In a new paper that will appear in Nature tomorrow, Walter Jetz and Colleagues “present, analyse and map the first complete dated phylogeny of all 9,993 extant species of birds, a widely studied group showing many unique adaptations.” The emphasis here is on the word “dated” – the study provides estimated diversification rates across the…
I was blogging recently about a study on the evolution of the Gorilla and its ancestral relationship to the other great apes. Now, the circle on the sequencing of the great apes closes with a new study published today in Nature, which presents a genome-wide sequence of the Bonobo, contrasted with the chimpanzee and the…
There’s an interesting new study in tomorrow’s issue of nature. Andrew F. Hugall and Devi Stuart-Fox use molecular phylogenies to look at speciation rates of birds. I cite from the abstract: … we confirm, using species-level molecular phylogenies for five families of non-passerine birds, that colour polymorphism is associated with accelerated speciation rates in the…
Polar bears, by Alan D. Wilson (naturespicsonline.com: [1]) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Here’s something for the lovers of cute fluffy white mammals: a new study in science lead by Frank Hailer uses nuclear markers to infer the time at which polar bears split up from their ancestral brown bear lineage. Previous analysis, based on…
It seems the time is there for coupling genetics, ecology and evolution, at least Nature is pulling out one interesting paper after the other in that area (see also the recent posts 1,2). One of the latest outcomes is an impressive study by a large group of authors around Aylwyn Scally and Richard Durbin, who…
theoretical ecology 