The following is a collection of past weekly EEB Journal Club announcements and papers. See the current school year on the EEBISO/Journal Club page.
Spring 2021
. . . Friday, May 7. Join us for the last EEB journal club of the semester. We’ll have a virtual happy hour this week and maybe play a little trivia. Hope to see you Friday at 4 pm on Zoom.
. . . Friday, April 30. This Friday we will discuss the link between birds and hurricanes vis-a-vis a podcast from American Birding Association featuring Dr. Christopher Heckscher of Delaware State University. The discussion will be led by Meredith. As always, Friday at 4 pm on Zoom.
. . . Friday, April 23. At this week’s journal club, we’ll discuss our favorite science media (blog, podcast, etc.). Thanks to Griffin for leading. As usual, 4 pm on Zoom.
. . . Friday, April 16. For this week’s journal club, we will continue our discussion about mentorship but with a focus on how we can both recognize good mentorship and be good mentors to others in our labs (who often happen to be undergrads). Feel free to share papers or resources you know of in advance and we’ll put them in our handy dandy EEB Grad Drive. As usual, 4 pm on Zoom.
. . . Friday, April 9. We will be discussing healthy mentorship at Friday’s journal club. As usual, 4 pm on Zoom.
. . . Friday, April 2. We will discuss an article in The Atlantic about the sex lives of butterflies, as well as the following paper. Special thanks to Emma for finding this interesting topic and leading the discussion this week. As usual, 4 pm on Zoom. [Meslin et al 2017]
. . . Friday, March 26. We’ll be discussing ecological tipping points in tropical forests. As usual, 4pm on Zoom. [Roque et al 2018]
. . . Friday, March 19. No journal club, Spring Break.
. . . Friday, March 12. Last week we talked about trying some improv games – so we’ll plan on playing Ask the Expert and Academic Karaoke this week. No prep or reading necessary! See you Friday at 4pm on Zoom.
. . . Friday, March 5. This week, we’ll use part of the session as an opportunity for the newest cohort to get to know some of the more advanced EEB students. Then we’ll be talking about the impact the pandemic has had on wildlife with the help of the linked articles. See you Friday at 4pm on Zoom. [Popular Science] [Nature Ecology & Evolution]
. . . Monday, March 1. We’re looking for people to lead journal club sessions this semester. Instructions follow:
Choose a day you want to lead the journal club discussion and sign up on the linked Google Doc. We are trying to mix things up this semester, so discussion on papers, podcasts, videos, etc. are welcome! Also other activities are welcome, think academic karaoke (e.g., presenting random slides) as an example. Please contact Nicole Scavo with questions.
. . . Friday, February 26. We’ll be kicking off journal club again this week with a podcast discussion. The episode of Common Descent we’ll be discussing is on the sixth mass extinction… it’s a long podcast, so feel free to skip around (the main content starts at about 50 minutes). See you all on Zoom at 5 pm tomorrow. Meeting ID and passcode were included in the EEB distribution email if you signed up. Contact Nicole Scavo if you need help accessing the meeting.
Fall 2020
. . . Friday, November 13. We’ll be doing a quick dive into woodpecker social dynamics this week. We meet on Zoom at 4pm. Bring your friends and pets! [Barve et al 2020]
. . . Friday, November 6. Jamie Alfieri will be leading a discussion on gene ontology. As usual, we meet on Zoom at 4pm. Bring your friends. [Pavlidis et al 2020]
. . . Friday, October 30. Friday’s journal club discussion will tackle this paper on the origin and population genetics of ancient dogs. No one’s leading, so it’s just a general discussion. We meet at 4pm on Zoom. [Bergstrom et al]
. . . Friday, October 23. No paper discussion this week. Instead, a quick meeting about the health insurance opt in/information and anything else you’d like to discuss. We meet at 4pm on Zoom.
. . . Friday, October 16. This week’s journal club will be a discussion on the complexity and scaling in landscape ecology. No one is leading this week, so we’ll just be having a general discussion of topics with the intent of getting a few folks ready for prelims. As always, everyone is welcome and please invite your labs, home departments, and your pets. We meet at 4pm on Zoom. [Newman et al 2019]
. . . Friday, October 9. No paper this week! Instead, we’re going to take a little time to celebrate a few of our own: Zach Hancock, who will be defending his thesis this Friday, and Jamie Alfieri, who will have completed his prelims! So bring your beverage-of-choice to toast two of our own and chat. As usual, we meet at 4pm on Zoom.
