadpoles have...TEETH?! An evolutionary novelty of anuran tadpoles, the taxonomic distribution of keratinized labial teeth remains a mystery. Yet here, variation in row number was studied in a phylogenetic context! If you're bitten by a tadpole do you turn into a frog..? 🌍🧪👇

SCREEAEAAEEEEEAAAAAAEAEAAA!!! That's bat for "Join our Bat Walks"! Every Wednesday at dusk in Battersea Park, book your place now (tickets are flying, just like bats...the only mammal to evolve true flight....) 🌍🧪🦇👇

📣New Blog Day! 🚨 Ever wondered why birds have whiskers? Many theories have been proposed, from eye protection to prey capture, but all lacked conclusive scientific evidence...until now! Guest blogger Michael Sellgren breaks this down in our latest blog, a 🧵(1/6)🌍🧪 www.linnean.org/news/2025/08...

Speaker spotlight! @trishschulte.bsky.social studies how fishes' physiology, biochemistry & genetics adapt to challenging environmental conditions, like high temperature. Hear from her at our symposium on 20 November. Online & in person tickets available.

Submit your research with us or simply join us for our symposium on Organismal Resilience in a Rapidly Changing world! Register via the link below 👇🌍🧪https://academic.oup.com/biolinnean/pages/organismal-resilience

Everyone loves tardigrades (especially at the LinnSoc), but is tardigrade love-making affected by water? Here, the effect of anhydrobiosis (life without water) on mate choice & reproductive stress was studied, finding females laid fewer eggs but no delay on mate choice! 🌍🧪 doi.org/10.1093/biol...

We know we know, you're dying to know what's new in the world of Adaptive Radiation...well wonder no more! Here, Julia Day, @jameststroud.bsky.social, @fishspeciation.bsky.social & María del Rosario Castañeda discuss it in their Editorial below 👇🌍🧪 doi.org/10.1093/evol...

Join us online as Dr Marco Camaiti reveals the hidden world of limb-reduced lizards! Discover how skinks have evolved "noodle-like" bodies, phantom bones & strange internal anatomy...all revealed with cutting-edge imaging. Join us at 12:30pm Wednesday 13th August! 👇🌍🧪

Froget it's Monday by learning about subtropical Proceratophrys frogs! Found in the Araucaria Forest, DNA evidence suggests their diversity is the result of marine transgression, highlighting the role of climate in diversification! A ribbiting read 👇🐸🌍🧪 academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a...

Bromeliads are one of the most diverse Neotropical flora, but why are they so diverse? Here, molecular phylogeny is used to understand this in 1268 taxa...revealing how geological & climatic events shaped their evolution! 🧪🌍👇 academic.oup.com/botlinnean/a... My bromeli-bad for the lack of puns...

Ever heard of a webspinner? No, not that superhero...we're talking about tiny insects whose evolutionary history is poorly known! Here, divergence time is estimated for extant lineages of webspinner, revealing the first possible scenario of Embioptera origins! 🌍🧪👇 academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a...

Titanosaur-sum discovery! Well-preserved tracks of Nemegt sauropods from S Mongolia have revealed novel insights into soft tissue anatomy & function, including scales that may have helped with scratch digging on sandy surfaces! 🧪🌍🦕 academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a... @linneansociety.bsky.social

Check out our latest journal cover, provided by @jameststroud.bsky.social linking to our Special Issue on Adaptive Radiation! Want your image to feature on our cover? Submit your manuscript with us today 👇🌍🧪 academic.oup.com/evolinnean/p... @linneansociety.bsky.social

Did you know bees like smelly flowers? Research on an aquatic angiosperm Crinum campanulatum revealed a shift from nocturnal pollination by hawkmoths to diurnal pollination by bees, associated with smaller flowers and increased diurnal scent! Find out why below 🧪🌍👇 academic.oup.com/botlinnean/a...

1/2 Unexpected and weird results are frustrating unless you have the opportunity to get to the bottom of them, and we frequently encounter this with island arthropods. Following up on them is time consuming, but often provides quirky insights into community assembly dynamics.

Our understanding of species colonisation of oceanic islands has exploded, revealing unknown multiple colonisation events! Using a species complex of endemic weevils on the Canary Islands, the consequences of multiple colonisation dynamics were explored🌍 🧪 👇 academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a...

Pangenomics is an emerging frontier in plant genome research, enabling polyploid genome analysis without the limitation of intraspecific variation. Whilst there's still a gap between polyploid & diploid studies, the future application of pangenomics is vast! 🌍🧪 academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a...

New Blog Day! Guest blogger @benraby.bsky.social breaks down a recent paper in our #Botanical journal, investigating the use of modern technology to detect salt stress in plants. What did the research show? A 🧵 (1/6) 🧪🌍🌿 www.linnean.org/news/2025/07...

