A new Science study of ants in Fiji—involving genomic sequencing of over 4000 ant specimens from museum collections—shows that most native species have been in decline since humans first arrived in the archipelago 3000 years ago. https://scim.ag/489mI2o

The first Aguillon Lab paper is officially out in early view at Evolution!! Led by postdoc @devonderaad.bsky.social, we’ve explored the hybrid zone between black-headed and rose-breasted grosbeaks in the Great Plains. #ornithology #hybridization #speciation #evolution doi.org/10.1093/evol...

Fiji ant study provides new evidence of insects’ decline on remote islands www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Excited to share our new paper on flight morphology and migration in North American wood warblers. Surprisingly, ground-dwelling warblers may be better adapted for migration than aerial ones!!! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Applying to the NSF-GRFP (or another fellowship) on a tight deadline? We built a 7-week guide + timeline to get you from draft to submission. It’s not too late — you’ve got this! ✨ 🔗 cientificolatino.com/apply-in-7-weeks #NSFGRFP #GradSchool #Fellowship

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

SimHumanity: Using SLiM 5.0 to run whole-genome simulations of human evolution https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.01.673541v1

Why do speciation rates vary across the tree of life? Some of the best yet most underappreciated places for this investigation are natural hybrid zones. This preprint takes you to the hybrid zones in the origin of species to find a clue. 👉 shorturl.at/N7FXE #Speciation #Evolution #hybridization

My feather cell type paper is finally out! doi.org/10.1111/ede.... We’ve packed a ton of stuff into this paper but I’ll go through some highlights in this thread!

🐦🔬 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!

Calling all natural history/museum collections folxs The theme of the @systbiol.bsky.social breakout meeting in Baton Rouge is 'The Importance of Natural History Collections' The LSU Museum of Natural Science will host some events. Hope to see you there, Jan 9-11, 2026. ssb2026.github.io

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/...

SLiM 5: Eco-evolutionary simulations across multiple chromosomes and full genomes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.07.669155v1

Interested in how new sex chromosomes evolve in birds? Our NSF-funded collaborative work with the (Daven) Presgraves lab at @urochester.bsky.social is out this week in @pnas.org. Check it out! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

At the end of a productive scouting and networking trip to Fiji. It was such a treat to see the species (and some additional specimens) that I worked on from afar during my PhD. Even more exciting was to meet long-term collaborators and connect with new ones. Excited to return next year!

Check out our new special feature: Monitoring and Restoring Gene Flow in the Increasingly Fragmented Ecosystems of the Anthropocene www.pnas.org/topic/574 #biodiversity #evolution #ecology #popgen #ClimateEmergency

With many postdoc grants like the NSF PRFB, Ford Fellowship, and Hanna H. Gray fellowships disappearing, I am currently looking for grants that could fund incoming postdoctoral scholars. Here is a thread of some of them 🧵

New paper published! How does a mid-size river impact gene flow and population structure, including when there is an adaptive sexual trait present on one bank but not the other? With Peri Bolton, Robb Brumfield (@limpkin.bsky.social), Jerry Wilkinson, and Mike Braun. doi.org/10.1093/evol...

the ad is up! applications due 7/15: evol.mcmaster.ca/brian/evoldi...

What a blast attending my first in-person Evolution meetings! Had the opportunity to present our work on: 1. A new biogeographic model of species diversification that accounts for species richness. 2. Phylogeography model for infectious disease transmission with visitor dynamics. #Evol2025

ad to come, but I'm looking for an M.S. student to study the conservation genomics of swift foxes on the American Prairie Reserve in Montana beginning 9/1. this is a collaboration w/ Smithsonian & Justine Becker; strong candidates will have prior genomics experience and be up for remote fieldwork

HUD has been touring the building for months. NSF says nothing…”nothing to see here”. I’m quite sick of gaslighting, bullying, and lack of respect for science and academia. It’s getting harder and harder to take.

Already missing the #Evol2025 meeting in verdant Athens! It was inspiring to hear the amazing science everyone has been doing, and as always, see old and meet new evolutionary biologists.

Made a visit this morning to what is obviously the most important Athens landmark - The Tree That Owns Itself. Thanks @ethanofthegulls.bsky.social for reminding me this is here, highly recommend if you’re at #Evol2025

@jlwilliamson.bsky.social giving the next ASN @asn-amnat.bsky.social Early Career Award lecture at #Evol2025 talking about altitude adaptation in giant hummingbirds

Excited for #Evol2025! I'll be sharing work on the island size-genetic diversity relationship in the avifauna of the Solomon Islands. Come hear about results from single-radiation, comparative, and simulation work. Check it out in Phylogeography 2 (Mon 6/23 11:15am, Athena GH)!

