ICVM Barcelona 2013

The next meeting for ICVM is in Barcelona in 2013!!!

http://icvm2013.com/index.php/abstracts

Interesting Papers

Here are some interesting papers from recent issues of Nature and Science:

Coulson et al. 2011. Modeling effects of environmental change on wolf population dynamics, trait evolution, and life history. Science 334: 1275-1278.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6060/1275.short

Kump et al. 2011. Isotopic evidence for massive oxidation of organic matter following the great oxidation event. Science: DOI: 10.1126/science.1213999.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/11/30/science.1213999.abstract

Paterson et al. 2011. Acute vision in the giant Cambrian predator Anomalocaris and the origin of compound eyes. Nature 480: 237-240.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v480/n7376/full/nature10689.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20111208

Zanette et al. 2011. Perceived predation risk reduces the number of offspring songbirds produce per year. Science 334: 1398-1401.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6061/1398.short

Thanks

Thanks to everyone for an excellent semester and thanks to the BGSA for partially funding our end of term party.

I will continue to update the blog regarding new and interesting papers. I will also be posting updates regarding choice of book for next semester. Discussion will begin again in January.

Happy Holidays!

Intro Ecology Blogs!!!

This semester the students from the Introduction to Ecology course created news stories and blogs about one of several topics. It was an exercise in compiling and summarizing scientific research. I found them fun and well done so I thought I would post them here! I hope you enjoy them as much as I did and I hope that this assignment is also used in upcoming years.

Deer browsing and abundance:

http://biol2600group1.blogspot.com/

http://thedeerdiaries.blogspot.com/2011/11/browsing.html

http://thebuckdoesntstophere.blogspot.com/

Bluefin Tuna and Fisheries:

http://atlanticbluefintunamanagement.blogspot.com/

http://keepingtabsontuna.blogspot.com/

http://ecologygroupproject.tumblr.com/

http://protectthebluefintuna.tumblr.com/

Cane Toads in Australia:

http://canetoadinvasion.blogspot.com/

http://toxicinvader.wordpress.com/

http://theinvasionofcanetoadsinaustralia.blogspot.com/

http://bonjourgregory.blogspot.com/

Parasites and Mutation:

http://freakyfrogss.blogspot.com/

http://biol2600group14.blogspot.com/2011/11/parasites-found-to-be-cause-of-frog.html

http://funkyfrogmalformation.blogspot.com/2011/11/effects-of-parasites-on-frogs.html

http://biol2600projectteam16.blogspot.com/

Parasite Abundance:

http://chockfullofparasites.blogspot.com/

http://ecoparasites.tumblr.com/

http://myparasiticlifegroup19.blogspot.com/

http://wonderfulworldofparasites.blogspot.com/

* Blogs were posted with permission from at least one group member.

Next Term

Thanks to everyone who attended all or the majority of the meetings this semester. I have enjoyed our discussions. We will, however, be switching gears in the new year. Because the focus of the discussions has switched multiple times, it has been suggested that we discuss a book next term. The following book is a possibility:

http://ca.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405183179,descCd-tableOfContents.html

I am looking for other suggestions but feel that this book would be excellent.

Reminder: The End of Term Party is being held at O'Brien's on Heron Friday December 9th starting at 8 pm. Hope to see you all there!

This Week and End of Term Party

This week Thom Cullen will be introducing the following paper:

Grellet-Tinner and Fiorelli. 2010. A new Argentinean nesting site showing neosauropod dinosaur reproduction in a Cretaceous hydrothermal environment. Nature communitcations 1: 1-8.

This will be the last discussion for the semester because undergraduate classes end on December 5.

Additionally, the votes are in! We will be holding the end of term party at O'Brien's on Heron (December 9). Details will follow in an email.

Interesting Recent Papers

Here are some recent papers that I find interesting:

Shen et al. 2011. Calibration the End-Permian mass extinction. Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1213454).

