March 2013

Jared Padway joins the Lab, lab research in The Washington Post and BBC Wildlife, DVP Evolution lecture course in UMiami

Jared, fresh from fieldwork on howler monkeys in the Tirimbina Nature Reserve in Costa Rica and teaching in the Bronx will start his doctoral research in the Lab this summer. The Washington Post literally intercepts Alex enjoying record cherry blossoms (and NSF meetings) on the streets of D.C., and produces a Sunday feature and photogallery on flying squirrels (also here and here). The effect of historical species coexistence on current behavioral flexibility is the upcoming cover feature of BBC Wildlife; some photos from the feature are in "The Dear Enemy" gallery of tenbestphotos.com. A two-week lecture course of "Chance and Necessity: Modern Evolution in 50 paragraphs" — given as a part of Distinquished Visiting Professor honor at University of Miami — was reduced to just 30 (very concentrated) paragraphs due to excellent (but lengthy) discussions. Finally, The Journal of Experimental Biology reaffirms itself as the world's best-designed scientific publication, by putting our "mouse and the moon" on its April cover. This is our second cover with them in that many years.

January 2013

Tayler Lasharr joins the Lab, Mammals of Montana wins The 2012 Honor Book Prize, BBC features Arizona gray fox biology, the gene loss paper in Y. Evol. Biol., new NSF grant to enable long-term fieldwork in Montana

Tayler, a recipient of the President's Award and Dean's List Award (Fort Lewis College, CO), is interested in convergent evolution and the evolution of behavior. Mammals of Montana's book award coincides with a large photoessay in Horizon Edition Magazine and numerous reviews. Natural history of Sonoran Desert's uniquely arboreal gray foxes is the cover feature of the 50-year anniversary issue of BBC Wildlife. A collaboration with Stuart Newman (no less!), on his lab's discovery of sequential gene loss preceding the orgin of birds is published in 2013 Y. Evol. Biology, while a new NSF grant will support a large-scale RNA-seq project among newly established house finch populations on both sides of the Continental Divide.

24 December 2012

We made the new EEB website...

learning in the process that ours are the best looking evolutionary ecologists and staff out there, working in the best places on the most interesting ideas. Nevertheless, will stick with photographing animals for now — illustrations for natural history account of species replacement caused by habitat change and climate warming forthcoming in Montana Outdoors and National Wildlife are now in the new Bluebirds' Battles gallery of tenbestphotos.com.

6 December 2012

Alex is elected a Fellow of AAAS

"for distinguished contributions to evolutionary ecology by integrating tools and theory from quantitative genetics and the evolution of development" (UA News, 2012 American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows). The induction ceremony will be on 16 February 2013 in Boston, Mass. The Lab throws a really nice surprise celebration...

28 October 2012

What Went Wrong...

Die Welt: "You are working in some of the wildest places with grizzlies and wolves, but photograph cute mice. What went wrong?"
Herr Badyaev: (lacht) "Wer genau hinsieht, erkennt, dass auf dem Gemälde im Foto oben eine Katze sitzt...". From here.

And with this, The Midnight Snack, featuring adventurous deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus), wins Specially Commented title in the 2012 BBC/Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year (Guardian, BBC News, Spiegel, New Scientist, BBC WorldNews, Culture24, also Visitor vote) being selected from over 48,000 images from 98 countries, while Mouse and the Moon (the same species, but hundreds of miles away...) becomes the Highly Honored Winner in the 2012 Nature Best Photography competition [selected from over 20,000 images (of lions, whales, and gorillas) from 46 countries]. A second win in as many years in BBC/Veolia Photographer of the Year evidently puts one on the list of London's attractions by a five-star hotel...
     In the meantime, Montana Outdoors Magazine puts our flying squirrel (the winner of 2011 National Wildlife Award) on the cover of its November issue, highlighting our article on the evolution of gliding flight.

1 August 2012

"The Starlight Hunter" added, becomes the 2013 UBRP Poster

The gallery featuring extraordinary and never before photographed behaviors of gray foxes preying on roosting birds at dizzying heights of saguaros and ironwoods among stars, comets, and occasional planes is added to TenBestPhotos.com. The natural history account of morphological adaptations that enable such primate-like climbing in a fox is forthcoming in BBC Wildlife.
     The lead photo of the series—a fox gnawing on a skeleton of an undegraduate who did not study too well—becomes the 2013 Poster for Undergraduate Biology Research Program of University of Arizona. In the meantime, the award-winning Montana Outdoors Magazine highlights aerodynamic exploits of the "Cirque de la Lune" troupe in a forthcoming fall feature.

