13 November 2016
"The winning image combines ephemerality with constancy and emergence with predictability,” says judge and award-winning nature photographer Alex Badyaev in a statement, "and in doing so, it captures the essence of this species’ natural history—an explosive, once-in-a-lifetime, mating dance of one of the world’s shortest-lived animals triggered and revealed by the millions-of-years old light of distant stars”. The winner and 12 finalists (also here and here) of the Royal Society Photography Competition were selected from more than 1,000 entries from dozens of countries.
5 June 2016
Courtney's interests at the interface of natural history and evolutionary biology will facilitate her studies of directional evolutionary transitions in within-species polymorphisms.
1 March 2017
The lab's side project on evolutionary innovations in flying squirrels made the front page and a multipage Sunday Territory feature of Missoulian, the largest newspaper in the state of Montana.
25 June 2016
Our study species is an undisputed highlight of the election cycle. House finch female. Portland, Oregon
1 July 2016
"Cycles of coexistence with wolves shaped the legendary versatility of coyotes" according to a popular science feature in Arizona Alumni Magazine
29 September 2016
Bringing tequila to the world. California Academy of Science's bioGraphic publishes Agave Whisperers
15 May 2016
Erin Morrison publishes a new cover (also here) paper in Integrative & Comparative Biology outlining a predictive framework to "test the contributions of structural and dynamic properties of deterministic networks to evolutionary diversifications".
12 October 2016
"An unmistakable midnight sight in Tucson’s fall" is featured in Arizona Alumni Magazine (Redeye Commuters).
Matt brings his interest in developmental genetics to a set of projects on the evolution of biochemical determinants in color evolution.
The Lab students presented 6 (!) comprehensive papers at the 2016 EEB Poster session. Caitlin Davey analyzed correspondence between ecological specialization and metabolic complexity across 250 species, Emmet Andrews talked about structural and dynamic subsampling of shared traits in sexual dimorphisms, Xander Posner presented the test of new approach for analysing coevolution of controllability and complexity, Sarah Davis discussed the origin of novel color phenotypes during population divergence, and Adam Welu presented in-depth analysis of the biochemical basis of within-species polymorphisms.
26 April 2016
The inaugural issue of the California Academy of Sciences' new bioGraphic, "an innovative new magazine showcasing biodiversity and extraordinary scientific discoveries", highlights two (1, 2) of the lab's collaborative projects.
25 April 2016
This month's Arizona Magazine features the climbing fox story.
25 April 2016
Sarah Davis in the Winner of the 2016 Excellence in Research Award! Following her other recent top research awards, Sarah receives the prestigious 2016 Excellence in Research Award from the Department (and is nominated for the College of Science Excellence in Research Award). Between interviewing at top graduate schools across the country and considering various doctoral offers, Sarah is finishing up her thesis in the Lab.
1 March 2016
Following recent keynote to a few hundred brilliant undergrads, Alex had now faced a much more intimidating convention of a few hundred forged-in-fire high school teachers. The talk seemed to have went well...
26 January 2016
Arizona Daily Star puts us on its cover, highlights two (1, 2) lab research projects in its Science 2016 section, and uses our photo to celebrate state's birthday. This is our third cover with this newspaper.
1 March 2016
Alexander Posner brings his interests in evolutionary anthropology and training in mathematics to a variety of research projects in the lab. Among his many recognitions, Xander is a National Scholar and a recipient of four consecutive Awards for Academic Excellence (2010-4).
25 August 2015
"Ubiquitous, but previously overlooked, structural property of underlying metabolic networks produces cycles of carotenoid diversification in birds ", says our new major paper published this week in Biology Direct, succinctly summarizing in 20 pages (+ about 70 pages more in Supplementary) ten years of work and thinking. Funded by the Packard Fellowship, this is our best scientific work to date.
15 July 2015
Dr. Georgy Semenov joins the lab. Georgy studies genomic basis of speciation and population divergence in birds (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4).
1 July 2015
Our cover of August's Evolution highlights Jeff Good's finding of weak nuclear introgression in very actively speciating chipmunks.