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/11/16/science.1213454.abstract

Bertrand et al. 2011. Changes in plant community composition lag behind climate warming in lowland forests. Nature 479, 517–520.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v479/n7374/full/nature10548.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20111124

Erwin et al. 2011. The Cambrian Conundrum: Early Divergence and Later Ecological Success in the Early History of Animals. Science 334: 1091-1097.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6059/1091.short

Hannisdal et al. 2011. Phanerozoic Earth System Evolution and Marine Biodiversity. Science 334: 1121-1124.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6059/1121.short

Discussion This Week

This week we will be discussing the following paper:

Niedzwiedzki et al. 2010. Tetrapod trackways from the early Middle Devonian period of Poland. Nature 463: 43-48.

Hope to see you all at Mike's tonight!

Radio Interview

Thomas and I are being interviewed about Meet the Experts (Canadian Museum of Nature this weekend!) by the Carleton radio station Thursday November 24 at 8:35 am (93.1 FM in Ottawa).

For those of you outside of Ottawa you can listen live at http://www.ckcufm.com/schedule (just click Listen Live).

This Week

This week we will be discussing the following paper:

Niedzwiedzki et al. 2010. Tetrapod trackways from the early Middle Devonian period of Poland. Nature 463: 43-48.

Hope to see you at Mike's this Thursday.

Next week will be the final week of discussion.

Reminder: vote on a location for the after party. Thus far one person has voted, meaning I will essentially be choosing the locale.

Meet the Experts!!!

This weekend the Canadian Museum of Nature is holding it's annual Meet the Experts event at the downtown castle:

http://nature.ca/en/plan-your-visit/what-see-do/whats/meet-experts

Two group members will be presenting on Sunday November 27.

Thomas Cullen - Evolution in the High Arctic: Hear the incredible story about the chance discovery of the prehistoric fossil seal Puijila darwini.

Danielle Fraser - The Diet-Climate Connection: Compare a variety of mammal teeth in order to unravel connections between changing climates, diets and animal populations.

Come by if you're interested! There are a variety of other interesting presentations.

Toward the end of term!

Our last discussion this term will be December 1. Undergraduate classes end on December 5.

We therefore have two discussions left for this term:

https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=da6f72fsp1hebsr8nhem333ejg%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/Toronto

Finally, we will be having an end of semester get together (December 9). We have normally held this get together at O'Brien's on Heron but I am up for other suggestions.

Other options may include:
Somewhere in the market (Clocktower?)
Pub Italia (260 beers! and close to campus)
A restaurant (Thai? Sushi?)

Any other suggestions are welcome. I will be purchasing snacks for this event so please let me know if you have snack preferences.

Discussion this Week - Sauropod Migration

This week we will be discussing the following paper:

Fricke et al. 2011. Lowland-upland migration of sauropod dinosaurs during the Late Jurassic epoch. Science (doi:10.1038/nature10570).

This Week

I have ascertained that all of us survived Las Vegas and the SVP meeting. Last night we joined up with a meeting of the Carleton Geological Society at the Rochester.

Reminder: We need a volunteer to present a paper next week. Please add yourself to the calendar or email me at dfraser1@connect.carleton.ca.

Interesting Recent Papers

Here are some interesting recent papers that I found in my inbox:

Bollasina et al. 2011. Anthropogenic aerosols and the weakening of the South Asian summer monsoon. Science 334: 502-505. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6055/502.short

Lorenzen et al. 2011. Species specific responses of Late Quaternary megafauna to climate and humans. Nature (doi:10.1038/nature10574). http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10574.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20111103

Higham et al. 2011. The earliest evidence for anatomically modern humans in northwestern Europe. Nature (doi:10.1038/nature10484). http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10484.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20111103

 Benazzi et al. 2011. Early dispersal of modern humans in Europe and implications for Neanderthal behavior. Nature (doi:10.1038/nature10617). http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10617.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20111103

Rougier et al. 2011. Highly specialized mammalian skulls in the Late Cretaceous of South America. Nature (doi:10.1038/nature10591). http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v479/n7371/full/nature10591.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20111103

This Week

This week will be an SVP post mortem. Look forward to seeing you all at Mike's!