. . . Friday, October 2. Emma Lehmberg will present a paper on feeding fish eggs to waterfowl to see if the fish would survive, perhaps evidence for a modified version of the classic fish eggs on duck feet theory (if you have no idea what I’m talking about, see this paper at phys.org)! Is this a regular enough occurrence to actually affect dispersal and colonization? Fish food for thought. As usual, we meet at 4pm on Zoom. [Lovas Kiss 2020]
. . . Friday, September 25. Natalie Hamilton will be leading a discussion on the poetically titled paper, “A nudibranch removes rival sperm with a disposable spiny penis.” Join us to discuss the evolution of simultaneous hermaphroditism and whether sperm competition is expected to evolve under such a system. We meet at 4pm on Zoom. (Note this Zoom link is different.) [Sekizawa 2019]
. . . Friday, September 11. No journal club today.
. . . Friday, September 4. Amanda Beckman will present a review paper on the dimensions of animal consciousness. Join us to discuss this interesting and thought-provoking opinion piece! We meet on Zoom at 4 pm (Central). [Birch et al 2020]
. . . Friday, August 28. EEB Journal Club returns to its regularly scheduled programming today. Zach Hancock will lead a discussion on JBS Haldane’s (1964) “defense of beanbag genetics.” For a bit of historical perspective, see the commentary from 2007 by James Crow (optional). A major component of this historical debate is simplifying assumptions in models and how useful they are when examining real populations. We meet on Zoom at 4 pm (Central). [Haldane paper] [Crow commentary]
. . . Friday, August 20. No journal club today.
Spring – Summer 2020 (The COVID Era)
. . . Friday, August 14. In lieu of journal club this Friday, we’ll be presenting EEB Edition Jeopardy! to help EEB grad students with their upcoming prelims. We meet on Zoom at 4pm CDT. Be there for the fun!
. . . Friday, August 7. Incoming EEB student Tori Spencer will present the paper, “Knowing when to stick: touch receptors found in the remora adhesive disc” by Cohen et al 2019. Join us to discuss all things remora attachment functions and to support our incoming cohort! This is an interesting, relatively short paper, so don’t miss out on the opportunity to learn more on the subject from one of our own resident ichthyologists (Tori)! We meet on Zoom at 4pm CDT. [Cohen et al 2019]
. . . Friday, July 31. This Friday Alyson will be presenting a paper on the poorly studied variation between females in signal processing and how this may lead to variation between female brown-headed cowbirds in how they rank individual males. In short, one single signal may not be universally attractive to all females! We meet on Zoom at 4pm CDT. [Link to paper]
. . . Friday, July 24. This Friday, in lieu of discussing a scientific article, we will be hosting a happy hour meet and greet (via Zoom) for the incoming cohort. We hope this will be an opportunity for everyone to catch up with each other, discuss what’s going on with our research and welcome the new students! New students, feel free to come with lots of questions about life in College Station and the EEB program. We’re happy to have you on board, and excited to meet you. We meet on Zoom at 4pm CDT. Looking forward to seeing everyone!
. . Friday, July 17. This Friday Milton Torres-Ceron will be presenting the paper “How the Modern Synthesis Came to Ecology.” Given the paper’s length, Milton would like to focus on the Introduction and the section titled “Another Avenue to Acclimatize the Modern Synthesis into Ecology: From Natural Control to the Notion of Evolutionary Ecology.” The article tells the story of how evolution and ecology became part of the same study area. And, therefore, could be useful for students that are facing prelims soon and/or want to know more about the history of modern ecology and evolutive biology. We meet on Zoom at 4pm CDT. [Huneman 2019]
. . . Friday, July 10. This Friday, Dr. Abby Kimmitt will be presenting a paper by Dr. Sara Lipshutz. As a bonus, Dr. Lipshutz will be joining us for the discussion! Dr. Lipshutz focuses on evolutionary physiology, genomics and behavior. Her paper “Neuroendocrinology of Sex-Role Reversal” discusses patterns of physiological regulation in sex-role reversed females. We meet on Zoom at 4pm CDT. [Lipshutz 2020]
