About now, my guys should have descended on Key West, and I've probably sought refuge at Captain Tony's.  The captain's gone now, but he's not gone far.

Getting in the mood...

That time again

Approaching Thanksgiving week.  In even-numbered years, that means the Subtropical Ecology field trip is on tap.  We depart tomorrow.  Two vans, two utility trailers, 16 students, and two faculty headed for Paynes Prairie, Lake Okeechobee, Fakahatchee Strand, and points beyond.  The goal tomorrow is reach St. Marks, which was the ultimate destination of our September trip.  This time, it's a stopover on our way to Gainesville.  Friday morning at the Florida Museum of Natural History, then on to Paynes Prairie that afternoon. 

I'll be posting some updates and photos.  If all goes well, my graduate students will be posting to a blog of their own, located at Pines, Palms, and Panthers.  They're still figuring things out, so expect a few sideways images.

Wish us luck.

It's a new day...

...and I'm loading up a (mostly) new batch of students to take part in the Renew our Rivers cleanup on the Tombigbee.  The Corps of Engineers office in Demopolis (and some former students) do a great job of organizing the event.  Photos later.

More Alabama news...

You hate to keep piling on, but this is actually zoology-related.  Kind of.  The supposed sighting of a gorilla in Hale County last weekend led to a quick check with nearby zoos, who reported that all of their big apes were exactly where they should be.  So, of course, that leads to only one logical conclusion.

That's right, Bigfoot.

The most valuable item in this article is the news that the existence of Bigfoot was confirmed in 1902.  Actually, if you follow their link to this truly fascinating Bigfoot article by the Alabama Free Press (apparently some sort of paranormal-obsessed blog) , you can ascertain where this little piece of info originated.  You'll also find out that there have been 60 Bigfoot sightings in Alabama since 1980.  Given that there have been considerably fewer gorilla sightings in that period, I'd say the case is solved.

More good news!!!

Terry England is a state representative from GEORGIA.  NOT ALABAMA.  I repeat, Terry England is NOT from Alabama.


Rep. Terry England compares women to cows, pigs and chickens. from Bryan Long on Vimeo.

Caution - scientist approaching!

The students in our lab don't defend their posters.  They go on the offensive.

"So, you got a question?  Didn't think so."

By the way, the poster may not look like anything special right now, but it's coming together.  Tells an interesting story.  Should be ready for Association of Southeastern Biologists in April.  And a huge shoutout to the undergraduate researchers from Small Southern who really showed out at the symposium today.  They represented well.

A little Tuesday night music...

Alabama Shakes.  If you don't know them, get ready.  You will soon.

The first cut...

Earlier this semester, my vertebrate zoology class discussed the conodonts, the jawless vertebrates that arose in the Cambrian and own the distinction of being the first toothed vertebrates.  New research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B and summarized here at Nature News reveals that these first teeth were also among the sharpest.  The  extreme sharpness may have allowed the small, jawless conodonts to produce significant forces with the side to side action their teeth.  In addition, there's evidence that the animals had mechanisms allowing them to sharpen and condition their super-sharp teeth as they were worn down or broken. 
Fossil  conodont teeth were known from Cambrian rocks long before the animals that bore them were identified.  Now, it looks like these relatively little-known vertebrates were solving some evolutionary puzzles before the jawed counterparts that followed them, and in a dramatically different way.

Good news, bad news....

...on the evolution front.  According to Forbes, the percentage of young adults in the U.S. that "believe in" evolution is significantly higher than the percentage among older adults.  The bad news is that it's still only 49%.  Still, the arrows point up.

Wobbegong snacking

Remarkable photo by Daniela Ceccarelli with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, who caught this image of a tasselled wobbegong lunching on another shark.  Here's the story at New Scientist.

Evolving salamanders

Another nice study of evolution in action.  Steven Brady, a doctoral student in Yale's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, examined spotted salamanders living in roadside ponds contaminated by various types of runoff.  He found that they had significantly higher mortality than their brethren living in more isolated woodland pools.  But, after being toughened in their caustic roadside environments, the road warriors seemed to be superior competitors.  Reciprocal transplant experiments showed that the roadside salamanders hatched significantly better than did woodland populations in roadside conditions, and did almost as well as the woodland groups did on their home turf. 

We probably need to see more studies like this, as we move toward a world in which we won't differentiate habitats as disturbed and pristine, but rather by levels of perturbation.

