iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Luke Anderson

Alice Boyle @birdfiddler.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

#NewPaperAlert! This one has a massive author list and has been a LONG time in coming, but is SO COOL! First, check out the first figure to get you interested! Manakins! Fruit! Sexual-selection in action (displays and Z:A chromosomal diversity)! Read on for the back story & link 1/n

above: montage of brightly coloured tropical birds, some in interesting display postures, some eating fruit
below: a phylogeny that includes those same taxa (and others) and a plot of the ratio of genetic diversity on the autosomes relative to the Z chromosomes

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Reposted by Luke Anderson

Leilton Luna @leiltonluna.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

I'm looking for PhD student to join my lab at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (Fall 2027)! If you're interested in evolutionary genomics, conservation genetics, or biogeography, please reach out. I'll also be at #AOS2026 this week talking about sexual selection in small populations.

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Luke Anderson @dialektical.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Excited to share a preprint of my 3rd dissertation chapter! We evaluated how a potential genomic measure of sexual selection strength, the ratio of genetic diversity on the Z chromosome vs the autosomes, varies across selective and biogeographic contexts in #manakins. Check it out! bit.ly/4fY43de

biorxiv.org

Can the Z:A ratio serve as a genomic index of sexual selection? An assessment across space and time in a genus of lekking birds

Understanding the role of sexual selection in shaping evolutionary trajectories is a key goal of biology, and thus developing a genomic measure of sexual selection strength is desirable. In systems wi...

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Reposted by Luke Anderson

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 26/05/2026

Breaking News: Sonny Rollins, a jazz great with a forceful and imaginative approach to the tenor saxophone, has died at 95.

nyti.ms

Sonny Rollins, Giant of the Jazz Saxophone, Is Dead at 95

Even by the standards of a music that prizes individuality, he stood out, as both a musician and a personality.

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Luke Anderson @dialektical.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

Fun to collaborate with @whalesmels.bsky.social on this study, where we worked with Mark Stanback to glean insights from his amazing hornbill nesting data! 🪶

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Reposted by Luke Anderson

Alex Gunderson @agunderson.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

Early view: we find that brown anole lizards are one of, if not the most, lead tolerant vertebrates known to science combining measures of field exposure, responses to lab dosing, performance assays and functional genomics. Led by PhD student Annelise Blanchette www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.com

Unprecedented lead tolerance in an urban lizard

Lead (Pb) is an extremely toxic heavy metal pollutant pervasive in many environments with serious health consequences for humans and wildlife. We foun…

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Reposted by Luke Anderson

Alex Gunderson @agunderson.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

We made the cover www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Cover of the journal "Nature" showing a long-nosed horned frog on leaf litter and the words "Heat Stress: How vulnerable are the worlds amphibians to rising temperatures?"

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Reposted by Luke Anderson

Alex Gunderson @agunderson.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

New work from the lab! Annelise Blanchette found that brown anole lizards may be the most lead (pb) tolerant vertebrate known to date by integrating physiological studies of field and lab exposed animals and transcriptomics #urbanecology #ecotox #anolis 🦎 1/n www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

biorxiv.org

Extreme lead tolerance in an urban lizard

Lead (Pb) is an extremely toxic heavy metal pollutant pervasive in many environments with serious health consequences for humans and wildlife. Identifying organisms that can serve as biomonitors of le...

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Luke Anderson @dialektical.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Awesome new manakin work by @kevinfpbennett.bsky.social et al! BCO2 controls collar pigmentation in Manacus manakins, and the pigmented-collar allele arose in one species, introgressed into a second, and kept on introgressin’ from the second species into a third 🧬🪶

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Luke Anderson @dialektical.bsky.social · 29/09/2024

Excited to share that my first dissertation chapter has been published in Biology Letters! "Fruit resources shape sexual selection processes in a lek mating system" Check it out at: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

A male white-bearded manakin (Manacus manacus) perches at a lek site in northwestern Ecuador (FCAT Reserve). Photo by Sam Case.

The quantity of fruit resources around male display courts significantly predicted male display rates, which in turn predicted rates of female visitation (a proxy for mating success).

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Luke Anderson @dialektical.bsky.social · 25/12/2023

Fieldwork on Christmas Day => red and green color bands 🎄🪶

Juvenile white-bearded manakin (Manacus manacus) with red and green color bands on its legs

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Luke Anderson @dialektical.bsky.social · 19/12/2023

Eyelash palm-pitviper (Bothriechis schlegelii), Ecuadorian Chocó.

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Luke Anderson @dialektical.bsky.social · 17/12/2023

Awesome to witness this bushmaster surgery at Reserva FCAT! Bushmasters are the longest vipers in the world, and researchers here are implanting radio transmitters to track the snakes’ movements, with goals of understanding their basic biology and reducing human-wildlife conflict in NW Ecuador.

A ~1.8m anesthetized bushmaster is laid out on a table, while a veterinarian/biologist (Dale DeNardo) makes an incision in the skin to implant a radio transmitter. Surgical tools are spread across the table and the head is being contained in a tube by a second biologist (Maria Elena Barragan).

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Luke Anderson @dialektical.bsky.social · 02/11/2023

Finally made it over to Bsky! I suppose it’s only fitting to kick things off with a manakin pic..

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