I am thrilled to share that I will join the American Museum of Natural History @amnh.org as the Dean of Collections, Curator, and Professor in September!

In case you missed it, looks like a very interesting paper: Rare jackpot individuals drive rapid adaptation in Threespine Stickleback www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Rare jackpot individuals drive rapid adaptation in Threespine Stickleback - Nature Communications

Recombination can speed up adaptation by bringing beneficial alleles together. However, this study shows rapid adaptation in Threespine Stickleback fish depends more on the initial frequency of allele...

nature.com

#FossilFriday flashback: My lab published two major papers this month on 1) dental functional morphology and 2) vertebrate paleontology & paleobiogeography. It made me so proud of the research teams I've been a part of over the past decade, but it also prompted reflection on my academic path (🧵1/5)

Exhilarated to share a 2nd @science.org cover article this month from our lab @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social! A collaboration with US & Mexico colleagues on the role of a Mexican biogeographic holding pen in shaping the Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI)(1/11) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Stoked to see our paper out as a pre-print! Check it out if you're interested in how we can expand comparative methods to better accommodate the many-to-one mapping of evolutionary process to pattern... (or if you think frogs are cool) @gjslater.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Beyond the Panglossian paradigm: adaptation, constraint, and anuran functional trait evolution.

Recognizing patterns in functional trait evolution is a necessary step in testing macroevolutionary questions. Quantification of these patterns and interpretation of their generative processes relies ...

biorxiv.org

New paper from the lab! ssarp, our R package (@ropensci.org), takes you from raw occurrence records to species- and speciation-area relationships without the weeks of data wrangling that usually stand in the way. Work with Kristen Martinet and Luke Harmon. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

<fi>ssarp</fi>: An R Package for Efficiently Inferring Species‐ and Speciation‐Area Relationships

The ssarp (Species-/Speciation-Area Relationship Projector) R package provides users with a streamlined workflow for inferring species- and speciation-area relationships for island-dwelling species. ...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Proud to share our latest paper in out in Nature today on the origin of #snakes. We present Tametara mirim, an articulated 3D preserved stem snake from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil. Tametara helped us re-tell the story of snake origins in a novel way... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Exceptional brain and ecological diversity in the earliest snakes - Nature

A well-preserved fossil snake from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil shows early ecological and brain shape&nbsp;disparity in the group.

nature.com

Press release: news.umich.edu/ai-tool-reve... This was a huge project, requiring imaging of ~15,000 individual skeletons that were collected and deposited in collections such as @ummnh.bsky.social over > 150 years. Museum collections make this type of work possible and must be supported.

AI tool reveals climate shifts may have fueled bursts of bird evolution

University of Michigan researchers have used an AI tool to demonstrate that birds in the group Passeriformes evolved in rapid evolutionary bursts and that these bursts frequently coincided with climat...

news.umich.edu

New study reveals 2D morphometrics captures major patterns of fish body shape variation but can underestimate subtle 3D features. For broad comparative studies, 2D is often sufficient; for fine-scale morphology, 3D remains essential Torgersen et al anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

New paper from @jakeberv.bsky.social harnesses a massive skeletal measurement dataset for passerines to show nested bursts in phenotypic evolution, many of which appear coincident with intervals of climate instability. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This just in: Absolutely stunning shot of Gigantura chuni from SOI dive S953! @schmidtocean.bsky.social #DeepWondersOfTrinidadAndTobago

Black swallower fish — swell dining in the deep! During a recent ROV dive near Trinidad & Tobago, the #DeepWonders science team — led by @divaamon.bsky.social — collected spectacular footage of a black swallower fish (Chiasmodon sp.) at a depth of 1259 meters.

Our newest paper on mammalian dental evolution, out today as the cover article in @science.org, lead by @narimanechatar.bsky.social with a team of fantastic early career scientists!!! 🎉🥳 “Performance trade-offs define a fundamental dental dichotomy in mammals” www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Kent Carpenter spent half a century counting the life of Philippine reefs news.mongabay.com/2026/07/kent... May his memory be a blessing

Kent Carpenter spent half a century counting the life of Philippine reefs

By some accounts, in the Philippine reefs of the 1970s, large groupers appeared every 50 feet or so. Some seemed as large as Volkswagen Beetles. Around them were snappers, fusiliers, wrasses,…

news.mongabay.com

New paper: octopuses have a unique break in the core of their ribosome that makes protein-building more precise, and it may underpin their big brains. The kicker for me: it's present in shallow octopuses but absent in their deep-sea dumbo octopus cousins. #marinelife

Evolution of a core ribosomal innovation in octopus

Much of biology focuses on how genetic changes mediate new functions, but less attention is given to adaptations in other steps of the central dogma. Octopuses exhibit complex nervous systems and soph...

biorxiv.org

Check out our new paper linking #genomics and #geology with #evolution in a group of freshwater #fish. Grateful to have played a small part in this exciting study led by @dkimfish.bsky.social , Dr. Maya Stokes, and @tjnear.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1093/evol...

