Sean A. S. Anderson 🍉

A fitting end to teaching speciation in the last week of undergrad evolution. Darwin 1858 March 11th, definitely was running on empty in week 10 of the quarter.

"Maybe you noticed that Monet's lily pads are hardly lifelike. A.I. used to make mistakes like these"

Screenshot of the registration page of the Gordon Research Seminar in Speciation 2027 at Lucca, Italy

Applications to the Gordon Research Seminar in Speciation are now open! We encourage PhD students & postdocs from all geographies, backgrounds, disciplines to APPLY!

This 2d seminar in beautiful Lucca 🇮🇹 will be followed by a 5d conference open to the broader community.

www.grc.org/speciation-g...

Same year Toronto named their team the Raptors -- Jurassic Park Effect in full swing

Society for the Study of Evolution Site description

SSE members in 152 countries and territories around the world can attend virtual #Evol2026 this May for free - check your eligibility and request your discount code today! shorturl.at/J6GS0
@evolmtg.bsky.social

Mapping Mountain Birds in a Changing World: Benjamin Freeman Awarded Sloan Fellowship For Mountain Bird Ecology Research

Assistant Professor Benjamin Freeman has been named a 2026 Research Fellow by @sloanfoundation.bsky.social. Freeman studies birds worldwide, focusing on how species respond to a changing climate and how to facilitate their survival. 
🎉Congrats, @benjaminfreeman.bsky.social !

Cover of the March 2026 issue of Ecology

The March cover of "Ecology" is bursting with color! This Long‑tailed Broadbill is just one example of the plumage diversity captured in a new data paper that compiles RGB‑derived plumage classifications for more than 10,000 bird species & subspecies

Browse the issue: tinyurl.com/4a9tax3e

We have a growing collection of resources for women in ecology that support, celebrate and advocate for women's roles in research and practice. 

Check our collection of resources here 👇
https://f.mtr.cool/gtwczvuefr

Introgression and parental conflict shape repeated occurrences of postzygotic isolation in Mimulus Postzygotic reproductive isolation is often thought to accumulate as a byproduct of neutral divergence. Yet it frequently evolves rapidly, in line wit…

I am SO THRILLED to share our first fully-lab lab paper!!!!!! Led by @hybridzones.bsky.social & @hagarsoliman.bsky.social, w/ a major assist from @pfschwarz.bsky.social!!!!!!!!!!!!! Read more below, if you're curious (you should be- it's AWESOME!!!!!!!)

link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

It’s Not Complicated The mainstream media failed the public during the genocide in Gaza. The Key's editor-in-chief shares her vision for what comes next.

Former LA Times managing editor @sarayasin.bsky.social launches The Key, a new publication about Palestine that will be "a home for journalists who have had their stories spiked in mainstream outlets."

Her opening essay is worth every second of your time: www.thekeymagazine.com/p/western-jo...

I think Carney believes Canada only has interests, not principles. Free trade with the U.S. is in our interest, therefore he can support their illegal religious war of whim against Iran, which certainly goes against our principles. I feel a bit duped, and I really *really* hate feeling duped.

Bang-on

“My little girl was completely burned,” he said. “There was nothing left of her. We could only identify her from her school bag, which she was still holding. She was completely burned.”

Today in Iran…

Awful news. David was a wonderful guy. A fantastic researcher and a truly nice, decent man, I so looked forward to seeing him at conferences. I had hoped for many more encounters. My heartfelt thoughts to his family and to his friends, of which he has many around the world.

Way to instantly evaporate the illusion your words at Davos meant anything. Pathetic, racist, supplicant nonsense.

I will never get used to the disdain our country holds for brown and Black children.

From Palestine to Iran to Sudan, we normalize the destruction of schools and hospitals and daycares. We reduce children to death tolls and their futures to rubble with no consequence or second thought.

Birds are vanishing from tropical forests. Is another ‘silent spring’ coming? As mysterious bird declines crop up in the Amazon and beyond, scientists suspect climate change may be to blame

tropical lowland birds aren't doing well -- this is an excellent article on what's happening featuring a slew of fantastic research projects
www.science.org/content/arti...

When someone dies in our field (I’m thinking of Dr. Hans-Dieter Sues), it’d be great for someone to aggregate all the positive comments and anecdotes about them on social media and send to their family. A lot of our lives are spent in our professional work but our families might not know impact.

🧪

This thread is amazing but as someone who writes obvious things for my own reference later, if a person were to see my marginalia, they would conclude I don't have a working brain

This genus is so fabulous

So glad we no longer have a regulatory state

More great stuff from a really great colleague -- huge congrats Ben!!

No evidence that haplodiploidy favors the evolution of eusociality | PNAS The potential role of haplodiploid sex determination in promoting the evolution of altruism and eusociality has been the subject of intense debate ...

📄 No evidence that haplodiploidy favors the evolution of eusociality 🐝🐜

⬇️
www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

My quote of the day

It might seem unfair to reward a person for having so much pleasure over the years, asking the maize plant to solve specific problems and then watching its responses.

Barbara McClintock

From blackouts to food shortages: How US blockade is crippling life in Cuba US pressure pushes island nation's 11 million people to the brink as Cuba imposes emergency measures amid fuel crisis.

The US is starving Cuba to death

www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026...

Actually I take this back, that word doesn’t refer to change in the lifecycle of an organism

Exaptation has a similar meaning

Really cool example on the use of comparative genomics to learn about key innovations in animals. In certain contexts 🐍 gene loss 💥helps adaptation!