Next Week

Note that discussion will be cancelled next week on account of SVP.

Great Discussion this Week!

This week we discussed the following paper:

Leslie, A.B. 2011. Predation and protection in the macroevolutionary history of conifer cones. Proc R. Soc. B. 278: 3003-3008.

The paper discussed morphological changes in conifer cones through time. In general, seed cones became "fatter" through the Jurassic and Cretaceous. Leslie (2011) suggests that increased selective pressure from herbivory may have resulted in such morphological changes.

In general we thought the paper was interesting and easy to read. However, we felt that several analyses would have been useful in terms of creating a tighter link between herbivory (dinosaur, bird, mammal) and conifer morphology. These may have included correlating diversity with conifer dimensions. 

We hope to see more on this subject and enjoyed discussing it.

Another Interesting Paper

McKenna and Sears. 2011. Limb specialization in living marsupial and eutherian mammals: constraint on limb evolution. Journal of Mammalogy 92: 1038-1049. (http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1644/10-MAMM-A-425.1)

McKenna and Sears (2011) use morphometric analyses to test the hypothesis that marsupials are limited in their degree of limb specialization compared to Eutherians. They found that marsupials have less specialized forelimbs but more specialized hindlimbs and suppose that the forelimbs are limited by the juvenile's need to crawl to the teat during development.

This Week's Paper - Conifer Cones

Julia will be presenting the following paper this week:

Leslie, A.B. 2011. Predation and protection in the macroevolutionary history of conifer cones. Proc R. Soc. B. 278: 3003-3008.

See you at Mike's this Thursday!

Reminder, discussion is cancelled next week due to SVP. I can't wait to see some of you in Vegas!

Interesting Recent Papers

This post is a long time coming. I have been extremely busy the last couple of weeks.

Sandel et al. 2011. The influence of late Quaternary climate-change velocity on species endemism. Science Early Online Publication DOI: 10.1126/science.1210173. (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/10/05/science.1210173.abstract)

Sandel et al. (2011) link the velocity or rate of climate change to reduced levels of endemism among Quaternary animals. This means that in areas where climate change is occurring much more quickly endemic taxa are likely to go extinct. I imagine this to mean places like the Arctic but I have yet to read this paper (I will do so, however).

Gaillard et al. 2011. Atmospheric oxygenation caused by a change in volcanic degassing pressure. Science 478: 229-232. (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v478/n7368/full/nature10460.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20111013).

Gaillard et al. (2011) suggest that Precambrian oxygenation of the Earth's atmosphere was a result of a changes in volcanism, which led to the formation of the modern sulphur cycle. The formation of continents resulted in new terrestrial volcanoes that released SiO2 into the atmosphere, contributing to oxygenation.

Ungar and Sponheimer. 2011. The diets of early Hominins. Science 334: 190-193. (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6053/190.short)

Ungar and Sponheimer (2011) review the diets of early Hominins, especially microwear and stable isotope evidence.

Venditti et al. 2011. Multiple routes to mammalian diversity. Nature Early Online Publication  doi:10.1038/nature10516. (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10516.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20111020)

Venditti et al. (2011) investigate evolutionary rate shifts in the mammalia, finding that few clades show sustained increases in the velocity of evolution. They suggest that morphological diversification may vary much more freely than previously assumed.

Discussion paper for October 20

Here's a fairly new paper on a debate most people will already have heard of. It should be an interesting discussion with the mixture of palaeontology and biology people in our group.

Carbone, C., S.T. Turvey and J. Bielby. 2011. Intra-guild competition and its implications for one of the biggest terrestrial predators, Tyrannosaurus rex. Proc. R. Soc. B 278: 2682-2690.

