For lab meeting next week we’re going to read a provokative new paper on adaptive radiation. After suggesting that adaptive radiation is an ambiguously defined and unavoidably problematic concept, Olson and Arroyo-Santos argue that we abandon the use of the term entirely. If you’re not already familiar with the modern definitions of adaptive radiation that are being criticized by Olson and Arroyo-Santos you might want to consider tackling a bit of background reading. Recommendations include chapters 15, 16, and 17 in Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree, the first and second chapters of Schluter’s book The Ecology of Adaptive Radiation (parts of which are available via Google Books), and Givnish’s chapter on issues and approaches to adaptive radiation in his edited volume on Molecular Evolution and Adaptive Radiation (partly on Google Books).
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Saturday, February 6, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
 Juvenile S. schuberti. I’m presenting in the Department’s spring seminar series this Friday (5 February 2010) at 3:00pm. I’ll deliver a practice talk in lab meeting this week (Wednesday, 3 Feb). I’ll discuss patterns of morphological evolution displayed by Sphaerodactylus geckos from Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. My talk will touch on topics we’ve discussed over the last few months including replication in adaptive radiation. To prepare, please read Young et al.’s 2009 PLoS paper “Morphological Diversity and the Roles of Contingency, Chance and Determinism in African Cichlid Radiations” which can be found at DOI . We’ll also discuss the paper. Wednesday, January 27, 2010
 ... not exactly that kind of lizard pants The Philly daily, the Inquirer (the Inky to locals), ran a story yesterday about a German man caught attempting to smuggle 44 lizards concealed in his underwear out of New Zealand. The Kiwis have some of the most restrictive rules in the world concerning the export of specimens (live or otherwise), and this fellow is staring down the barrel of hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and potential jail time. We’ve heard and shared stories of rogue collectors using a variety of methods to pilfer animals (hollowed out books, in a money belt, or just taped their bodies – you really need to see the pictures in that last link!). While these people are motivated primarily by the financial windfall associated with selling species that are rare or new to the pet trade, there are many of us who have scientific motivations for obtaining specimens and work very hard to obey and follow the oftentimes labyrinthine procedures to legally import and export animals. Unfortunately, the efforts of a few baddies tend to have consequences for legitimate transit of scientific specimens and makes our jobs just a little bit more difficult. Having just returned to the states with legal, legitimately imported specimens, stories like this give you an idea of what an inspector thinks of you the moment he or she opens your cooler full of animals, before you produce reams and reams of documents asserting your right have them and move them across borders. Tuesday, January 26, 2010
 Shane Campbell-Staton and Rich Glor at the ferry dock on GTMO's leeward side (photo by D. Luke Mahler, a.k.a. 'The Pilgrim') I’m just back from a week of lizard hunting at Guantánamo Bay. We ended up with eight species of Anolis, three species of sphaeros, and a smattering of other herps. The anoles included A. angusticeps, A. argillaceus, A. argenteolus, A. smallwoodi, A. porcatus, A. ophiolepis, A. sagrei, and A. homolechis/jubar. Most of these species were widespread on the base, although none occurred at particularly high densities. The common brown anole (A. sagrei) was surprisingly uncommon and seemed to be restricted to vicinity of one of the ports on the windward side. We got shut out on a few species of sphaeros (including S. torrei) because we weren’t able to herp on the leeward side due to ongoing preparations for Haitain refugees. Nevertheless, we had a successful trip and our grateful to our colleague in the bases’s environmental office for making our trip possible. The habitat at GTMO is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in the Caribbean, thanks largely to the absence of livestock and other anthropogenic influences outside of a few population centers. I saw one free-range chicken in a week on the base! Tall grass, which is not something one expects to encounter in the Caribbean due to the prevalence of goats and cows, was also present in abundance. Perhaps not coincidentally, native Cuban rodents known as hutias were incredibly common. (Bonus points for anyone who can tell me why hutia’s are called banana rats. Hint: it’s not because they eat bananas.) Glor Lab undergraduate alum Shane Campbell-Staton was one of several Harvard PhD students who participated in the trip. It was great to see Shane and get caught up on his progress at Harvard! Saturday, January 23, 2010
 Dan warming hearts with a sphaero While Rich is currently in Guantanamo Bay, Dan (El Conquistador) Scantlebury, Anthony (Daihatsu) Geneva and I are back from a successful field trip to the Dominican Republic. The Anolis distichus mission was quickly accomplished in the first week, allowing us to dedicate Week 2 to Sphaero Hunt 2010. Many thanks guys for your awesome help!  Some extra anole-catching hands  Anthony's field boots Also, now that the semester has kicked off again and everybody will be back in town this week, we’re going to start up lab meetings once again at the new time of Wednesdays at 4:30pm. This week we will be discussing the last chapter of Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree, while having Aussie treats to commemorate Australia Day (26th Jan)! Friday, January 15, 2010
Sunday, January 3, 2010
After a month of open voting, I think we can declare Julienne Ng’s photo “Who needs a team bus?” the field photo of the year for 2009. As an added bonus, I’m posting here a video that was taken shortly before the award winning photo was snapped (WARNING: The beginning of this video has a bit of potty mouth language). I’m sure Julienne will agree when I say that the assist for her photo goes to Miguel Landestoy, who was behind the wheel when it was taken. Saturday, January 2, 2010
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Can everyone in the lab please update the lab calendar with your travel plans? It would be nice to know when everyone is coming and going so we can ensure that he lab is properly staffed during the next few weeks. Monday, December 28, 2009
The embedded a video taken by Daniel Scantlebury during our lab trip to the Dominican Republic last summer. UPDATE: I initially posted this as a private video, which may have prevented some of you from viewing it. If this was the case, you should try again because it has now been made public. |
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I’m heading off to the US base at 
It looks like we’ll be wrapping up our reading of 
We have an exciting winter of field work ahead with Ng, Scantlebury, and Geneva heading to the Dominican Republic for two weeks and Glor heading to Guantanamo Bay for a week. The Dominican crew will be collecting new Anolis distichus for our breeding colony, as well as investigating the natural history and distribution of some very rare dwarf geckos (Sphaerodactylus). Glor will be obtaining new material from Guantanamo populations of the widespread Cuban trunk-crown and trunk-ground anoles, as well as investigating the natural history of other anole species endemic to this region (If Scantlebury has anything to say about it, Glor will also be tracking down some of the very beautiful sphaeros endemic to this part of Cuba).