A decade of watching Arctic deep-sea life found the deepest communities, past 4,000 m, are the most fragile. They run on so little food that a single warm-water anomaly reshapes them. Depth and food set the rules down there, same as always. #marinelife www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

It's as official as it can be: The Yoder Lab has been very lucky to receive NSF funding to develop our TARDIS method of modeling plants' flowering activity in varying environments. Watch for grad (MSci) opportunities in Fall 2027, and a postdoc position sooner than that 🌿 buff.ly/OHpbfB0

The Yoder Lab is building the TARDIS, with new support from NSF

Chaparral whitethorn, Ceanothus leucodermis, bearing flowers and fruits near the Red Box Picnic Area along the Angeles Crest Highway in early May, 2026. (Flickr, jby) Why do Joshua trees grow only …

lab.jbyoder.org

Comparing reproductive isolation across species has been harder than it should be. The new Reproductive Isolation Ontology (RIO) provides a common framework to standardize RI estimates across the tree of life. academic.oup.com/evlett/advan...

A standardised framework for classifying estimates of reproductive isolation

Abstract. Understanding reproductive isolation (RI) between lineages is a central goal of speciation research. While the strength of RI has been estimated

academic.oup.com

If you’re reading this and want to take action, follow @standupforscience.net and head to our action center: fight2win.standupforscience.net You can learn about the rule, leave your public comment, and yell at your Congress Critters!

The Bulwark@thebulwark.com · 2mo ago

This new OMB rule change that was proposed could change all federal grants: everything from science research to Medicaid and housing grants. JVL explains a new proposal that was swept under the rug that could sweep researchers futures under the rug. lnk.thebulwark.com/4uWvDvW

Really excited to share that Chris Martinez & my paper on ecological, functional, & evolutionary diversity produced by novel jaw joints in fishes is out at@evojlinnsoc.bsky.social! We show how modulation of these new joints can produce a wide range of functional opportunities doi.org/10.1093/evol...

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

So excited to announce our search for 4 postdocs (funded by the Simons Foundation) who will use genomics to "test how ecological interactions, natural selection, natural enemies, hybridization & environmental gradients shape...tropical tree communities" in Panama: stri.si.edu/story/bci-ev... ...1

Two new 🐟 preprints! First with @cmartinez.bsky.social on diversification in a wonderfully wacky group of deep-sea fishes www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Happy to share our new paper in Nat. Comm. on the evolution of planktivory in surgeonfishes and relatives 🐠🧬 Combining fossils and genomics, we find multiple independent origins of planktivory, plus convergent positive selection in key genes linked to planktivory. 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Macroevolutionary consequences of twin neck innovations in deep-sea dragonfishes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.21.733442v1

We're hiring a genetics lab manager position at NOAA in Juneau, Alaska! The successful candidate will oversee day-to-day laboratory operations and contribute to the development of new molecular methods. Salary is $75-145k/yr. Email wes.larson@noaa.gov with questions www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewD...

Biologist (Omics)

This position is located in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). Vacancies may be available in each listed location. Additional duty lo...

usajobs.gov

The Monterey Bay Aquarium PROUDly presents “Otter This World,” written and performed by Monét X Change with special guest Trinity the Tuck.

When it comes to getting a message through to Congress: The more uncomfortable it makes you, the more effective it is. So, phone calls about OMB. We gotta make 'em. I know it's uncomfortable. We make it really easy with our dialer: fight2win.standupforscience.net/campaign/163...

New preprint on Eupercarian fishes is here! We present a new phylogeny and skull shape analysis of this massive clade! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Ecological axes of skull diversification in a massive vertebrate radiation

Eupercarian spiny-rayed fishes are one of the largest vertebrate radiations, rivaling mammals and occupying nearly every aquatic habitat. We present a densely sampled, time-calibrated phylogenomic fra...

biorxiv.org