. . . Friday, July 3. This Friday Nathan will be presenting a follow up to the paper Dr Lee had joined us for a few weeks back, only this time Dr. Lee’s postdoc David Stern will be attending to help guide the discussion. In this paper, David shows that invasive populations of copepods show parallel selection, and the same loci that are under selection in the invasive populations experience balancing selection within their native range. These results are exciting because it shows how invasions are repetitive as shown by the parallel adaptations in invasive populations and it confirms the role of (a fluctuating) environment in facilitating invasions! [Stern & Lee 2020] Zoom link is here. We meet at 4pm on Fridays (Central)
. . . Friday, June 26. This week for journal club, Jamie will be presenting multiple sources on cryptozoology. Come with your crazy theories and unrelenting skepticism for a fun discussion. Attendees should read this blogpost, which is a brief account of a cryptozoology meeting at ZSL in 2011, along with this paper on Molecular Cryptozoology. The Zoom link is here. We meet at 4pm on Fridays (Central)
For further reading on the topic Jamie encourages readers to investigate the following sources:
– This book chapter discussing the merits of a cryptozoologic approach
– This PRSB paper on sasquatch
– This paper by Dobzhansky on extraterrestrial life
– This blogpost on the Loch Ness Monster DNA Study
. . . Friday, June 19. Due to a scheduling conflict, last week’s journal club was cancelled. Faith Hardin’s presentation will take place this week. [Zoom link]
. . . Friday, June 12. Faith Hardin will be presenting an empirical paper on sexual conflict in spiders! In addition to a short discussion on this paper, we will be discussing prelim prep with input from those who have gone through the process and Q&A for those upcoming students. Zoom link is here, we meet at 4pm (Central). [Neuman & Schneider]
. . . Friday, June 5. Thanks to everyone who has emailed or expressed interest in attending tomorrow, and especially to those who have sent additional papers or resources. We have been putting everything in this Google Drive, which you can add to before or after the meeting. If you know of folks who are interested in attending outside of EEB, ABS or Biology, please feel free to extend the invitation to them. Faculty are welcome. I am sharing the zoom link here. This is a protected zoom room, so Faith will be letting people in as they arrive. [Beltran et al 2020] [Graves 2019]
. . . Friday, May 29. This week, Faith Hardin will be presenting a paper on cooperative behavior in vampire bats! The lead author, Dr. Gerry Carter, will be joining us to discuss it at 4pm CST this Friday. [Zoom link] [Carter food sharing]
. . . Friday, May 22. This week Alyson Brokaw will be presenting a paper on the evolutionary trajectory of skeletal sex differences in humans, the role of sexual selection in humans, and how traditional methods of study have shaped our thoughts about our own evolution, for better or for worse. I’ve attached the paper and you can find a summary of it in this Twitter thread. The author, Dr. Holly Dunsworth, will be joining us to discuss her findings. This week, we’ll meet at our usual time of 4pm CST on Friday. Please feel free to extend the invitation to anyone not included on these listservs – the more, the merrier! [Zoom link] [Dunsworth 2020]
. . . Friday, May 15. For this week’s journal club, Carl Hjelman will be presenting a paper on sex chromosome evolution in that most winning of insects, the cockroach! Two of the three authors have agreed to join us for our meeting this week: Dr. Pablo Delclos (who graduated from A&M!) and Dr. Rich Meisel. To accommodate their schedules, we will be meeting at 4:30. [Meisel 2019] [Zoom link]
. . . Friday, May 8. This week Nathan Anderson will be presenting a paper on the copepod Eurytemora affinis, a brackish water invertebrate that’s experienced invasion success in non-native freshwaters. The author of this paper, Dr. Carole Eunmi Lee, is hoping to attend but has a conflict at 4pm. As a result. we will meet via Zoom at 3pm. [Lee 2015]
. . . Friday, May 1. It’s almost May and it’s songbird migration season! To celebrate, Hannah Justen will be presenting a paper on seasonal migration and genomic methylation of great tits. I’ve attached the paper below. We’re currently without a guest speaker but are happy to take suggestions. If there is someone who works in these areas you’d like to invite, please let Zach, Faith or me know as soon as you can. We want to give the guest time to respond! Join us on Zoom at 4pm! [Vitanlem et al 2019]
. . . Friday, April 24. The Delmore lab’s Dr. Abby Kimmitt will be presenting an opinion paper (attached) co-authored by Dr. Matthew Hahn, who will also be attending via Zoom. Dr. Hahn’s work focuses on genomics, adaptation/natural selection, and population genetics. To accommodate Dr. Hahn’s schedule, we will be moving the journal club at 3pm CST this week. The Zoom link is here.
