No new thing under the sun? Finding sunbird species in Wallacea

Our understanding of how species interact and evolve depends on accurate knowledge of the species that exist on Earth. There are still many species to be identified, however, even in evolutionarily significant regions such as Wallacea in central Indonesia, site of Alfred Russel Wallace’s pioneering work. Our new paper, completed jointly with researchers from Universitas …

Levels of Selection

Thanks to the magical (and sometimes frustrating!) technological capabilities of Google+, every fortnight we have international phylo/macro journal club meetings which span three continents and even include elements of time travel (the Australian participants are always in the future!). Among the varied topics we cover, one of our recent sessions was a discussion of Samir …

Gould Mine

The career of Stephen Jay Gould eludes easy definition because of his prolific output in so many areas. Michael Shermer characterises him as a historian of science and scientific historian, popular scientist and scientific populariser. The popular science writings of Stephen Jay Gould (20 of his 22 books and hundreds of articles) are responsible for making me want …

Tramps in Transition: Wallacea’s monarch flycatchers and their evolutionary natural experiment

A warm welcome back to all our readers! The new year is now well and truly upon us and we hope you’ve all had a safe and energised return to work. This blog is written by Fionn Ó Marcaigh, summarising his new paper. Congratulations Fionn and we hope our readers enjoy learning about your research …

The Opti-Mum condition: How brown bears use humans to prolong maternal care

Sexual conflict between males and females is well documented in the animal kingdom. Often, the best strategy for one sex is not the optimum for the other. In mammalian species, lactation of new mothers suppresses ovulation. Therefore, males gain a reproductive advantage (earlier mating opportunity) by forcing early mother-offspring separation. On the other hand, females …