I'm looking for PhD student to join my lab at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (Fall 2027)! If you're interested in evolutionary genomics, conservation genetics, or biogeography, please reach out. I'll also be at #AOS2026 this week talking about sexual selection in small populations.

Excited to share a preprint of my 3rd dissertation chapter! We evaluated how a potential genomic measure of sexual selection strength, the ratio of genetic diversity on the Z chromosome vs the autosomes, varies across selective and biogeographic contexts in #manakins. Check it out! bit.ly/4fY43de

Can the Z:A ratio serve as a genomic index of sexual selection? An assessment across space and time in a genus of lekking birds

Understanding the role of sexual selection in shaping evolutionary trajectories is a key goal of biology, and thus developing a genomic measure of sexual selection strength is desirable. In systems wi...

biorxiv.org

Breaking News: Sonny Rollins, a jazz great with a forceful and imaginative approach to the tenor saxophone, has died at 95.

Sonny Rollins, Giant of the Jazz Saxophone, Is Dead at 95

Even by the standards of a music that prizes individuality, he stood out, as both a musician and a personality.

nyti.ms

New paper out. If you like colorful birds, hybridization, and phylogenetics, read on! 🧵https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003501

A colorful legacy of hybridization in wood-warblers includes frequent sharing of carotenoid genes among species and genera

Introgression between species can shape evolutionary trajectories in important ways. This study of the entire family of the colorful wood-warblers (Parulidae) uses whole-genome sequencing to reveal fr...

doi.org

Fun to collaborate with @whalesmels.bsky.social on this study, where we worked with Mark Stanback to glean insights from his amazing hornbill nesting data! 🪶

Melanie Smith@whalesmels.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Very pleased to announce our research on #nestlinggrowth and #broodreduction in #hornbills has been published! I started this work as an undergraduate and am grateful for everything I have learned from my co-authors. @dialektical.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Early view: we find that brown anole lizards are one of, if not the most, lead tolerant vertebrates known to science combining measures of field exposure, responses to lab dosing, performance assays and functional genomics. Led by PhD student Annelise Blanchette www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Unprecedented lead tolerance in an urban lizard

Lead (Pb) is an extremely toxic heavy metal pollutant pervasive in many environments with serious health consequences for humans and wildlife. We foun…

sciencedirect.com

We made the cover www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New work from the lab! Annelise Blanchette found that brown anole lizards may be the most lead (pb) tolerant vertebrate known to date by integrating physiological studies of field and lab exposed animals and transcriptomics #urbanecology #ecotox #anolis 🦎 1/n www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Extreme lead tolerance in an urban lizard

Lead (Pb) is an extremely toxic heavy metal pollutant pervasive in many environments with serious health consequences for humans and wildlife. Identifying organisms that can serve as biomonitors of le...

biorxiv.org

Awesome new manakin work by @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social et al! BCO2 controls collar pigmentation in Manacus manakins, and the pigmented-collar allele arose in one species, introgressed into a second, and kept on introgressin’ from the second species into a third 🧬🪶

Kevin Bennett@kevinfpbennett.bsky.social · 2y ago

Published today, plumage color genomics! We trace the evolutionary history of a trait under sexual selection in a genus of dancing manakins. Co-led with H.C. Lim. #evobio #birds 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Excited to share that my first dissertation chapter has been published in Biology Letters! "Fruit resources shape sexual selection processes in a lek mating system" Check it out at: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Fieldwork on Christmas Day => red and green color bands 🎄🪶

Eyelash palm-pitviper (Bothriechis schlegelii), Ecuadorian Chocó.

Awesome to witness this bushmaster surgery at Reserva FCAT! Bushmasters are the longest vipers in the world, and researchers here are implanting radio transmitters to track the snakes’ movements, with goals of understanding their basic biology and reducing human-wildlife conflict in NW Ecuador.

Finally made it over to Bsky! I suppose it’s only fitting to kick things off with a manakin pic..