ICB "We explored spatial variation in sex-biased #parasitism in #mangrove rivulus, an androdioecious #fish in which simultaneous hermaphrodites can facultatively transition to male." doi.org/10.1093/icb/... Fitzwater et al & subscribe @oceanfilly.bsky.social YouTube www.youtube.com/channel/UCqg...

To what extent to ancestry and behavior contribute to fish movement in a novel environment? "Correlates of Post-Introduction Displacement in a Conservation Translocation of Threespine Stickleback" Now out in FW Biol led by Alexis Heckley onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Come join us, PhD and postdoc positions! Please spread! Supervisor @patricepottier.bsky.social (patricepottierlab.com), me as co-supervisor. Impacts of climate change on different life-stages in fish.🐟🧪 PhD web103.reachmee.com/ext/I005/103... Postdoc web103.reachmee.com/ext/I005/103...

New preprint led by amazing undergrad @ogolwala.bsky.social! Within ~10,000 years, sperm traits have diverged between trophic specialists in this young radiation of pupfish. Hybrids are fertile, but show transgressive sperm kinematics and reorganized integration. With @fishspeciation.bsky.social.

bioRxivpreprint@biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · 2w ago

Rapid divergence in sperm morphology and transgressive segregation of hybrid sperm kinematics in a young pupfish radiation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.17.745335v1

I defended my PhD last week!🍾🎉 I’m proud of the work I put into each of my projects. I’ve grown so much as a scientist thanks to guidance from my advisor and lab mates. Also, I was so excited that some of my close friends and parents were able to make it out to my defense! Thank you all!!

I had so much fun at #Evol2026! I met so many passionate people doing amazing work, got great feedback on how to analyze my data, & learned of new opportunities to keep doing exciting and important research after I graduate. I hope I get the chance to go next year!

As a scientist, I am here to report that this headline is indeed accurate as I am in fact STUNNED!! Wow. This is incredible. 🧪 "Newly discovered bacterial defense system challenges genetic code’s central dogma.": www.science.org/content/arti...

Rapid #evolution predicts demographic recovery after extreme drought #evoSky www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Rapid evolution predicts demographic recovery after extreme drought

Populations that are declining as a result of climate change may need to evolve to persist. Although evolutionary rescue has been demonstrated in theory and in the laboratory, its relevance to natural...

science.org

$2.45 billion NIH grant cuts and ~2300 terminated active research grants were DOGE'd in early 2025 Who were most affected? www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.... Early career and women researchers

A few years ago an undergrad designed & executed an experiment to test quorum sensing in Schistocephalus. Today we published it in @peerj.bsky.social. I’m excited to see this work come to fruition & proud that we published a null result in a respected academic journal peerj.com/articles/206...

It’s a bit late, but thank you @wisconsinevolution.bsky.social for inviting me to present at the Evolution Seminar Series! It was my first seminar and I had so much fun discussing how we can integrate epigenetics with current evolutionary theory

The sponge-ctenophore debate was one of the first that excited me as an undergrad. It’s so cool to still see new papers coming out on the topic!

🧬Jacob L Steenwyk@jlsteenwyk.bsky.social · 10mo ago

NEW pub in @science.org 🥳 Is it sponges (panels A & B) or comb jellies (C & D) that root the animal tree of life? For over 15 years, #phylogenomic studies have been divided. We provide new evidence suggesting that... 🔗: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

2 years ago the first PhD student from my lab graduated. Last week we submitted his second chapter for review, a project that we collaborated on from start to end after the two of us independently converged on the same idea to test thermal tolerance in benthic & limnetic stickleback

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology@biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Heritable differences in metabolic stability underpin thermal tolerance of threespine stickleback (Gasterostues aculeatus) ecotypes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.15.676414v1

Heritable differences in metabolic stability underpin thermal tolerance of threespine stickleback (Gasterostues aculeatus) ecotypes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.15.676414v1

I wrote an op-ed on the importance of federally funded science for my hometown newspaper as part of the #McClintockLetter initiative. Thanks @cornellasap.bsky.social for organizing this initiative! Here's some action shots of NSF and NIH funded science. www.tbnweekly.com/opinion/arti...

Four photos for the four research jobs I’ve had. Two as an intern for the NPS and USFS, one as a USFS employee, and one as a NIH and NSF-funded grad student. The future is uncertain, but I love doing science and I don’t plan to stop

Brooke Fitzwater, PhD (she/her) 🐟🪱🏳️‍🌈♾️@oceanfilly.bsky.social · 2y ago

Photography is a powerful tool for science! Scientists, show us some of your photos!

Letter from the SSE/SSB/ASN councils on the scientific understanding of sex and gender, pls RT

How does fibrosis (an inflammation and tissue repair response) affect dispersal? We investigated this question with stickleback in a mark-recapture experiment in Alaska: dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3... @danielbolnick.bsky.social @nataliesteinel.bsky.social @ecoevoevoeco.bsky.social

Does Motility‐Restricting Fibrosis Influence Dispersal? An Experiment in Nature With Threespine Stickleback

Factors that affect dispersal can have important eco-evolutionary implications. Here, we show that an inflammation and tissue repair response—peritoneal fibrosis—does not influence threespine stickle...

dx.doi.org

Wisconsin Evolution is accepting applications for Early Career Awardees! Please pass this along to any PhD students or post docs who may be interested in visiting UW-Madison to give a guest lecture at our Evolution Seminar Series evolution.wisc.edu/seminars/ear...

New preprint up! We sequenced hundreds of samples from across one of Earth's oldest living organisms - the Pando aspen clone - to understand how mutations accumulate and spread in long-lived clonal organisms. Our results were…surprising. 1/30

NSF GRFP changed the submission process so that letters of rec. are due ~10 days BEFORE the student application deadline. So dumb. Students need to start their submissions so the recommenders will be notified by NSF about the request. Hyp.: # of 2023 applications > # of 2024 applications

Excited to share a new preprint: biorxiv.org/cgi/content/... In 2019 we founded 9 whole lake populations of stickleback, as part of a massive eco-evo experiment. Here, we report the first half decade of host-parasite & immune trait dynamics... (thread, 1/N)

It was cool to arrive in AK after driving for 3 days (from BC) to then receive an email indicating our paper describing the big Alaska stickleback experiment is out. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Do you work in ecology/evolution? Did you do a study that is too small to publish as a full manuscript? Negative results? Part of a larger effort? Consider publishing in microPublication Biology: EEB! www.micropublication.org/journals/bio... Short papers, one figure. And we peer review! Please RT

I just left the annual Wisconsin Epigenetics Symposium! Listening to researchers from across UW-Mad who study everything cancer to cellular differentiation to evolution, it’s always a pleasant surprise to be reminded of just how broad and cutting edge the field of epigenetics is

The 2024 AGA Awards round is open! Evolutionary, Ecological, and Conservation Genomics (EECG) Research Awards to grads & postdocs. Up to $6,000 to conclude genomic research projects and prepare results for publication.  More info at www.theaga.org Deadline: Midnight EST, 13 Dec 2023

"Shockingly, there has yet to be a K99 awardee at a historically Black college or university." www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Analysis of NIH K99/R00 Awards and the Career Progression of Awardees

bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution

biorxiv.org

"Coincidently, the DNAm changes observed in aging, cancer, and proliferation share some notable patterns. In general, they tend to be characterized by gains in methylation at promoters (...) and loss of methylation in intergenic regions and repetitive elements"

Neat! Identifying genes that underlie the development of sensory legs in sea robin.

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology@biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 3y ago

The genetic basis of novel trait gain in walking fish https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.14.562356v1