Abstract: Identifying tradeoffs between hunting and scavenging in an ecological context is important for understanding predatory guilds. In the past century, the feeding strategy of one of the largest and best-known terrestrial carnivores, Tyrannosaurus rex, has been the subject of much debate: was it an active predator or an obligate scavenger? Here we look at the feasibility of an adult T. rex being an obligate scavenger in the environmental conditions of Late Cretaceous North America, given the size distributions of sympatric herbivorous dinosaurs and likely competition with more abundant small-bodied theropods. We predict that nearly 50 per cent of herbivores would have been within a 55 – 85 kg range, and calculate based on expected encounter rates that carcasses from these individuals would have been quickly consumed by smaller theropods. Larger carcasses would have been very rare and heavily competed for, making them an unreliable food source. The potential carcass search rates of smaller theropods are predicted to be 14 – 60 times that of an adult T. rex. Our results suggest that T. rex and other extremely large carnivorous dinosaurs would have been unable to compete as obligate scavengers and would have primarily hunted large vertebrate prey, similar to many large mammalian carnivores in modern-day ecosystems.

Carboniferous Vegetation

This week Thomas Cullen will be introducing the following paper:

Davies, N. S. and Gibling, M. R. 2011. Evolution of fixed-channel alluvial plains in response to Carboniferous vegetation. Nature Geoscience 4(9): 629-633.

I hope to see everyone at Mike's Place tomorrow!

Is Evolutionary History Rewritten with New Fossil Discoveries?

This week we discussed the following paper:

Tarver, J. E., P. C. J. Donoghue, and M. J. Benton. 2011. Is evolutionary history repeatedly rewritten in light of new fossil discoveries? Proceedings of the Royal Society B 278, 599–604.

Tarver et al. (2011) compared the catarrhine and non-avian dinosaur phylogenetic trees in terms of balance (do we know more about one part of the tree than the other?), completeness (how congruent the tree is with the stratigraphic context), and perception of macroevolutionary trends (do bursts of origination remain after new fossil discoveries?). They compared the trees through time to determine how new fossil discoveries changed these parameters. Tarver et al. (2011) conclude that the catarrhine tree is currently more complete and more robust to new fossil discoveries than the non-avian dinosaur tree. The non-avian tree is continually being altered by new, dramatic fossil discoveries.

We thought these results had important implications for those of us who want to use phylogenetic trees to study macroevolutionary trends. The paper provided us with three methods to analyze our trees before drawing grand conclusions from analyses of evolutionary rates or of correlation among traits. We, however, found that the comparison between catarrhines and non-avian dinosaurs was not appropriate. We felt that the two trees represent very different levels of diversity and that the non-avian dinosaur tree should have been compared to a larger group of mammals (one hopefully containing a similar level of morphological and ecological diversity). We also felt that analyzing two groups with living members may have improved the comparison. The phylogenetic relationships of catarrhines are likely better understood due to the extant forms. 

In general, the paper will be useful in shaping our future analyses. We felt that the title of the paper was misleading as it did not provide an answer to the question besides "in some groups and not others."

Thanks to everyone who showed up! See you next week.

Thomas Cullen will be presenting next week's paper.

Google Calendar for Scheduling Presenters

Please use the link below to view upcoming presenters. I can only share the calendar with people who have a Gmail account (you can view but cannot add events). You can create a Gmail account (which I recommend given that many of you need to have your Carleton mail forwarded) and send it to me so I can share the calendar with you or you can contact me to be scheduled. Remember we are only meeting Thursday at 5pm. Putting your name on the calendar is sufficient.

https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=da6f72fsp1hebsr8nhem333ejg%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/Toronto

Additionally...

Several of your email addresses are over quota, which means I cannot send you the paper. Please empty your inbox or have it forwarded to Gmail. You can also provide me with an alternative email address.

dfraser1@connect.carleton.ca

Thursday October 6 Paper

I have chosen the paper for this week's discussion. There have been many excellent papers this year but I wanted to set the tone. Since we will likely be discussing many new fossil and evolutionary discoveries this semester, I have chosen the following:

Tarver, J. E., P. C. J. Donoghue, and M. J. Benton. 2011. Is evolutionary history repeatedly rewritten in light of new fossil discoveries? Proceedings of the Royal Society B 278, 599–604.

