Thursday, May 3, 2012
Photo copyright Miguel Landestoy.
We have a report in the latest issue of Reptiles and Amphibias: Conservation and Natural History that reports range expansion of the invasive Cuban anole Anolis porcatus in the Dominican Republic (PDF link to paper). Anolis porcatus was first discovered in Santo Domingo decades ago, but now appears to have expanded its range outside the capital. The populations we report are from Bani (W of Santo Domingo) and south of Higuey (NE of Santo Domingo). This species could pose a major threat to the native A. chlorocyanus.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
This week we’ll be discussing Harry Greene’s chapter from “In the Light of Evolution.” We’ll accompany this reading with discussion of a recent paper by Harry and his colleagues about Dollo’s Law and the evolution of reproductive mode in vipers. You can find a PDF of this paper at the Parkinson Lab’s web page. Harry also had two fascinating papers in PNAS last year that everyone should also consider checking out (Headland & Greene 2011, Huang et al. 2011).
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Rather than read a book chapter this week, lets change gears. Dr Molly Cummings is the graduate student invited speaker this year and will be giving her seminar this Friday. To prepare, let’s read two of her recent papers on swordtail behavior. The first is a more traditional behavioral mate choice experiment and the second uses gene expression data to investigate mate choice. We’ll read and discuss both on Thursday.
Wong R.Y, So P., & Cummings M.E. 2011. How female size and male displays influence mate preference in a swordtail.Animal Behaviour 82: 691-697. [PDF]
Lynch K.S., Ramsey M.E. & Cummings M.E. 2012. The mate choice brain: comparing gene profiles between female choice and male coercive poeciliids. Genes, Brain and Behavior 11:222-229. [PDF]
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Figure 1 from Feldman et al. 2012, a paper we will discuss on Thursday.
In addition to the chapter by Brodie, we will read these 2 papers:
dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1113468109
dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0901224106
Monday, March 26, 2012
With Anthony’s breeding experiment having come to a close with the last F1 baby hatching on Saturday, Dan Macguigan and I have started a new experiment in the lizard room involving dietary manipulations. Look out for the yellow stickers the next time you’re in the lizard room!
Monday, March 26, 2012
This week in lab meeting we’ll be reading Hopi Hoekstra’s chapter, From Darwin to DNA: The Genetic Basis of Color Adaptations as well as a 2010 paper that examines the selective advantage of color crypsis in mice
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Photo from http://www.biosci.utexas.edu/HomeSlideshow/index.html
For this week’s lab meeting, we are going to read Mike Ryan’s chapter entitled Sexual Selection: A Tutorial from the Túngara Frog (pg 185-203) as well as a Ryan paper on plasticity in female mate choice. Bring along papers to share and tales of Spring Break adventures!
Monday, March 5, 2012
This week we’ll read the chapter on fossil discovery and the origins of tetrapods by Ted Daeschler and Neil Shubin, pages 297-310. On Ted’s suggestion we will read Neil Shubin’s companion paper to the discovery/description of Tiktaalik. This paper deals with pectoral fin evolution and the origin of tetrapod limbs.
Monday, February 27, 2012
This week we’ll read Zuk and Orr’s chapter (pages 171-184) on sexual selection as well as a recent Zuk paper on male ornament evolution in field crickets. If you don’t get the references above, you will once you get through the readings.