. . . Friday, April 17. Amanda Beckman will be presenting a paper about the life history of the Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus), that ubiquitous scientific model organism! We hope to spin this off into a conversation about the usefulness of model organisms and what their limitations are. We do not, as yet, have a guest speaker for this meeting, so if you’d like to suggest someone who has some insight or has worked extensively with model organisms (PI or post-doc), please let me, Zach, or Faith know as soon as possible and we’ll reach out to them. They can be on or off campus. The Zoom link for the 4pm CST meeting is here. Last week was our best attended meeting in a long time, so we hope to keep the momentum going! [Modlinska and Pisula] [Alfred and Baldwin]
. . . Friday, April 10. EEB Journal club is on for this Friday at 4pm via Zoom! Link is here. The link is set up with permissions, so please log on a little early to make sure it’s working. Our first meeting online was a definite success, so we’ll be continuing with this TREE paper on phylogenetics and genomics, which will be presented by Jamie Alfieri. Even better, Heath has also reached out to one of the authors, Matthew Pennell, to attend and discuss the paper with us. Please join us for a discussion of evolution, phylogenetics and future directions of the fields! Feel free to invite anyone you know who would be interested – should be a fun time!
. . . Friday, April 3. This Friday will be a “hopping” discussion on the “dear-enemy” versus “nasty-neighbor” effects in Dwarf Mongoose, led by Faith Hardin. If you haven’t read the paper, come anyway! Faith has put together a slide show to explain everything. [Zoom] [Paper]
. . . Friday, March 27. We’ve decided to try and keep the EEB journal club going on Fridays at 4:00. However, it will now be virtual via Zoom. We will share the link every Friday before the meeting for those interested in taking part. We need a presenter for this week, so if someone would like to volunteer please email me (zhancock@bio.tamu.edu) or Emma (e.s.lehmberg@tamu.edu) so we have plenty of time to get the paper out for others to read.
. . . Friday, March 20. IMPORTANT UPDATE: In light of the coronavirus, future journal club meetings will be held virtually at https://tamu.zoom.us/j/622380408
. . . Friday, March 13. Spring Break, no journal club
. . . Friday, March 6. This week at Journal Club, Natalie Hamilton will be presenting a paper about considering genetic variation and evolutionary potential in conservation practices. Please find it linked here. There are still spots left for anyone who’d like to present, so please sign up!
. . . Friday, February 28. This week’s discussion will be a review paper by Bradburd & Ralph titled “Spatial Population Genetics: It’s About Time.” However, we’d like to try a slightly different format. A main focus of this paper is forward-time simulation using the program SLiM, which has received considerable attention for its flexibility and ability to handle arbitrarily complex population models. Therefore, in conjunction with a paper discussion I’d like to walk through a few basic simulation models in SLiM for those interested. If there is something in particular you’d like to know if SLiM can handle, email me and we can try to come up with a recipe to test out on Friday. As usual, journal club will be in Butler Hall Rm. 202 at 4:00 PM on Friday. Afterwards, we will be heading over to Duddley’s for Happy Hour. PS: We’re looking for people to sign-up to lead the discussions in the upcoming weeks, so if you haven’t yet be sure you sign-up here!
. . . Friday, February 21. Milton Torres-Ceron will present a paper on disturbance ecology in the Anthropocene. See you at 4 pm in Butler 202. [Newman 2019]
. . . Friday, February 14. We’re off this week for Darwin Day! See you next Friday.
. . . Friday, February 7. This week, Alyson Brokaw will be presenting a paper on flaws with the fundamental niche concept! There are still plenty of spaces for people to present papers in the coming weeks, so please sign up. We’ll be on hiatus for Darwin Day next week but will resume on Feb. 21. [Angiletta et al 2019]
. . . Friday, January 31. This week, Stephen Bovio will be presenting a paper on the action of selection in neanderthal DNA found in the human genome. We’re still looking for people to sign up, so if you’d like to take a week, please pick the date you’d like on this spreadsheet. Any and all papers are welcome, just pick one you’re excited about! As always, we’ll meet at 4pm in Butler 202. [Petr et al]
. . . Friday, January 24. By an anonymous vote, we’ll be having the EEB journal club on campus this semester and roll on to Happy Hour at a bar of our choice afterwards. Hopefully, this will make it more accessible to those who have other commitments after or before. Due to the difficulty of getting a room, we’ve chosen to have it in Butler 202 at 4pm on Fridays. All grad students, post docs and professors are encouraged to attend when they can.
To start, this Friday (Jan. 24) I’ll be presenting this paper on the genomics of ancient Rome. This paper came out late last year and is a really nice example of what we can do with high coverage, high throughput genomic sequencing. [Ancient genetics of Rome]
If you’d like to present a paper on whatever makes you excited to be doing science, here’s a link to the spreadsheet with the dates we’ll be meeting.
If you’d like to do something off the classic papers spreadsheet Zach mentioned, see this link. Any professors reading this, feel free to add more to this spreadsheet, especially ecology & behavior.