I think this is an important question but I will leave the discussing for Thursday. See you at Mike's between 5pm and 5:30pm.

Great Organizational Meeting

Hi all,

We have decided to stick with Thursdays at 5 pm for our weekly meetings. I will be choosing the first paper for discussion. Please email me if you would like to present a paper (dfraser1@connect.carleton.ca). I will be making a Google calendar so people can schedule themselves and also see who else is scheduled. I'll get to it eventually! I promise!

See you next week. Look for my annoyingly frequent emails.

Pterosaurs were capable of powered flight

Palmer and Dyke (2011) analyze the flight dynamics of pterosaurs (http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/09/22/rspb.2011.1529.abstract).

According to Palmer and Dyke, pterosaurs would not have been capable of powered flight if previous reconstructions are accurate. The author's suggest new configurations of the wing membrane that would have enabled powered flight in giant pterosaurs such as Quetzalcoatlus.

Canadian fossils in the news

Ancient Toothy Fish [Laccognathus embryi] Found in Arctic—Giant Prowled Rivers.

Dinosaur feathers found in amber reinforce evolution theories.

The One and Only Anchiceratops.

Northern Alberta hadrosaur called a new species.

Rebuilding the Head of an Armoured Dinosaur.

Mammalian Evolution

I found an interesting paper that is in early online edition with Science. The paper is titled "Impacts of the Cretaceous terrestrial revolution and KPg extinction on mammalian diversification" by Meredith et al. (2011). Unfortunately, I was unable to access the PDF yesterday at school (database failure I suppose) so I will have to base my discussion on the abstract.

The authors constructed a "molecular supermatrix" and used it to build a large mammalian phylogeny using multiple fossil calibrations. Importantly, they find support for the "long fuse" model of mammalian diversification, which predicts that the mammalian orders we know today diversified after the KPg boundary. These results seem to agree with Bininda-Emonds et al. (2007) The delayed rise of present day mammals in that both studies show long evolutionary fuses. However, they appear to disagree on one important point, the impact of the KPg boundary on mammalian diversification. Meredith et al. (2011) state that their phylogeny suggests that the KPg extinctions and subsequent opening of niches was very important in the diversification of modern mammals. In contrast, Bininda-Emonds (2007) do not find a significant effect of the KPg mass extinction.

Meredith et al. (2011) suggest that their methods are superior and the reason for this difference in interpretation. For those of you who do not know, Bininda-Emonds (2007) used supertree analyses. Essentially, many trees from the literature are glued together (I assure it is more complex than this). Meredith et al. (2011) use a "molecular supermatrix." I am not presently aware of what a molecular supermatrix is besides that it is a large matrix based on molecular data. As a result, I have no basis for judging which method would be "most accurate." My "gut feeling" is to agree with Meredith et al. because I can envision the component trees of a supertree coming from very divergent sources, some more reliable than others. I will return to this issue once I have accessed the full Meredith et al. (2011) article, however.

Stolen Post - Body Size Evolution

I was reading Jerry Coyne's blog (http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/want-evolutionary-change-wait-a-million-years/) this morning and realized I had downloaded this (http://www.pnas.org/content/108/38/15908.abstract) paper when it was in the early edition and completely forgotten about it. I will spare you a detailed commentary on the paper as Jerry Coyne does a much better job than I would. In short, the paper looks at body size evolution for several vertebrate groups (mammals, squamates, and birds) using both fossil and modern datasets. They found that body size is bounded over time intervals shorter than 1 Ma. On time scales longer than 1 Ma, they found bursts of body size evolution.

This is evidence for punctuated equilibrium but the authors do not use this terminology in the paper. They also do not cite Eldredge and Gould. Am I wrong to expect them to? They do, however, cite Gould's book on The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. I suppose that will suffice.

Organizational Meeting September 29th 5 pm

The doodle poll has spoken. Unfortunately it was very close but I am sticking to "majority rules." We will meet Thursday September 29 5 pm at Mike's Place. We will discuss what day and time to meet weekly. I suspect the doodle poll will help with this. For those of you who can't meet until 5:30 we can change the meeting time to then but I will mention that it usually takes everyone a half hour to procure a beer and get situated. Being a bit late is no "biggy."