15 July 2012

"Mammals of Montana" published. Sells >1,000 copies on the opening day

The first, scientifically comprehensive, beautifully designed and stunningly illustrated guide to all species of Mammals of Montana (440 pages • 6.5" x 9" • 500 color photos • 55 pen illustrations • 115 maps• checklist ISBN 978-0-87842-590-7. Paper $32; Mountain Press Publishing Company) sells more than 1,000 copies on the day sales start. Receives instant glowing reviews and is selected as a Book of the Month by independent bookstores. Before the first printing runs out (when it hits Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks later this summer), you can still get your copy on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, or your local bookstore.

13 April 2012

Ellen Ouellette is the 2012 EEB Outstanding Senior!

And the finalist of the 2012 UA's College of Science's Outstanding Senior Award! This most prestigious UA's recognition of undergraduate student accomplishments in research and education follows Ellen's impressive list of awards, including last year's Galileo Scholar Award, the 2011 Bravo! Award and St. Elizabeth’s Heart of Service Award. The award will be presented at the College of Science ceremony on May 3rd.
     Ellen's award also confirms The Three-year Rule, that states that the lab's exceptional students receive the Outstanding Senior Award, both at EEB and College levels, every three years: in 2003 — Dr. Rosetta Mui, now a faculty in University of Hong Kong, in 2006, Jerod Merkle, now a doctoral student at Université Lavall, in 2009, Laura Stein — now a doctoral student in University of Illinois, and now, in 2012 — Ellen. Stay tuned for the 2015 winner..

26 March 2012

Erin Morrison receives The 2012 Graduate Teaching Award!

The prestigious award reflects the fame of exceptional teaching that Erin has accumulated over the last two years in three different classes and is a fitting recognition of her dedication and talents. Erin is the second, following Kevin Oh, lab recipient of this top EEB award.
     In other news, UCF's Biology Graduate Student Association in Orlando, presents Alex with a phenomenal state-of-art post-seminar table-size cake depicting all our wonderful study species in different flavors.

1 March 2012

Our photo exhibit opens in Flandrau Science Center; "La nuit des animaux" is published by Fleurus; Origin of the fittest is the most cited in 2011.

An exhibit "Camouflage and Poison", featuring life size prints of bears, lions and snakes dissolving in plain daylight in the patterns of light and shadows is a screaming fest among visiting urban kids, who would all be an easy prey in the wild. To definitively confirm what they all suspect they miss while sleeping, Fleurus Editions publishes "La nuit des animaux" illustrated with our photos of beaver teams building palaces overnight, mice commanding gas stoves in midnight kitchens, fairytail nymphs gliding silently under the full moon, among others. Talented photographers at Taraji Blue say "I wish I'd taken this" about this photo.
     In the meantime, "Origin of the fittest" becomes the "Most downloaded and cited" paper from 2011 in Proceedings B.

9 February 2012

Dawn Higginson's new Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study (with the cover, obviously!) is all over the news

A day after PNAS published it and puts it on the cover, Dawn's new comprehensive study "Female reproductive tract form drives the evolution of complex sperm morphology" — reporting that reproductive tracts have undergone extensive evolutionary diversification in close association with evolution of sperm morphology and conjugation across species — is on MSNBC, The Huffington Post, Sierra Club, Scientific American (+slideshow) , UA News, ScienceDaily, LiveScience, Io9, Sinc, Arizona Illustrated, ScienceNews, PhysOrg, EurekaAlert, blogs, other news sources.

Click here to watch Dawn's TV interview with Mark McLemore on PBS.

22 December 2011

World's most fascinating species now has world's most comprehensive natural history account

In a 110 page chapter in The Birds of North America, Virginia Belloni and coauthors succinctly summarize what is known about one of the most thoroughly studied birds. The species with the widest ecological range: as common in the hottest place in contiguous US as it is in the coldest, wettest and driest; as likely to be eaten by a diamondback snake in Sonoran desert as to witness a wolverine alpine migration in Northern Rockies or to socialize with elepaio in Hawaii; that numbers in billions, but has most populations established by a handful of individuals a few generations ago; that combines unique adaptability with fascinating adaptations. The one and only. The House Finch.
    In separate news, the 2012 World Wildlife Fund's calendar of most charismatic species and places features two of our photos.

25 November 2011

Dawn Higginson's discovery of dramatic diversification in complex sperm traits in beetles is in Evolution; Blackfoot Valley wolves are the cover feature of BBC Wildlife

Dawn's comprehensive study uncovers the origin and evolutionary diversification of complex sperm morphology in Dytiscidae, a family famous for widespread sperm conjugation — where several sperm unite for motility or transport. Her upcoming Evolution paper "Convergence, recurrence and diversification of complex sperm traits in diving beetles (Dytiscidae)" reveals the discovery of an evolutionary pathway linking diversification in sperm morphology and conjugation.
    The BBC Wildlife December cover photo of the refrigerator-sized leader of an elusive Blackfoot Valley wolf pack — Alex's best (and only) neighbors during the 2009 sabbatical — highlights a feature on the recovery of this wilderness icon in the United States. Two years ago another member of this pack was scaring kids into better book-learning from the cover of a non-majors biology text.