. . . Friday, January 17. Hope everyone had a great break. This semester, the EEB journal club will be coordinated by myself (Zach Hancock) and Emma Lehmberg. The first meeting will be this Friday at 4:00 on the 2nd Floor of Butler Hall in room 202. We will be meeting in what is lovingly referred to as “Huxley’s Hole” at the end of the hallway. In the past we’ve held journal club at O’Bannon’s, but we’d like to give the opportunity this year to change the venue. This Friday we will vote on whether we’d like to keep having journal club here, or if we’d prefer to have it on campus (or at a different bar). In addition, we’d like to discuss how to increase attendance from the EEB students, especially the newer cohorts. EEB journal club is a great opportunity to meet people in other cohorts, learn what your colleagues are doing, and importantly become exposed to primary literatƒure that may be outside of your field.
Fall 2019
. . . Friday, November 15. Natalie Hamilton will present a paper discussing a hot debate in taxonomy: whether a photograph can be a type specimen or not. The main article is Krell and Marshall. Attached are two other short opinion pieces on the matter. People might find it interesting to know just HOW heated taxonomists can get about this topic. As usual, come join the discussion at O’Bannon’s at 4PM on Friday. [Krell and Marshall] [Article] [Rogers et al]
. . . Friday, November 8. This week Emma Lehmberg will present a paper discussing the collective intelligence of slime molds. Come join the discussion at O’Bannon’s at 4PM on Friday. Hope to see everyone there! [Reid & Latty 2016]
. . . Friday, October 25. This week, Gaston Jofre will present a paper that proposes word choice is guided by positive frequency-dependent selection – a bias that makes speakers disproportionately likely to use the words that most others use. Come join the discussion at O’Bannon’s at 4PM on Friday. Hope to see everyone there! [Page et al 2018]
. . . Friday, October 11. Join us on Friday at 4PM at O’Bannon’s to discuss sex-specific parasite effects in birds. Erin Nguyen will lead the discussion. [Hicks et al 2019]
. . . Friday, September 27. For this week’s journal club, Jamie Alfieri will lead the discussion on how “linkage” affects the absence of negative selection signals in cancer cells, not a lack of negative selection. As usual, we will meet at O’Bannon’s at 4 PM on Friday. Hope to see everyone there! [Tilk et al 2019]
. . . Friday, September 20. This week, Faith Hardin will lead our discussion. Attached is a paper on how nest helpers may reduce telomere attrition for dominant female breeders in a cooperatively breeding warbler. It’s an interesting paper that should elicit questions about the role of related and non-related helpers and the role of “altruism” (or not) in the natural world. We’ll meet, as usual, at O’Bannon’s on Friday at 4 PM. Hope to see everyone there! [Hammers et al 2019]
. . . Friday, September 13. Zach Hancock will lead a discussion on the origins of genome complexity. The paper argues that the transition in genome complexity from prokaryotes to eukaryotes emerged passively by nonadaptive processes. Should make for a fun discussion. We will meet on Friday at 4 PM at O’Bannon’s. [Lynch & Conery]
Also, here is a link to a Google sign-up sheet for the rest of the semester. There are a limited number of spots so first come first serve.
. . . Friday, September 6. For this week’s journal club, Steven Bovio will lead a discussion on widespread biases in EEB. The attached paper addresses geographic, taxonomic, and citation biases in publications between temperate and tropical systems. Steven will focus most on what these biases mean, how they influence our understanding of the natural world, and what the community can do moving forward. We will meet on Friday at 4PM at O’Bannon’s in Northgate. Hope to see everyone there! [Culumber et al 2019 ]
. . . Friday, August 30. Howdy EEB community! Hope everyone’s first week back to school is going well. We are going to start our behavior, ecology, and evolution reading (BEER) group back up again this Friday at 4:00 PM at O’Bannon’s on Northgate. The BEER group is a graduate student-run social journal club that meets each week. In the past, we typically have one student sign up for a week of the semester to facilitate a discussion on a paper of their choosing. There is no particular theme other than it must be related to EEB. The BEER group is open to anyone and faculty members are highly encouraged to attend. Though the journal club name and location are beer-related, there is absolutely no pressure to imbibe.
Spring 2019
… Friday, April 26. No journal club this week. Next week will be our last one of the semester. No one has signed up, so if you care to present anything send it my way. Otherwise, I’ll probably lead the discussion.
… Friday, April 19. After excellent talks at EIS and great food and camaraderie at the Annual Crawfish Boil, we’ll start our EEB journal club back up. This week, Amanda Beckman will discuss an article examining how extra pair mating influences sexual selection in white-throated sparrows. Hope to see everyone at O’Bannon’s on Friday at 4PM. [Grunst et al 2019]
… Friday, April 12. No journal club, Annual EEB/ABS Crawfish Boil.