I will reserve a table because Mike's Place tends to be busy on Thursdays. This might be one point of discussion for scheduling the rest of the meetings! Oliver's tends to be less busy so if we find that Mike's is too crazy, we can migrate.

See you September 29 at 5 pm

Additional Paleo News

To supplement the papers that Dani discussed below, here is a paper that made the rounds in the popular media today:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6049/1619.abstract

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/09/15/science-dinosaur-feathers.html

To make a short story shorter, the paper reports evidence of non-avian dinosaur feathers preserved in amber from Alberta.

T

Big Papers

The September 9 issue of Science is dominated by the discovery of Australopithecus sediba.Here is the link to the main paper on the subject (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6048/1421.short). The specimens pre-date the first occurrences of Homo (our genus) in the fossil record. According to the authors, this means that A. sediba is a potential candidate as the direct ancestor to Homo. The authors use careful wording saying that A. sediba "cannot be precluded as an ancestor to Homo," which is true. At least they recognize how difficult it is to identify direct ancestors in the fossil record (in fact, I think you would need some OUTSTANDING evidence to make that argument). Either way, the specimens seem interesting and there are several other papers in the same issue on A. sediba.

The fall issue of Paleobiology also contains an interesting paper on the evolution of diet and tooth wear in fossil whales (http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1666/10038.1). The authors investigated wear facet patterns and stable isotopes in several artiodactyl (even-toed hoofed mammals) groups and sister groups to modern whales. They found that whale tooth wear was much different from their closest relatives (the artiodactyls) and conclude that fossil whales changed their diet before the evolution of morphological changes to the jaw and tooth crowns.  This is an interesting result that should keep us palaeoecologists on our toes!

Finally, the September 2 issue of Science contains an interesting paper on a new woolly rhino (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6047/1285.short). The age of the fossil assemblage and the morphology of the rhino suggest that the woolly variety evolved in Tibet prior to the onset of the Pleistocene ice age. The authors conclude that the "woolliness" was a pre-adaptation that enabled the megaherbivores to survive the cold Pleistocene. I don't like the term pre-adaptation because it seems to suggest that the rhinos were psychic and grew hair because they knew the ice age was coming. Of course, this is not what they mean but I would prefer the use of different terminology (and throwing out the term pre-adaptation altogether in fact).  What they really mean is that faunas adapted to the cold Himalayan environment probably gave rise to the woolly animals of the Pleistocene.

General Info and Organizational Meeting

First of all, welcome back or welcome for the first time. I am Dani and you will be hearing a lot more from me as the semester goes on. I am a PhD student in the biology department. You will also be hearing from Thomas, an MSc student in geology.

The mandate of this group is to discuss high quality research in the areas of evolution and palaeontology. We try to discuss topics that will interest all of us. This means we don't discuss descriptions or studies with a narrow focus. For newcomers, excellent papers for discussion are most often found in the journals Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Our discussions are by no means restricted to these journals, however. If you wish to see some of the papers we discussed last year please see our older posts. 

If you would like to contribute to the blog, please email me (dfraser1@connect.carleton.ca) and I can give you the appropriate privileges after you create a blogspot account. Blog posts should be on the topics of evolution and/or palaeontology. I encourage posting links to interesting papers. Please keep in mind that journal articles are copyrighted and should not be uploaded to the blog. If anyone does so their privileges will be revoked. Additionally, if any inappropriate comments or "author bashing" (making negative comments about authors we have discussed) is found on the blog, your privileges will also be revoked. The blog is public access and all of our professional reputations are "on the line."

