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!

Happy to be back in Toronto after a busy and successful field season in the Dominican Republic. Some highlights:
– Successfully piloted, honed, and employed our spray-paint mark-recapture survey protocol at several sites.
– Used ground-based LiDAR (!!) to quantify vegetation structure at sites across the country.
– Worked with incredible filmmakers Neil Losin and Nate Dappen, who are developing anole-related film projects.
– Used a drone for the first time to survey potential sites (thanks Neil Losin and Nate Dappen for letting us play with their drone while they visited; we will now buy our own)
– Made a very nice voucher collection for future genetic and microCT studies back in the lab.

Above all, of course, it was great to explore the Dominican Republic!
Special thanks to Cristian Marte, Gabriel de los Santos, Eveling Gabot, Marcos Rodriguez, and Miguel Landestoy for supporting and helping with our work. We’re looking forward to coming back soon!

Here’s a barrage of cellphone photos from the trip:

 

The Mahler Lab’s first field season is now underway. This summer we’re teaming up with the Wang Lab to kick off an NSF-funded project investigating several dimensions of ecological adaptation in island anole radiations. Simultaneously, Mahler Lab postdoc Luke Frishkoff is launching the first phase of our NSERC-funded work on island anole beta diversity dynamics. We’ll have a full plate for the next 7 weeks as we conduct sampling throughout eastern Hispaniola.

The Mahler Lab made a strong showing at Evolution 2017 in Austin, TX. James Boyko gave an excellent talk on his work on size and shape evolution in Lesser Antillean anoles, and Michael gave a very well-received poster on his research into sensory bias in livebearing fishes.

In addition I was pleased to be an invited speaker in the American Naturalist VP symposium “Convergent evolution, natural history, and the big questions in biology”. Thanks to Anurag Agrawal for the invite, and stay tuned for an associated paper on comparative methods and convergence.

Check out our new American Naturalist paper describing Anolis landestoyi, a new Dominican anole that looks like it should be from Cuba. This lizard was first spotted by naturalist extraordinaire Miguel Landestoy, and it provides fresh evidence for among-island ecomorphological matching in anoles. The article is here. Check it out!