Thomas Haaland and I recently wrote a paper that investigates potential vulnerabilities in natural populations to changes in the intensity, duration and frequency of extreme weather events. The paper is open access so feel free to download it from my publications link or directly from the publisher's URL. Although it took some time to get covered, the press and more importantly, the institutions that can really use this information are beginning to pay attention. Here's an example of our coverage so far...
Are you interested in a largely independent postdoctoral fellowship that will allow you to advance your research agenda, expand your network of mentors and colleagues and make a difference in the world? If so, then please consider the following opportunity from the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University. Please contact me for details if you are interested in submitting an application... I am happy to announce that two of our newest products have been published in Nature Communications and Ecology and Evolution. Kudos to Trevor Fristoe and Thomas Haaland for their hard work and brilliance... Trevor's paper explores the atypical distribution of brain sizes in temperate environments (spoiler alert: it is bimodal) and how it may be related to alternative ecological strategies to deal with massive temperate swings. Thomas' paper investigates the phenomenon of extreme weather events and proposes a framework for understanding how organisms may adapt or not to current changes in the intensity, frequency and scope of these events. Press summaries of our work are found here:
Big Brains or Big Guts? | Brave New World
Our new paper on the origins of human agriculture is out today in Nature Human Behavior. By modeling how the potential density of hunter-gatherer societies changed both around the world and in regions where agriculture originated, our study evaluated the support for alternative hypotheses related to why agriculture evolved when it did. Our analyses indicate that the carrying capacity of hunter-gatherer habitats in these areas of origin was generally improving during the times in which agriculture evolved, supporting the idea that surplus may have enabled early humans to develop this costly new mode of subsistence (possibly by allowing them to allocate time and energy into the domestication of plants and animals and the development of new techniques to derive sustenance from their environment).
Stay tuned for the next few months for more exciting products of our collaboration with linguists, social scientists, and other eco-evolutionary biologists on this topic. Today we finally got together for a long-overdue group picture! Unfortunately Sarah B. and Sarah S. could not make it (we missed you guys!). What a wonderful semester... Thank you all for the hard work and for making this an amazing space where creativity, teamwork and curiosity flourish!
ps. [FROM LEFT TO RIGHT] Carlos Botero, Ty Tuff, Anthony Law, Trevor Fristoe, Savannah Fuqua, Bruno Vilela, Lily Malcom, Vince Fasanello and Suchith DaSilva [From Left to right] Bruno Vilela, Ty Tuff, Carlos Botero & Trevor Fristoe celebrate in style the news that our first paper on the evolution of human agriculture has been accepted for publication in Nature Human Behaviour! Big shout-out to our fantastic collaborators at Colorado State University, including Patrick Kavanagh, Hannah Haynie and Michael Gavin!
Trevor Fristoe, Bruno Vilela, Ty Tuff and Vincent Fasanello (core members of the Botero Lab) recently competed at Wash U's emergency preparedness team building excercise and set the fastest time on record for solving the challenge. So proud!!!! After years of hard work, our first paper on the evolution of avian brains is finally out in print! This work follows up on two main themes in our recent work, mainly the evolution of avian brain size and the importance of distinguishing cause versus consequence (did large brains evolve in variable habitats or did they facilitate instead their colonization). Please have a look in Nature Ecology & Evolution
Can ignoring the sequence of events in the evolution of complex traits lead to biased or even wrong conclusions about an evolutionary process? Our new paper on the evolution of family living and cooperative breeding in birds in PLoS Biology suggests that it can. Please also have a look at Walter Koenig's opinion piece on the significance of these findings.
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February 2022
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