Now that the nasty business is out of the way, I can get to my primary reason for writing this post. We need to have an organizational meeting so we can determine what day of the week to meet (last year it was Wednesdays at 5:30 pm) and we need to schedule the first few people to choose papers. In keeping with tradition, I will probably choose the first paper (time and date to be determined) because I would like to set the tone for the discussion group. This year we're going to be a little more technological. Please fill out the following doodle poll. I will be cruel and schedule the meeting using "majority rules."

http://www.doodle.com/kri65a4zkcvh7cp5#table

Once we have the date chosen, I will send another email to inform everyone. I will then be creating a google calendar that we can use for scheduling presenters. You will all be given access (provided you have a google account).

Can't wait to see everyone and to meet the newbies!

Stephen Jay Gould

Yesterday was Stephen Jay Gould's birthday (1941 to 2002). I admit to not being familiar with all of his work. I have, however, read a large section of his book "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory" as well as several of his papers including his 1972 paper with Eldredge on Punctuated Equilibrium (Punctuated Equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism) and  his 1979 paper with Lewontin on spandrels (The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm). I'll spare you a summary of these papers. Needless to say, Stephen Jay Gould has been an enormous influence for all palaeontologists and evolutionary biologists regardless of their agreement or disagreement with his hypotheses and ideas.

When I started graduate school in 2008 (my MSc), the first class I took was a group examination of Gould's final book. We did a lot of whining about how long and wordy the book is. Three years after taking that course, one year into my PhD, I realize that reading his book was an unparalleled experience. Having read it so early in my graduate career, it has really shaped the way I think about evolution (whether this is good or bad is in the eye of the beholder).

So thank you Gould and happy belated birthday!

If you would like to read more about Stephen Jay click the link below and download his papers (you might actually have to go to the library to read about PE). You won't regret it.

http://stephenjaygould.org/

Evolution is most definitely true

I suppose we should start this year off with a bit about why evolution is true. I doubt I need to convince anyone who is reading this blog of that fact but I think we will all enjoy a lecture by Jerry Coyne (Author of the book "Why Evolution is True").

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1m4mATYoig&feature=player_embedded

The rest of the videos can be found at:

http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=4383

2012 Evolution Meeting

Science!

Brad sent me this abstract. Definitely goes up there as one of the 'best' abstracts I have ever read. Lets just say I'm looking forward to the paper...

http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2011AM/finalprogram/abstract_197227.htm

Also, as Dani mentioned in the previous post, the new semester is upon us and it's almost time to get the discussion meetings running again. If you are interested in contributing and/or attending meetings, please contact Dani (dfraser1@connect.carleton.ca) or myself (tcullen@connect.carleton.ca).

- T

New Semester!

Hi all,

The new semester is upon us and that means I will begin updating the blog once again. If you're interested in receiving weekly emails from the discussion group please email me at dfraser1@connect.carleton.ca.

Every week I will post a link to the focal paper and will post a summary of our discussion. I also tend to post interesting evolution and paleontology papers as I come across them.

I will be sending around an email relatively shortly about an organizational meeting (an excuse to drink beer at Mike's Place!).

Interesting Papers April-May 2011

In the April 14 edition of Nature Jin Meng and colleagues published a paper on the mammalian transitional middle ear.

Meng, Jin, Yuanqing Wang, Chuankui Li. 2011. Transitional mammalian middle ear from a new cretaceous Jehol eutriconodont. Nature 472: 181-185.

In the same issue Paul K. Strother and colleagues published on the earliest evidence for non-marine eukaryotes.

Strother, Paul K., Leila Battison, Martin D. Brasier, and Charles H. Wellman. 2011. Earth's earliest non-marine eukaryotes. Nature 472: 1-5. (the page numbers are probably wrong, my download said this was in volume 000).

End of the Winter Semester

The winter semester has ended (finally!). The piles of grading are gone! Many of us will depart for field work while others will depart for museums. This semester we discussed several exciting and interesting papers. I hope to see all of you again in the fall!

The group would also like to congratulate all graduating members! Congrats and best of luck in your future endeavours!

We congratulate all undergraduate members who are starting graduate school in the fall. We wish you luck (and better see you at discussion in the fall)!

We would also like to say goodbye to Joanna. We hope Drumheller treats her well.

