congrats to James winning the GIST competition

Big congrats to PhD student James Burgon for his science communication and outreach efforts --  winning the Glasgow Insight into Science & Technology Science and Society 2014 article competition for "where my scientist at?"


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NEW PAPER: Dollo's law and evolutionary reversals

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 Published this week is a new paper I wrote with Jean Clobert, asking 'how to study (putative) evolutionary reversals?' We look at the current state of agreement about what is needed, provide some history and context to the arguments about Dollo's law, and finally propose a roadmap for how to test evolutionary reversals now that we are in the so-called post-genomic era.  Open access paper available in Trends in Ecology and Evolution Thanks to TULIP for funding a research visit that let me work on this paper at SETE Abstract Dollo’s law of irreversibility argues that evolution cannot revert to earlier states. It has remained controversial ever since its inception in the 19th century. Enabled by advances in phylogenomics and functional genomics, recent studies show that there are very likely some cases of ‘breaking Dollo’s law’. As post-genomic research grows from showing patterns to revealing processes, new emphasis is needed on the molecular mechanisms by which Dollo’s law...
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Fieldwork Update from Austria: summer 2024

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by J. Smout Fieldwork update:  Summer 2024 saw the start of a new phase of research on our field site in the Gailtal region of Austria. The site hosts a hybrid zone of oviparous (egg laying) and viviparous (live bearing) lineages of common lizards, Zootoca vivipara. Past research by Elmer Lab members and alumni has focussed on understanding the genetic architecture of viviparity and oviparity as well as investigating differences in reproductive investment, and reproductive success of the different lineages and hybrids.  Our new project, funded by a NERC Pushing the Frontiers grant, centres on a controlled breeding experiment to take place in situ at the hybrid zone. By setting up experimental crosses between oviparous, viviparous, and hybrid lizards of both sexes and by keeping the offspring for the duration of the project, we can address gaps in our existing knowledge of the hybrid zone such as differences in the inclusive fitness of male vs. female lizards and how hybridisat...
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NEW PAPER: landscape genomics reveal that oviparous and viviparous lizards have innately different population patterns

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In a neat mix of some spatial genetic autocorrelation analyses (which I got excited about during my PhD on leaf litter frogs ) and life history strategies, we have published a new paper on oviparous and viviparous lizards. We find that even in the same environment, ie at the same site, the different parity modes have different scales of dispersal and different population densities. See details below. To do this study we reanalysed population level data collected in the study Hans led on the genomic basis of parity mode phenotypes now looking only at pure ovi/vivi individuals. This is unusual because most often these lineages are found in very different environments, which is a confound if we wanted to explore contrasts in their life histories and demographies. Parity-specific differences in spatial genetics and dispersal in the common lizard Abstract: Dispersal is a key demographic parameter that plays an important role in determining spatial population dynamics and genetic structure....
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