PNAS’s Journal Club blog asked me to weigh in on a cool new study by Aaron Davis and Ricardo Betancur-R about fish convergence over really long timescales. The blog went up today – check it out here. Congrats to Aaron and Ricardo on a nice study!

The Mahler Lab is offering a Research Excursion Program course this summer (EEB398) and is encouraging applications from interested UofT undergraduates. We hope to take 2 enthusiastic and talented students this year. Applicants should have 9-16 credits as of May 2017 and should apply by Sunday, Feb. 12. Full instructions are here.

Pleased to announce that the Mahler Lab microCT scanner is fully operational and collecting data! Stay tuned for amazing imagery of all things Anolis! If you’re a UofT undergrad and you’re interested in working with the lab, drop a line – we’ll be looking for lots of volunteers to help with scanning projects.

The Mahler Lab has fledged a graduate student! Congratulations to newly minted Master of Science James Boyko! James passed his MSc defence on character displacement, SSD, and Rensch’s rule in Lesser Antillean anoles with flying colors. Excellent work James!

The Scientist has just published a nice article about how anoles have become a model system in evolutionary biology, and it features recent work from the Mahler Lab. Check it out!

Check out our collaborative work on the tempo and mode of Anolis lizard dewlap size evolution, now out in Proceedings B!

Mahler Lab members had a great lab retreat at Casa Boccia near Wasaga Beach. We even managed to find a few amphibians despite generally cold temps. Thanks everyone for helping to organize!

Pleased to announce that I’ll be a keynote speaker this spring at the University Museum of Bergen’s ForBio Annual Meeting in Bergen, Norway. I’ll also lead a short workshop on phylogenetic comparative methods following the conference. Looking forward to it!

Our paper examining dimorphism and polymorphism in Greater Antillean anole patterning is out now in Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. You can find a copy of the paper on the Publications page and first author Iliana Medina has written a nice summary of the work on Anole Annals. Check it out!

Formal welcome to MSc student Chris Boccia! Chris is no stranger to the lab but starts a new role today as he joins our graduate program as a MSc student. Welcome Chris!