Discussion this week with notes on the Eco-Evo weekly discussion

Last week Carleton was host to Brock Fenton from the University of Western Ontario. He talked about bat evolution with special focus on the laryngeal echolocation. In light of this we are discussing the following papers:

Vaselka et al. 2010. A bony connection signals laryngeal echolocation in bats. Nature 463: 939-942.

Simmons et al. 2008. Primitive early Eocene bat from Wyoming and the evolution of flight and echolocation. Nature 451: 818-822.

I hope to see you all at Mike's place tonight!

This week I am also leading the Biology department's Ecology and Evolution discussion group (12 pm Nesbit 206). We are discussing the following paper:

Barnosky et al. 2011. Has Earth's sixth mass extinction already arrived? Nature 471: 51-57.

Canadian Society of Zoologists Reminder

Hi Evo-Paleo,

Just a friendly reminder that abstracts for the Ottawa meeting of the Canadian Society of Zoologists are due March 16. I hope to see many of you there. I will be presenting on some of my current PhD research. You'll have to come along and see!

Interesting Papers and Temporary Discussion Group Cancellation

I have decided to put the discussion group on hold due to lack of attendance. Two of us did have a good discussion about this week's paper though! Please send me an email when you have a paper suggestion.


Some interesting articles in Nature and Science this week:


Yuan, Xunlai, Zhe Chen, Shuhai Xiao, Chuanming Zhou and Hong Hua. An early Ediacaran assemblage of macroscopic and morphologically differentiated eukaryotes. Nature 470: 390-393.

Wood,  Bernard  and Terry Harrison. The evolutionary context of the first hominins. Nature 470: 347-352.


Ward, Carol V., William H. Kimbel, Donald C. Johanson.  Complete Fourth Metatarsal and Arches in the Foot of Australopithecus afarensis. Science 331: 750-753.

Koji Tamura,*† Naoki Nomura,* Ryohei Seki, Sayuri Yonei-Tamura, Hitoshi Yokoyama. Embryological Evidence Identifies Wing Digits in Birds as Digits 1, 2, and 3. Science 331: 753-757.

Discussion This Week

This week we are discussing epigenetics and the evolution of the placenta in therian mammals.

Kaneko-Ishino, T., and F. Ishino. 2010. Retrotransposon silencing by DNA methylation contributed to the evolution of placentation and genomic imprinting in mammals. Develop. Growth Differ. 52:533-543.

No fossils this week but an exciting paper none the less!

Third Meeting of the New Year

After a delay due to horrible weather we are ready to resume discussions. This week we will be discussing the evolution of the giraffe neck.

Simmons, R. E., and R. Altwegg. 2010. Necks-for-sex or competing browsers? A critique of ideas on the evolution of giraffe. Journal of Zoology 282:6-12.

Reminders: Early registration for the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution (CSEE) ends March 1. If you don't want to pay an extra $75 you better come up with an abstract soon!

Updates and Meeting this Week

I am woefully behind in updating this blog. Firstly, the group wants to congratulate Joanna Northover in successfully defending her Master's thesis and in being hired for a job at the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology. Good luck with everything Joanna!

Additionally, I am attempting to organize accomodations for this year's CSEE meeting in Banff, Alberta. Please contact me at dfraser1@connect.carleton.ca if you are attending and interested in sharing a chalet or something equivalent with Carleton students.

This week we are discussing the following paper:

Zanno, L.E. and P.J. Makovicky. 2011. Herbivorous ecomorphology and specialization patterns in theropod dinosaur evolution. PNAS 108:232-237.

I hope to see you all at Mike's Place this evening.

First Meeting of the New Year

We have (pretty much) unanimously decided to move the meeting time to Wednesdays at 5:30 pm.

In the first week we will be discussing the following paper:

Benton, M.J. 2010. The origins of modern biodiversity on land. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 2010 365: 3667-3679.

Given that the majority of our discussions have centered on terrestrial fossils, I thought this would be a good start.

I hope to see everyone there and I am looking forward to a new semester of interesting discussions.