… Friday, April 5. No journal club, EIS.
… Friday, Mar 29. This week David Saenz will lead our discussion on how bioluminescent courtship signals drive phenotypic evolution in fireflies. As usual, we will meet at O’Bannon’s at 4pm this Friday. Hope to see everyone there! [Hensley et al 2018]
… Friday, Mar 22. This week, Dan Powell will be discussing allele-specific expression and the role it plays in overcoming intergenomic gene expression interaction conflicts hybrids. As usual, hope to see everyone at O’Bannon’s at 4pm. [Matos et al 2019]
… Friday, Mar 15. No journal club, Spring Break.
… Friday, Mar 8. This week for journal club Kevin Bredemeyer will lead our discussion on the 3D structure of chromosomes and how they interact. As usual, we will meet at O’Bannon’s on Friday at 4pm. [Maass et al 2018]
… Friday, Mar 1. This week Erin Nguyen will discuss a cool paper on how sentinel species can help flock species to expand their niche by reducing predation. As usual, we will meet at 4pm on Friday at O’Bannons. Hope to see everyone there. [Martinez et al 2018]
… Friday, Feb 22. For journal club this week, Alyson Brokaw will be leading our discussion on women’s representation in STEM. (See two articles.) Hope to see everyone at O”Bannon’s at 4pm on Friday. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend. [Leslie et al 2015] [Ceci and Williams 2010]
… Friday, Feb 15. For our behavior, ecology, and evolution reading group this week, Zach Steffensmeier will be leading our discussion on fish introgression occurring in our own backyard! Hope to see everyone at O’Bannon’s at 4pm this Friday. [Get article here]
… Friday, Feb 1. This week we will resume our Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution Reading (BEER) group on Friday at 4PM at O’Bannon’s on Northgate. We will meet at this time and place weekly. For those who haven’t had the opportunity to attend, the BEER group consists of students and faculty members affiliated with EEB that meet once a week for a casual journal club. Each week, one student is responsible for picking and presenting a paper of their choosing. There is no particular theme to this journal club or to what papers can be chosen other than it must be EEB related. I will present the first paper on one of my favorite topics: speciation. Grab the article here. This is a great opportunity to get to know other EEB members in a semi-academic/social environment. Hope to see everyone there!
… Friday, Jan 25. From Steven Bovio – This week we will resume our Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution Reading (BEER) group on Friday at 4PM at O’Bannon’s on Northgate. We will meet at this time and place weekly. For those who haven’t had the opportunity to attend, the BEER group consists of students and faculty members affiliated with EEB. We meet once a week for a casual journal club. Each week, one student is responsible for picking and presenting a paper. There is no particular theme to this journal club or paper topics that can be chosen other than it must be EEB-related. I will present the first paper on one of my favorite topics – speciation. Find the article here. This is a great opportunity to get to know other EEB members in a semi-academic/social environment. Hope to see everyone there!
Fall 2018
… Friday, Dec 7. Join us for our last EEB journal club of the semester. We’ll be discussing promoting transparency in science, how scientists can communicate with each other in such a way that the progress of science is never impeded by the inability to interpret methods/results, access archived data/code, etc. Also, how how scientists can communicate with the general public more effectively as well. We’ll meet on Friday at O’Bannon’s at 4 pm. See you there! [Parker et al 2016]
… Friday, Nov 30. This week we will be discussing how genomic data can help uncover signatures of hybridization and speciation. Hannah Justen will be leading our discussion. Hope to see you Friday at 4:00 at O’Bannon’s. [Hvala et al 2018]
… Friday, Nov 23. No journal club this week. University holiday.
… Friday, Nov 16. This week David Saenz will be leading our EEB journal club discussion. We will be covering the unusual ways by which fish sense the world. You may find the results electrifying. Please find paper attached. O’Bannon’s at 4 pm. See you there! [Gottwald et al 2018]
… Friday, Nov 9. Please join us for an ethical/scientific debate at this week’s Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution Reading (BEER) group led by Emma Lehmberg. Attached are papers on two different viewpoints: fish don’t feel pain (as we do; Rose et al) vs. fish have consciousness and experience pain (Braithwaite). For the Rose et al. paper, reading the first 7 pages is enough to understand that side of the debate and where their main objections come from. See you at O’Bannon’s on Friday.
