Journal Club

Highlighting recently published papers selected by Academy members

Category Archives: Ecology

Journal Club: Analysis of bony fishes suggests convergent evolution is more prevalent than previously thought

Posted on May 23, 2017 by Jessica P. Johnson

Habitats and environmental pressures shape a variety of animal morphologies and behaviors over vast evolutionary time scales. These environmental pressures can sometimes produce nearly identical traits, even in completely unrelated lineages. This phenomenon, called convergent evolution, results in modern species that appear very similar despite … Continue reading →

Journal Club: A physicist’s take on the age-old ecological puzzle of how species form communities

Posted on May 19, 2017 by Carolyn Beans

Ecologists have long searched for the rules that govern how individual species join together to form a community. Whether forest or desert, the problem is complex. Myriad factors influence a community’s composition and stability —from how strongly species compete to … Continue reading →

Journal Club: In a first, deep sea robots get a close look at giant larvaceans, a key player in the biological carbon pump

Posted on May 3, 2017 by Gayathri Vaidyanathan

Closer inspection of the giant larvacean, seen here in an undersea video taken by a remotely operated vehicle, could reveal clues about how the deep sea sequesters carbon. Image Credit: © 2017 MBARI In the deeps off Monteray Bay, Calif., … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Antibiotics alter the honeybee microbiome and increase bee death

Posted on March 23, 2017 by Carolyn Beans

Antibiotics could potentially disrupt the health-promoting microbes that make up the microbiomes in humans and other animals. But pinning down exactly how microbiomes and antibiotics affect human health is complicated by the sheer number of microbes involved. Evolutionary biologist Nancy … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Potential life could have spread with relative ease amongst newly-discovered group of seven exoplanets

Posted on March 10, 2017 by Adam Mann

The odds of life spreading between the worlds of the newly-discovered seven-planet TRAPPIST-1 system are up to 1,000 times greater than in our own solar system. That’s the conclusion of a new analysis posted March 2 to the arXiv, an … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Fruit fly hybrids make poor foragers, offering insight into how species remain distinct

Posted on January 20, 2017 by Carolyn Beans

When one fruit fly species meets another, they sometimes interbreed. And yet despite this genetic mixing, distinct species still persist—over 2,000 of them. Evolutionary biologist Daniel Matute of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is one of … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Self-sacrificing male spiders assist in their own cannibalism to aid offspring

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Charles Choi

Spiders are infamous for their deadly females, which often devour males before, after, or even during sex. Now scientists find that male dark fishing spiders (Dolomedes tenebrosus) apparently sacrifice themselves to females after mating to aid their offspring, as reported … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Extremophiles captured from normal freshwater lake

Posted on October 12, 2016 by Danielle Venton

Microbes capable of stunning metabolic feats—such as thriving in extremely hot or acidic conditions —might not require a trek to an exotic hot spring. The neighborhood pond might do just fine. That’s the implication of a new study in Biology … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Landscape connectivity key to future animal migration needs in the United States

Posted on June 13, 2016 by Charles Choi

As the climate changes, plants and animals worldwide are migrating to follow their preferred conditions. Human activity, however, can impede these movements. Now researchers are mapping out ways to help species escape to more suitable climes. The scientists detailed their … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Tasmanian devils hit with another contagious cancer

Posted on March 16, 2016 by Helen Shen

Cancers aren’t usually contagious, but a tiny number of them can spread when diseased cells move from one animal to another. One such cancer, an aggressive facial tumor, has wiped out large numbers of Tasmanian devils in Australia over the … Continue reading →

Categories: Cell Biology | Ecology | Genetics | Tagged cancer, contagion, Tasmanian Devil | Leave a comment