Also, awkward but necessary plug- I’m applying for postdocs this Fall. I’ve learned a lot (I think) during my PhD- phylo comp methods, morphometrics, ENMs, phylogenomics, mentoring students… I’m excited to learn more & tackle new questions broadly related to understanding diversification processes!

Hey #Evol2025 folks - Interested in adaptive radiation? Morphological evolution? Cool birds? I’ll be presenting the results of my first dissertation chapter, looking at diversification in Malagasy vangas (+ a bit about what comes next!) (Sat 4:45-5 in Macroevo & Diversification IV, Parthenon 2)

This plan is utterly insane and would cause catastrophic environmental degradation and loss of outdoor opportunities throughout the west — it would accelerate the decline of forests and wildlife, and seriously restrict hiking, camping, fishing, birding, hunting, etc.

maybe my favorite paper I've written, I have a synthesis out today early access in @asn-amnat.bsky.social today that attempts to answer a simple but slippery question: what is an elevational range? doi.org/10.1086/737130

Our paper about the flow of nocturnal bird migration through Colombia is finally out today in #ProcB! Using weather radars operated by the #IDEAM, we found that low variability in wind underlies a pace of migration that is far more gradual than at temperate latitudes. #Ornithology 📡🪶🇨🇴 🧵1/10

My student Vanessa Perez is analyzing hundreds of photos of the Barred Fruiteater. If you have some, you can help her fill some geographic gaps. A cool story is unwrapping ⛰️🪶 Please share! #birds #ornithology #speciation #andes

The Daily at UW wrote a nice article on our game-theory model of female variation in hummingbirds!

Racist and sexist roots in the cancellation of NSF grants under Trump: Grants with female PIs canceled 2x more than men Grants with Black PIs canceled 4x over White PIs Grants with Hispanic PIs canceled 2x over White PIs Grants with PIs with disabilities canceled 2x more than without

happy to see our study on genetic parallelism of reproductive isolation in chickadee hybrid zones out in @evolletters.bsky.social—great work led by Georgy Semenov & Scott Taylor: doi.org/10.1093/evle...

Now published! We examine how female competition shapes movement ecology. We provide the first genetic evidence of female philopatry and male-biased dispersal in a socially polyandrous bird species! doi.org/10.1093/evol... @journal-evo.bsky.social

The diversity of the avian lung mycobiome is largely driven by diet and sampling year, reflecting birds’ exposure to environmental fungi. www.nature.com/articles/s42... @jlwilliamson.bsky.social @ethanofthegulls.bsky.social

Now published!!!! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

My NSF PRFB on the genetics of female polymorphism in hummingbirds was terminated yesterday. I don't have much to say, I'm just sad. We've discovered so much, and could have gone so much further. If anyone else is in the same boat, esp postdocs, please reach out, it would be good to connect.

yesterday, my postdoc funding (salary and research funds) was cancelled by the National Science Foundation, effective immediately. I received the same generic, vaguely threatening, typo-ridden email as many of my colleagues who have had their awards terminated recently. (1/n)

If you, like me, had you NSF granted terminated, here’s what I learned from a hopeful meeting with my VP of research: 1. We have 30 days to act! Meet with your admin asap 2. APPEAL: Everyone can appeal! It must go through your institution, there’s a template, sent registered mail. My VP told me ⬇️

WOS member Silas Fischer is the lead author of the research featured here, which shows a bias in #ornithology research toward studying more aesthetically appealing birds.

🧪 Tip: You have the right to contest a grant termination, even though NSF says you don't. 🧵 On Friday, NSF terminated 402 grants (per Musk's DOGE). The notification letters had one of the most egregious violations of fed regulations I've seen so far in these cases: "not subject to appeal"

This funding is my sole source of income (as per my agreement with NSF, you are not allowed to take on other work). Additionally, because I am paid directly by the NSF, my university does not consider me to be an employee so I don’t have the same protections as other employed postdocs.

Some species had an outsized role in shaping evolutionary theory. The Fiji Whistlers featured heavily in Ernst Mayr's development of the biological species concept and its application to allopatric taxa. In our new paper, we revisited this system with genomic data 🧵 doi.org/10.1093/sysb...

🐦 Do some birds have #PrettyPrivilege? 💫 New paper: doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2024.2846 We show that ~half the variation in research effort on 293 bird species in US+Canada is explained by just 3 factors: 1)visual appeal, 2)range size, & 3)# of universities w/in ranges. What we did & why it matters:🧵

Preprint alert: "Mating signal energy gradient mediates gene flow in the early stage of avian speciation". We studied 109 pairs of hybridizing bird species & unveiled some hidden roles of their magical mating rituals. #birds #evolution

I have a new paper with Mark Robbins (KU) just out in @ibisjournal.bsky.social looking at hybridization between Western and Eastern Wood-pewees in Nebraska: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... We found hybrids and genome-wide bidirectional introgression in the zone of sympatry between species.