Thoughts, updates, and stories from the Data Diversity Lab

The move, affecting about one-fifth of the National Science Foundation’s primary research budget, is the latest sign of how the White House is asserting more control over grants.

Genuine artifacts tell the richest stories that fill our souls. And they fuel the scientific enterprise.

Adaptive radiations generate remarkable morphological diversity, yet traits often diversify at different rates and modes, producing mosaic patterns of evolution. Modularity, the semiautonomous organization of traits, can shape how selection and ...

RAxML-NG is a widely used tool for maximum likelihood based phylogenetic inference. In the seven years since the last RAxML-NG publication, we have continuously improved and extended the code. Here, w...

Declining attendance contributed to the decision, officials say. Stewardship of the collections will continue.

This website hosts information about the impacts of federal and state policies since January 20, 2025 on the fields of ecology, evolution, marine science, and environmental science in the USA. Partici...

Continuing resolution to approve government spending until 11 December passes 370-48 and will now go to Trump

Adaptation in protein-coding sequences can be detected from multiple sequence alignments across species or alternatively by leveraging polymorphism...

Everyone knows now that the deep sea has a monopoly on strange fish. There is the uncanny inflation of the gulper eel, the peeled-grape eyes of the barreleye, and the eternal frown of the sea toad. Th...

YouTube video by The Non Lab

You asked us questions about marine biology careers, and our panel of experts answered them! In April, I solicited your questions about careers in marine biology, and we received nearly 100 questio…

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...

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 ...

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. ...

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

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...

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,…

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...

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 …

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

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...