… Friday, Nov 2. Sarah Ruckman will lead this week’s discussion of the genomics of eye coloration in huskies. [Deane Coe et al 2018]
… Friday, Oct 26. Amanda Beckman will lead this week’s discussion of whether social costs are important for maintaining honest signals. ion. Please join us at O’Bannon’s at 4pm. [Webster et al 2018]
… Friday, Oct 19. Luke Bower will lead this week’s discussion of how adaptive landscapes influence convergent evolution in squirrels. Please join us at O’Bannon’s at 4pm. [Zelditch et al 2017]
… Friday, Oct 12. Jamie Alfieri will lead this week’s discussion on how genomic data can be used to identify loci underlying adaptive variation. For those who are deterred by genomics, we should expect to see more ecology based papers in the coming weeks. Please join us at O’Bannon’s at 4pm. [Phifer-Rixey et al 2018]
… Friday, Oct 5. Zach Hancock will lead a discussion on codon biases and their evolutionary implications. Please join us at O’Bannon’s at 4pm. [Galtier et al 2018]
… Friday, Sept 28. This week Gaston Jofre will be presenting an interesting article on how socially mediated changes in gene expression can facilitate adaptive radiations. Please join us for the discussion at O’Bannon’s at 4PM. [Pascoal et al 2018]
… Friday, Sept 14. This week Alyson Brokaw will be leading our discussion on the evolution of migration in ungulates. Hope to see everyone at O’Bannon’s at 4 pm. [Jesmer et al 2018]
… Friday, Sept 7. This Friday at 4 pm we will meet at O’Bannon’s on Northgate to host our first journal club of the semester. At BEER (behavior, ecology, and evolution reading), students and faculty affiliated with the EEB program come together to review papers in the field of EEB. This is a great opportunity to interact with other members of the program and learn about cool science in fields that may or may not be related to your own.
This week Stephen Bovio will lead the first discussion. I chose this paper because identifying adaptations with genomic approaches is cool. Also, it’s a relatively short and easy read to get us started. [Sharma et al 2018]
From here on out we will communicate EEB journal club related information via the EEBISO listserv. If you are not a part of this listserv, you can register for it on https://listserv.tamu.edu/ by searching for EEBISO.
Spring 2018
Journal Club meets every Friday at 4 pm at O’Bannon’s in Northgate.
… Friday, May 4. Megan Exnicios will present an article about homosexual behavior in insects. This is probably her last time presenting so expect something special! [Elsevier/Animal Behaviour]
… Friday, April 27. No journal club
… Friday, April 20. Instead of our usual club meeting at O’Bannon’s, we should attend this:
Texas Sea Grant is organizing a public screening of the documentary film STRAWS followed by a panel discussion on April 20th @ 4pm in Rudder Theater.
In 2015, Texas A&M University graduate student Christine Figgener found a sea turtle in the wild with a straw in its nose. She filmed the straw removal, posted her video on YouTube and it went viral. This video helped propel a worldwide movement to reduce the use of straws and other unnecessary single-use plastics. This movement is documented in the film STRAWS.
As part of our Earth Day celebration at TAMU on April 20, 2018, from 4-5:30 pm, we are showing the film in Rudder Theater to the TAMU community. The film is only 30 minutes long. Immediately following the film a panel of students and local celebrities including Christine Figgener, one of the STRAWS film stars, will discuss straws and other single-use plastics, their impacts on wildlife, the environment and human health and solutions for reducing ocean plastic.
… Friday, April 13. Gaston Jofre will be leading the discussion about the origin of tetrapods. See you this Friday at O’Bannon’s at 4pm. [Origin of tetrapods] Also, this video.
… Friday, April 6. NO JOURNAL CLUB TODAY because of EIS.
… Friday, March 30. Daniel Powell will be leading the discussion. We’ll be talking about avian predation on annual fish and how it affects their survival depending on their size and sex. Interesting experiment! [Reichard et al 2018]
… Friday, March 23. Luke Bower will be leading the discussion of an article that compares face and brain evolution in two groups with high craniofacial variability. See you at O’Bannon’s this Friday! [Evans et al 2017]
… Friday, March 16. No Journal Club. Spring Break
… Friday, March 9 David Saenz will enlighten us about knife fish and their fascinating communication methods. Apparently geographical variation in their electric signal is being ruled by drift rather than some other source of selection. See you at O’Bannon’s. [Picq et al 2016]
… Friday, March 2 Stephen Bovio will be leading the discussion on reinforcement, geographic variation and hybridization in frogs. [Lemmon and Juenger 2017]
… Friday, February 23 Gaston Ignacio Jofre will be lead the discussion about how biased learning can affect mate choice in a butterfly. See you at O’Bannon’s at 4pm. [Westerman et al 2012]
… Friday, February 16 – no journal club
… Friday, February 9 – no journal club, Darwin Day!
