Trinity College Dublin, Ecology and Evolution
Humans are purpose seeking beings. Such a fact is nowhere more apparent than in our language. Some scientists argue that this tendency is a cause of confusion in their subject, especially when it comes to descriptions of evolution. The teleological turn of phrase is so tempting because of how much easier it is to read …
Grasses rank among the world’s most ecologically and economically important plants including wheat, barley, rice and maize. Evolution of the C4 syndrome has made photosynthesis highly efficient in about half of their species, inspiring intensive efforts to engineer the pathway into C3 crops to improve drought and heat tolerance. An international collaboration called the Grass Phylogeny Working Group (including Trevor Hodkinson, …
A new study has been published online in Ecology Letters by Mirkka Lahdenperä and colleagues, which suggests that competition between grandmothers and their daughters-in-law may explain the evolution of menopause. The study used a 200-year dataset of births, deaths and residency patterns in pre-industrial Finland to show that competition between unrelated females of different generations …
Continue reading “Hot heads lead to hot flashes: the evolution of menopause”
We’ve all been there, trying to get some out of reach object only to dejectedly ask for the assistance of another. Turns out, this behavior has been with us for most of our lives. It is known that children as young as 12 months will start to point at certain objects that they desire but …
It’s been three years since we’ve had transition year students pass through the door of the Zoology building to take part in a week long work experience programme. A huge thank you to everyone who made this possible and to Prof. Nicola Marples for organising another successful ‘Zoology TY Week’. The Zoology TY Week is …
After another year, the wait for the 2023 Postgraduate Symposium was finally over and this one most definitely lived up to its expectations! As always, these two days provided us with fascinating insight into the PhD projects across Botany and Zoology. The range of captivating topics really drove home how we are a school of …
Continue reading “The 2023 Botany-Zoology Postgraduate Symposium”
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 …
Continue reading “No new thing under the sun? Finding sunbird species in Wallacea”
A bid farewell We can’t thank our editors from the 2021/2022 year enough for their fantastic contribution to the EcoEvo Blog – Lucy Harding, Grace McNicholas and Richa Marwaha. We wish them all the best of luck in their research and hope to hear from them again soon! The team produced a series of excellent …
We’re back with the last instalment of our two-part series showcasing the wonderful world of science podcasts. If the below list isn’t enough for you, don’t forget to check out Part 1 if you missed it! General Science This one is pretty self-explanatory! If you want to widen your knowledge of science to new topics, …
Continue reading “Fancy a listen? The podcasts our researchers are listening to: Part 2”
The start of term is here and with it you may be back from field work and starting to commute to campus again, or perhaps you are looking for an escape from those busy term-time work days, or maybe you are already a veteran podcast listener? Either way we’ve got you covered. We asked our …
Continue reading “Fancy a listen? The podcasts our researchers are listening to: Part 1”