Congratulations to Anole Annal’s blogger Jonathan Losos on receiving the National Academy of Science’s Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal, which is awarded every four years for “meritorious work in zoology or paleontology published in a three- to five-year period.” The NAS recognized Losos for his “novel and penetrating evolutionary studies of adaptive radiation in vertebrates,” many of which are summarized in his recent book on anoles. The Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal‘s list of previous recipients reads like a who’s who of prominent 20th century ecologists and evolutionary biologists, and includes the man who coined the term adaptive radiation (Henry Fairfield Osborn ’29) and several of the main architects of the modern synthesis (Dobzhansky ’41, G. G. Simpson ’44 & 65, Sewall Wright ’45, and Ernst Mayr ’67). The fact that the medal is the size of dinner plate has not deterred Losos from wearing it daily.
Category: Anoles and Anolologists in the News Page 4 of 6
Read up on the exciting experimental population biology studies of Dan Warner and Alexis Harrison here.
Anolis smaragdinus is one of the species that participants in Bob Powell's REU program are likely to encounter on their trip to Eleuthera this Summer. Photo by Jonathan Losos
Are you an undergraduate student with dreams of traveling to the Caribbean to study lizards? If so, your dream could be realized through the NSF-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program organized by Bob Powell at Avila University. Now in its 10th iteration, Bob’s program has provided nearly 100 students with opportunities to conduct research in places like the Dominican Republic, Anguilla, Grenada, St. Eustatius, St. Vincent, Dominica and the Grenadines. I can tell you from personal experience – I was a participant in 1995 – that Bob’s program is among the best of its kind. Students in Bob’s REU get a complete research experience, from personal instruction on how to find and read the primary literature to supervised preparation of research for publication. Just about everyone who participates in Bob’s program comes out with one or more publications. This summer’s REU will involve field work on the Bahamian island of Eleuthera, which is home to four species of anoles! Applications are due by February 15th.
Caption: "Flora and fauna abound."
The Travel section of the NYT recently featured Caribbean getaways and, of course, anoles were a criteria for choosing which destinations to feature. This isn’t a tough one, but can anyone identify this agave-loving anole?
Anolis carolinensis is headlining the new exhibition on animal sex in the Natural History Museum Rosenstein, Stuttgart, Germany. Go check it out if you’re in the area
http://webmuseen.de/sex-stuttgart.html
Great graphic design! Wondered several minutes what the toasted oats were doing in there. Duh, they're eggs! (amphibian)
Jason Kolbe, the doyen of anole invasion biology and conservation genetics, has taken up a faculty position at the University of Rhode Island. Research in his lab generally addresses the evolutionary dynamics of biological invasions using Anolis lizards as a model system. He uses molecular markers to reconstruct invasion histories and to test factors that facilitate or constrain phenotypic evolution during invasions.
Jason invites applications from motivated students for graduate degree work in the area of evolutionary ecology and evolutionary genetics of invasive species. Funding will be provided either as research or teaching assistantships, depending on student background and availability. Applicants should be independent, highly motivated, and possess some research and/or field experience. Students with experience using molecular techniques (i.e., DNA extraction, PCR, DNA sequencing, microsatellite genotyping) or conducting GIS-based spatial analyses are encouraged to apply. Prospective students should contact Jason Kolbe via email (jjkolbe@mail.uri.edu) and provide a short description of research interests and accomplishments, a CV (including GPA and GRE scores), and contact information for three references.
Answersingenesis.org, whose mission is to “proclaim the absolute truth and authority of the Bible with boldness,” has a Science Notes section which provides “a weekly feature examining news from the biblical viewpoint.” Here’s what it had to say about the publication of the Anolis carolinensis genome (full article here):
“Delighted with a discovery related to human origins, researcher Jessica Alföldi noted that “Anoles have a living library of transposable elements,” bits of DNA that don’t code for anything and show up in lots of different locations. About a hundred of these were able to be matched up with counterparts on the human genome. Therefore, she concludes, “In anoles, these transposons are still hopping around, but evolution has used them for its own purposes, turning them into something functional in humans.” Pleased to have learned where humans got these non-coding genetic elements, she explains, “Sometimes you need to be at a certain distance in order to learn about how the human genome evolved.”
This comparative genetic study was certainly exhaustive, but the interpretation of the data in the shadow of the evolutionary tree of life is unjustified and unproven. Knowing that God designed all organisms to live in the same world, we should not be surprised to find that genes coding for the same proteins are needed in many, explaining the similarities across kinds. Each creature created in Creation week was fully equipped with the features it needed and the genes to code for many variations of those features. The fact that some things are similar and others are different does not show that reptiles, mammals, and birds share a common ancestor.”
Eric Pianka in the field with Varanus gouldii. Photo: Gisela Kaufmann
Eric Pianka is no stranger to bizarre conversations. As a public figure in evolutionary biology, he has engaged in numerous perplexing discussions with vociferous dissenters from the Creationist and Intelligent Design camps. On September 26, 2011 Eric Pianka received what was possibly the strangest phone call yet from David Hillis, a friend and fellow Professor at the University of Texas, Austin. Hillis informed him that rumor had it that Eric had died. Pianka learned that his obituary had been emailed to the herpetological community through the Center for North American Herpetology (CNAH), in memory of his recent passing. This is certainly not the first instance of bilocation for Eric, whose self-written obituary has been around for over two decades and available on his laboratory webpage for nearly as long. Most readers know that it is a spoof. The heading says so and the obituary ends with “Eric Pianka can be reached at eric.pianka@heaven/hell.com,” but every now and then he gets an uncomfortable email. However, this was the first time that a year of death was added to the obituary and emailed en masse to the thousands of subscribers.
As with the previous issue, the just released September number of IRCF Reptiles & Amphibians: Conservation and Natural History is a bonanza for anoliphiles. The photo above is from the inside back cover, relating to the article on Cuban herps that features several fine anole photos. There’s also an article on herping in the Dominican Republic and another on the reptiles of San Salvador island, Bahamas. As always, the photos are sumptuous.
According to NOAA, the eye is over Abaco right now, with sustained wind speeds of 115 mph