Founder effects and selection

Many people that have some minimal understanding of evolution think that all differences we find among populations must be attributed to the effect of natural selection.  That's not true at all.  While selection is certainly the driving force behind much of evolutionary change, it's not the only process at work.  A major factor, particularly in small populations, is a random process that we call genetic drift.  A special case of genetic drift known as the founder effect can take place when a new habitat, like an island, is colonized by a small subset of organisms from a larger population.  Many times, that small random sample of founders differs, sometimes dramatically, from the source population from which it was drawn.  This difference may have nothing whatsoever to do with selection.

In a fascinating new paper appearing in Science and discussed here at Science Daily, Jason Kolbe and his colleagues investigate the interaction of founder effects and natural selection on populations of brown anoles that they established on small islands in the Bahamas.  After the native populations of anoles were wiped out by a storm, the researchers replaced them with pairs of anoles collected from nearby Great Abaco.  The introduced anoles, adapted to the forests of their home island,  had longer legs than those typically found on lizards inhabiting the scrub habitats of the small islands.  However, as the result of random nature of the simulated founding event, the seed populations of the islands differed in limb length. 

After four years of monitoring, the biologists found that the (now well-established) anole populations on the small islands had indeed evolved toward shorter leg length.  However, the initial differences in populations were still in evidence, as the ranks of limb lengths of the founding populations had been retained.  In other words, the limb length of the island anole populations were a result of both the founder effect, and the subsequent effects of selection.

A challenge...

...for my students.  Some of you think you're pretty clever.  Actually,  some of you are.  But, take a look at this young lady's study session for her anthropology exam.  Since she posted it on YouTube, I assume she won't mind me linking it here.



OK, go forth and be creative.

So, did you see this?

That's a 16-foot Burmese python that was collected in the Everglades.  The snakes, of course, are everywhere.  Seemingly increasing in numbers

Ancient blood-sucker

A bat fly, preserved in amber.
(George Poinar, Jr., courtesy of
Oregon State University)

Bat flies are highly coevolved obligate ectoparasites of bats.  They live in the fur or on the wing membranes, where they feed on blood.  Today, there are some 500 species in two families.  We know now that they've been around a long - some 20 million years, infact.  Researchers at Oregon State University have discovered a fossil bat fly preserved in amber in what is now the Dominican Republic.  

Bats themselves go back some 50 million years, and it appears that they've been associated with this coevolved parasite for at least half that time.  The flies are known to carry a number of blood-born parasites, including Ebola.  This particular one harbored malaria, another reminder of just how far back these relationships go.

Night music?

Have some...

That said....

...Alabama certainly hasn't cornered the market on idiots. I'm a Florida native. Hello, Rick Scott. Now, pee in the cup.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Poor Pee-Ple
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

I give you...

... State Senator Shadrack McGill (would be a fantastic name for a band if it weren't for this asshat) from, of course the great state of Alabama.



You can't make this shit up.

Life intrudes

When I'm lecturing, or grading papers, or sitting in a meeting, or advising students, or working with data, I find myself thinking how nice it would be to have the time to just sit down and write. Of course, when those rare moments come that I don't have anything sitting on my desk that needs to be done yesterday, all I want to do is vegetate. Those moments always seem to come on a Friday afternoon, when the week is basically done and the next class or meeting or student is two days away. Usually, I wind up bugging out. Maybe I can force myself to spend a little time bringing this up to date.

For the last year (fourteen months, actually), my colleagues and I have been engaged in a project (funded in part by funds that BP threw at Gulf Coast research institutions) examining the impact of the Deepwater Horizon spill on intertidal salt marshes in coastal Alabama. We've been working at Point aux Pins, which protrudes southward into Mississippi Sound from the Alabama mainland near Bayou La Batre.  In the image, that's Bayou La Batre to the east, Point aux Poins to the west.  NOAA imagery from the Summer of 2010 indicated a degree of oiling on the eastern side of the Point, but not on the western side.  We proposed to set up ecologically similar stations at the two locations, in an attempt to determine the impact of the oiling.  Very ambitious study.  We proposed to build tidally flooded weirs to look at macrofauna, collect meiofaunal cores which we would subsample for microbial analyses, do above- and below-ground biomass studies on Spartina.  We were fortunate enough to get some funding, and started building weirs in December 2010.  We began collecting samples in January, and continued throughout the year. 

Well, we're starting to look at the data now.  Very interesting stuff, although we're not sure what it says yet about oil impacts.  Suffice to say, though, that we're getting a nice picture of the ecology of this salt marsh system.  Reward enough of its own.  The greatest reward is simply the opportunity to get back into the field. 