Catch up on last week's fascinating talk from @jhancsalazar.bsky.social‬ about anoles lizards, and how they react to temperatures at different elevations in their mountain habitats. Jhan's research was recently published in @evojlinnsoc.bsky.social‬.

The Andes are a biodiversity hotspot & research led by @jhancsalazar.bsky.social‬ has studied how one inhabitant - the anoles lizard - adapts to habitats from tropical lowlands to chilly mountaintops. Rosie Ryland has written about the work published in @evojlinnsoc.bsky.social‬

Ever wondered how the tree of life is pieced together? Species-level phylogenetic inference remains challenging, but here @sungsik.bsky.social & co have developed a composite likelihood framework that handles SNP & multilocus data, improving species tree estimation! academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a...

Ever wondered how temperature affects species in mountain ranges such as the Andes? Our guest blogger Rosie Ryland has written a great blog about this, shining a spotlight on how temperature shapes life in one of Earth's most complex ecosystems! (1/3) 🌍🧪🦎 www.linnean.org/news/2025/06...

Thanks @evojlinnsoc.bsky.social for a great summary! It was a pleasure working with @keoghlabanu.bsky.social, Emma Sherratt, Scott Hocknull and Andrew Amey on this paper. I counted a lot of vertebrae...

What's new in the world of adaptive radiation?! Here's what we think! academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a... Out now in @evojlinnsoc.bsky.social! Wonderful writing this with Julia Day, @fishspeciation.bsky.social, and María del Rosario Castañeda

Always trust your gut...unless you're a low-altitude Eurasian tree sparrow? Analysis of the gut microbiota of sparrows at high & low altitude revealed significant differences, with low-altitude sparrows having greater diversity but a higher prevalence of potentially-pathogenic bacteria! (1/2) 🌍🧪🐦

Many elongate species show a positive correlation between body size & number of vertebrae (pleomerism), but some groups lack it entirely, the reason for which we don't yet understand. Snakes, being long, are good model species for investigating this...a 🧵(1/3) 🧪🌍🐍 @puttert.bsky.social

Please join us in welcoming Prof Ullasa Kodandaramaiah as a new Associate Editor for EJLS! Broadly interested in understanding how natural selection has led to diversification of traits and life forms, he will make a great addition to our team! @linneansociety.bsky.social

A #Fossil from 5.5MYA in Italy has revealed new information on the ancestor of wolves! Part of the genus Eucyon, they mark a crucial moment in canid #Evolution, spreading across the Bering land bridge from America into Eurasia. Yet they have remained an elusive species...until now! A 🧵(1/5) 🌍🧪

The early burst evolves first! Predicted under some models of adaptive radiation, interpretation of early burst speciation can be fraught with controversy due to "taxon murk". Using Australian scinid lizards as a model, tip-level uncertainty, including #taxonomic undersampling, was investigated!🧪🌍

Ancient rat brains ever crossed your mind? If so, you're in luck! Here, brain morphology of Pliocene spiny rats Eumysops chapalmalensis was studied using endocasts, uncovering unique morphology that may indicate a niche not explored by extant species! 🌍🧪🐀 academic.oup.com/zoo...

Speciation occurs when populations are reproductively isolated, though the role of intrinsic postzygotic incompatibility (reduced viability of hybrid offspring) is debated. While the BDM model can explain these, @ayajulio.bsky.social argues multi-locus models may offer better insights! 🌍🧪🧬

Tagging this #Discovery on the science feed! 🧪🌍🧬

You probably know that figs are pollinated by wasps as part of a #Mutualistic plant-pollinator relationship, but did you know not all fig flowers are pollinated? The answer to why this is has been elusive, yet here it's found the size of figs may be the cause! 🐝🌸🌍🧪 academic.oup.com/evo...

The radiation of tetrapods during the #Devonian & Early Carboniferous periods was associated with a transition from aquatic to terrestrial #Environments, leading to changes in feeding ecology. Yet, evidence suggests feeding morphology remained static until much later! Why? A 🧵 (1/3) 🧪🌍

Eponyms have become a controversial topic in biological #Taxonomy, where some believe they represent social injustice & biases. Yet here, George Sangster quantitatively analysed 28,000 bird names & found most honoured scientists, & have done since the 19th Century! (1/2) 🌍🧪

The laaaaaast giraffe! 🦥 Did you know Europe was once home to giraffes? Their drastic biodiversity decline in the Pliocene & subsequent expansion in the Early Pleistocene led to what was believed to be multiple species...but was this really the case? 🌍🧪🧵 (1/4)

We'd like to start this week by welcoming Milan Malinsky @millanek.bsky.social on board as a new Associate Editor! Their expertise in #Evolutionary & population genomics makes them an asset to our team, welcome aboard! www.milan-malinsky.org @linneansociety.bsky.social