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James T. Stroud

@jameststroud.bsky.social

Asst Prof @ Georgia Tech. Evolutionary ecology using lizards 🦎🦎🦎 most interested in connecting micro-scale processes to macro-scale patterns

275 Posts1899 Follower294 Folgt
Dr Mark D. Scherz@markscherz.bsky.social · last mo.

Incredible. That’s Frankfurt, London, and the Smithsonian all with calls for herpetology curators open at the same time. Unheard of!

Prosanta Chakrabarty@prosanta.bsky.social · last mo.

Y'all - the Smithsonian is hiring three new curators - herpetology, ichthyology, and ornithology! Notably, this is a 2nd fish curator position - i.e., not the same as the one advertised last month. So if you applied for that one apply again. www.usajobs.gov/job/873849000

Curator of Vertebrates Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History currently has openings for three early-career Research Curators in Vertebrate Zoology, one each from the disciplines of ornithology, herpetology and ichthyology. The Department of Vertebrate Zoology seeks candidates with demonstrated expertise in, and a commitment to, collections-based research centered on systematics and evolution of birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes. This includes the ability to pursue an original approach to systematics and comparative analyses using, for example, morphology, development, and/or molecular data, and showing evidence of broader impacts or applications in evolutionary biology and/or collections-based ecology, as demonstrated by a record of peer-reviewed publications. Candidates must have demonstrated the ability to establish an externally funded research program and to contribute to the growth and curation of the collections. Research in the Department is supported by the Museum’s shared laboratories, including the Laboratory of Analytic Biology and the Scientific Imaging facility, among others. The Department’s scientific collections are the largest in the world for fishes, amphibians, and reptiles, and the third largest for birds. These federal positions will be filled at the GS-12 level, with a starting salary of $102,415, and excellent benefits. The positions are permanent and require a one-year probationary period. The official announcement is posted on USAJOBS, where applications must be submitted. https://www.usajobs.gov/job/873849000 Please be sure to read the announcement and instructions carefully, as the process of applying via USAJOBS is stringent and differs from applying for an academic position. This website offers helpful advice: https://serc.si.edu/careers/tips-applying-federal-jobs Please contact the Search Committee Chair, Michael McGowen (mcgowenm@si.edu) or the Department Chair, Helen James (jamesh@si.edu) with any questions.
Elle Barnes@ecoevoelle.bsky.social · last mo.

With the #BYI announcement buzz settled, I’ve been reflecting on what this award means to me. 🎓 It’s a win for R2s, a boost for #wildlifegenomics 🐸🧬🖥️, and a testament to my @rittigers.bsky.social lab of students ✨ Reflections here: bit.ly/4xGNhX9 Thank you to @beckman-foundation.bsky.social!

Reflecting on the BYI: A Win for Salamanders, Mentorship, and the Road Less Traveled

​If you had told me years ago that a career spent chasing salamanders through the woods would lead to being named a 2026 Beckman Young Investigator  (BYI), I’m not sure I would have believed...

megalabrit.weebly.com

Tony Gamble@tonygamble.eurosky.social · 2mo ago

I am so looking forward to this new book about boas! 🐍🧪 #Herpetology #Snake www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

Boas of the World by edited by R. Graham Reynolds and Robert W. Henderson | Hardcover | Cornell University Press

Boas of the World is a guide to all sixty-six species currently recognized in the seven families composing the superfamily Booidea. Bringing together the expertise of more than sixty contributors repr...

cornellpress.cornell.edu

Jill M. Love, PhD 🏳️‍🌈@jillmlove.bsky.social · 2mo ago

🎉 PUBLISHED!!!! Out now in @newphyt.bsky.social 🎉 We found positive selection on leaf shape plasticity in a Monkeyflower species. This experiment used two big field transplants, greenhouse, AND growth chamber work. It was hard, but awesome. With @ferrisifolius.bsky.social doi.org/10.1111/nph....

Phenotypic plasticity is broadly adaptive across an elevation gradient in the Cutleaf Monkeyflower

Leaf shape plasticity expression is variable in Mimulus laciniatus.

doi.org

James T. Stroud@jameststroud.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Two new preprints from my lab, both putting computer science approaches to work for ecology & evolution 🦎 Each tackles the same old bottleneck — turning huge piles of digital images into usable data — and each is a free, open-source web tool you can actually use 🎉 Quick threads on both below 🧵

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Sean A. S. Anderson 🍉@seananderson.bsky.social · 2mo ago

There are few researchers for whom an entire field is so clearly distinct before and after their work. The gap between evolutionary biology "before Joe" and "after Joe" is just awesome. It is a measurably different enterprise, and the reach of his influence doesn't end at the phylogeny. Hats off!

The Royal Society@royalsociety.org · 2mo ago

Professor Joe Felsenstein FRS is elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. After initially working on population genetics theory of recombination, of migration, and of speciation, his main focus has been on phylogenetic inference. #RSFellows https://royalsociety.org/people/joseph-felsenstein-38106/

Ben Sheldon@sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This exceptional event (in terms of absolute temperature) is also unusual in coinciding with the time that we monitor breeding great and blue tits in Wytham Woods: we're hoping to do some assessment of possible effects fairly soon.

MetJam@metjam.co.uk · 2mo ago

Oxford, the longest running continuous weather station in UK history, with temperature observations stretching back to 1815, has preliminarily broken its maximum temperature record for May yesterday by OVER 3ºC with a temperature of 33.7ºC. Unprecedented in its 211-year history.

Spaghetti chart showing Oxford Radcliffe Observatory daily maximum temperatures for every day of the year from 1815 to 2026. 211 years of historical data are shown as very faint grey lines tracing a seasonal cycle from around 5°C in winter to a summer peak of roughly 25–30°C in July and August. A blue smoothed 30-day mean line highlights the average annual temperature cycle. The 2026 line is shown in bold red, running from January through to late May before spiking sharply upward to reach 33.7°C on 26 May, well above the entire historical grey envelope for that time of year. A single dashed red reference line marks the previous May record of 30.6°C set on 29 May 1944. The 2026 reading exceeds this by 3.1°C and, in statistical terms, is the 6th most anomalous maximum temperature in Oxford's 211-year record, ranking as the most anomalous May maximum ever observed and coming within 0.6°C of the all-time June record of 34.3°C set in 1976.
Benjamin Freeman@benjaminfreeman.bsky.social · 3mo ago

ok, so some good and some bad but are we getting better as a field? I think this is the best news - authors are increasingly showing the data over time in pretty much all journals, even within our narrow 5 year sample!

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The Linnean Society of London@linneansociety.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Our warmest and wildest 100th birthday wishes to Sir David Attenborough, vice-patron of our Society. Today, we are celebrating Priam's Birdwing, which he said he would include in his "ark" to protect from extinction. This illustration is from E Donovan's "An Epitome of...Insects of India" (1800).

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Chris Martin@fishspeciation.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I'm on NPR "All Things Considered" today talking about the near-extinction of the Devils Hole pupfish this past year and the federal agency management chaos that ensued! 🐟😈🕳️ www.npr.org/2026/05/07/n...

As federal scientists faced turmoil, the Devils Hole pupfish reached a crisis point

The Devils hole pupfish lives in just one spot in Death Valley. Wildlife officials have managed this iconic fish for decades, and last spring, just as the Trump administration was laying off all kinds...

npr.org