1 September 2015
If you ever wondered how beavers fell giant trees directionally (in a crashing violation of The Central Place Foraging Theory), read a new cover feature in National Wildlife or see the photos for the first popular summary of this recently completed long-term project.
20 April 2015
Caitlin Davey joins the lab officially, having worked with us since her high school. Caitlin will continue investigate the mechanisms behind sex differences in feather microstructure.
12 April 2015
Emmet Andrews joins the lab. In his UBRP and Honors Thesis study, Emmet will address the correspondence between dynamic and static properties of complex biochemical networks.
15 April 2015
Sarah Davis receives the First Place Award (Emergent Category) for her poster at the 2015 EEB Undergraduate Research Session. The lab’s students presents three additional excellent posters at the event: Adam Welu with "Do changes in enzymatic network underlie age-dependent optimization of carotenoid displays in a bird?", Victoria Farrar with "Evolution of novel color phenotypes during population establishment: Genetic, biochemical, and ecological considerations", and Tayler LaSharr (last year's First Place Winner) with "Mechanisms influencing distribution and the coexistence of passerine species"
20 March 2015
Postdoc Dawn Higginson's new paper in American Naturalist — "Causes of discordance between allometries at and above species level" — uses sophisticated phylogenetic techniques to examine the effect of rapidly evolving developmental trajectories of complex and specialized phenotypes on the long-term evolutionary allometries and tissue trade-offs across 30 species of diving beetles. The study builds on Dawn's previous discoveries of explosive evolutionary diversification in sperm morphology (Evolution, Biol Reviews) and corresponding sex coevolution (PNAS) in this group.
25 March 2015
Erin Morrison is awarded a prestigious 2015 Galileo Circle Scholarship of the College of Science in recognition of her "truly exceptional level of accomplishments in research and teaching". Erin is the Lab's fourth graduate Galileo Fellow.
15 March 2015
Victoria Farrar continues her unprecedented sequence of awards for excellent research. In addition to last month's Leslie N. Goodding Scholar Award, Victoria is now selected by the Department for the 2015 Excellence in Research Award and by the College of Science as a 2015 Galileo Circle Undergraduate Research Scholar (the Lab's third undergraduate Galileo Fellow). This year, the lab will have two Galileo Scholars at the University Galileo Award reception on April 7th.
10 March 2015
Alex gives a short interview to the Natural History Museum in London, which also posts the video of the BBC Award reception, featuring this year's famous guests.
21 December 2014
In an early New Year's present, the President signs the RMF Heritage Act permanently protecting iconic Rocky Mountain Front in Montana from oil development that seemed unstoppable just a few months ago. Some of the key players who pushed for the legislature against all odds over the years gather to celebrate. Truly unique area, that consistenly ranks in the upper 1% of North American biological diversity is the site of much of The Lab's field, scientific, and wilderness advocacy efforts for the last 20 years, as well as the center of our two largest ongoing field projects.
10 December 2014
Victoria Farrar is 2014 Leslie N. Goodding Scholar! The Award recognizes Victoria's excellence in scholarship and her exceptional research record. The scholarship will support Victoria's Honor Thesis on investigating evolutionary trajectories of complex color phenotypes during population establishment and differentiation. Hear Victoria talk about her earlier biology project on KXCI 91.3FM.
29 October 2014
“A truly enchanted image that tells a complete story in a single frame.The lighting is as delicate as the setting; outcompeting tens of thousands of entries this year and trumping tigers, gorillas, elephants, cougars and other big charismatic animals — here is a little mouse... ” said legendary National Geographic photographer Frans Lanting in his introduction of the award. In 2014, the panel of international jury evaluated more than 42,000 entries from 96 countries. This is Alex Badyaev's third Winner title in the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year competitions.
29 October 2014
The Awards, celebrating the 50th year of the world’s largest and most prestigious nature photography competition, were presented by legendary BBC natural history presenter Sir David Attenborough and Her Royal Highness Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, at a black tie gala ceremony in London’s Natural History Museum. Prior to the Award ceremony, Badyaev was selected to accompany The Duchess of Cambridge as she viewed and discussed the 50th BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibit."