A few months into the project, a graduate student here at Small Southern approached me about getting involved.  She made a couple of trips down, collected some fish with me, and decided that she wanted to do her thesis on the fish communities utilizing the marsh (not a part of our original proposal).  So, for the last nine months or so we've been sampling fish assemblages at our two sites, along with collecting environmental data.  That story's looking pretty interesting, too.  More to come.

Turnabout..

..is fair play, apparently, for the black-marble jawfish.  Check out this video of the jawfish taking advantage of Thaumoctopus mimicus, an octopus well known for its ability to mimic various flounder and other fish.

For my friends in the Keys...

New study indicates that salt water might not deter the spread of Burmese pythons from the Everglades across stretches of open water to reach the Keys.  Keep your eyes open.

Republican Fire Drills

As I type this, the Iowa caucuses are underway.  Amazing that some 100,000 Iowans hold the sway that they do, but it is what it is.  Seems appropriate to take some time to look at the field of contenders.

As I've indicated here before, I vote science.  I'll certainly pay attention to a candidate's views on fiscal and social issues, but I've found their stance on (and knowledge of) science to be a pretty good litmus test.  The economy, per my limited understanding, seems largely a black box - about all you can hope for is that a president will be smart enough to hire the best advisors possible and, then, get lucky.  As for social issues, most intelligent, educated people land on the right side of those, if there's not too much money involved.  So, the common theme - look for the smartest guy (or girl).  Science IQ is a pretty good indicator.

Many of us have been disappointed with President Obama.  For all the promise of three years ago, the actual product has not lived up to the hype - witness his recent signature on NPAA.  But are there alternatives?  Since Obama will doubtless receive the Democratic nomination, we're forced to look to the GOP.  Surely someone in that crowded field can pass scientific muster. 

Well, take a look.  Scientific American's geek guide finds the most worthy of the Republican pack, from a scientific standpoint, to be Newt Gingrich.  That's the same Gingrich who recently characterized evolution as producing "randomly gathered protoplasm".  That's depressing.  Of course, its unclear whether this reflects ignorance or cowardice on his behalf.  But, then again, what's the difference. 

The rest of the field is, believe it or not, worse.  Mitt Romney, at least, accepts the fact of evolution.  However, his stances on other scientific issues are completely utilitarian.  And Ron Paul?  Well, here's Ron Paul on evolution.  For all my techno-geek, libertarian friends who think that Ron Paul is the second coming - he's not.  Although I suppose he might have the good sense to keep his hands off things that he doesn't understand.

So, I guess I hope we're stuck with BHO for four more years.

Back in the office...

...after a lengthy, much-needed, holiday break.  Wish I could say I felt rested and ready, but it wouldn't be true - the holidays themselves are demanding in their own way.  Still, it's time to go back to work.

I've been largely absent from this site for quite some time.  Truth is, there are only so many hours in the day and blogging has not been the highest priority.  The immediate future looks a little more promising - we'll see.

For those of you who are former students, colleagues, and friends, let me take a few minutes to update.  2011 was a helluva year. On the academic side, the year was very demanding, but also fulfilling.  Two colleagues and I used a small grant stemming to examine the impact of the 2010 BP spill on a salt marsh site in Mississippi Sound near Bayou La Batre.  We're finishing that work now, and the results are interesting.  On a broader scale, though, we've been able to create a dynamic lab to involve undergrads in ecological research.  Something a bit unique for Small Southern, and very rewarding.  Of course, the focus here is on the classroom, and the good people in my administration were kind enough to give me 18 1/2 contact hours in the Fall of 2011, including a freshman biology section of 65 hardheads.  But, we made it.  My field zoology class, 27 strong, included a remarkable group of kids.  We had some true adventures, not the least of which included drowning a Jeep.  But everyone survived.  Life lessons.

The year was, at times, very trying on the personal front, with a number of medical issues in my immediate family.  2011 began with my 92 year old mother in rehabilitation for fractures of her left humerus and femur.  It ended with my eldest brother preparing to go to Seattle next week for allogenic stem cell transplant in treatment for multiple myeloma.  Fingers crossed.  On a significantly more positive note, my oldest daughter and her husband produced my first grandchild in August.  Young Vic is unusually smart and handsome.

Now, it's time to go back to work.  I'm seeing 2012 as a year to change some things for the better.  Let's go.

Starfish returns

We've been incommunicado for some time.  Other priorities took precedence.  However, it's a semester for evolutionary biology and vert zoo, and we'll be blogging once again.  I'll spend some time updating this week, and we'll go full live when the semester begins next Monday.