… Friday, February 2 we will be talking about how pollinators use smell to locate flowers and how environmental odors affect the pollinator’s olfactory ability. Alyson Brokaw will lead. See you at O’Bannon’s at 4! [Riffell et al 2014]
… Don’t miss this semester’s first meeting of Journal Club on Friday, January 26, 2018. We’ll be discussing two papers: one on sexual attraction in mosses (Ortiz-Ramirez et al. 2017); the other, a comment by Steinhorst and Kudla.
… Tentative date for first EEBISO meeting is this Friday, January 19. There are some EEBISO agenda items besides from journal club that we should discuss sooner rather than later — particularly Darwin Day and fundraising/planning for crawfish boil.
Fall 2017
Journal Club meets every Friday at 4 pm at O’Bannon’s in Northgate to discuss the wonders of science.
… Friday, December 8. Sadly, we are approaching our last Journal Club of the year. Last week’s leaderless dynamic worked really nice so we are going to repeat it again this Friday when we explore the story of Brownian walk. Grab the article and meet us at O’Bannon’s 4 pm.
… Friday, December 1, there’s no leader or paper to discuss. We’ll be talking about indigenous knowledge, science education and the role of culture in science. It should be an interesting discussion! See you at O’Bannon’s at 4 pm.
… Friday, November 24 – no journal club
… Friday, November 17, Mateo Garcia will be leading a discussion about free mate choice in humans. [Sorokowski et al 2017]
… Friday, November 10, we are going to be discussing poison frogs and poison resistance. Come to our dear EEB Journal Club and learn about the evolution and functionality of poison frog resistance to their own poison. David Saenz will walk us through any questions we may have. [Tarvin et al 2017]
… Friday, November 3, Luke Bower will be leading the discussion on an article about “Trophic divergence despite morphological convergence” between snakes from Australia and North America. Should be interesting! See you at O’Bannon’s at 4pm! [Grundler & Rabosky 2014]
… Friday, October 27, our own EEB student organization president Alyson Brokaw will be leading a discussion about bat-pitcher plant mutualism. Happy Bat Week! See you all this Friday at O’Bannon’s at 4pm. Feel free to extend the invitation to other students. [Schoner et al 2017]
… Friday, October 20, we’ll be reading about invertebrate invasions. The deep thinker and meticulous Zachary Hancock will be leading the discussion. See you at O’Bannon’s at 4:00. Bring your jackets because the weather is finally cooling down. [Reise et al 2017]
… Friday, October 13, new EEB student Amanda Beckman will be guiding us in this week’s journal club. Please read this article about the importance of social bonds in baboons and let’s make Amanda’s debut a wonderful, enlightening and fruitful discussion. [McFarland et al 2017]
… Friday, October 6, Gaston Jofre will be leading us through a promising comparative genomic discussion between humans and honey bees, that can possibly help us understand the conservation of autism-related genes. Super interesting! Join us. [Shpliger et al 2017]
… Friday, Sept 22 we’ll be discussing an interesting article about the behavioral mechanisms involved in hybridizing flies. Daniel Powell we’ll be leading the discussion. [Giesen et al 2017]
… Friday, Sept 15th we’ll be talking about sperm storage in guppies. Our sperm expert R.S. Bovio will be leading the discussion. Please extend this invitation to other student/staff/faculty who might be interested in EEB. [Devigili et al 2016]
Spring 2017
… No journal club this Friday, April 28
… This Friday April 21 we are going to be discussing “A mechanism of extreme growth and reliable signaling in sexually selected ornaments and weapons” by Emlen et al 2012 that made it all the way to Science Magazine. David Saenz is going to lead the discussion. [PDF]
… Friday April 7, Zach is going to walk us through how humans recreational use of beaches can be disadvantageous to the threatened hooded plovers. Schlacher et al analyze the negative effects of trampling. [PDF]
… This Friday, March 31st at 4 pm, we’ll be widening our knowledge on how the field of animal personality provides new insights to behavioral ecology. Our very own president Alyson will be leading the discussion.
… Due to the annual Ecological Integration Symposium, there will be no journal club on Friday, March 24.
… No Journal Clubs on March 10 and March 17 due to Spring Break
… Please join us Friday March 3 at 4 pm at O’Bannon’s to discuss a brand new article from about genetic structure of social birds. Stephen Bovio will be leading the discussion. [Morinha et al.]
… Please join us at O’Bannon’s at 4 on Friday, 2/24/17 for our fifth EEB Journal Club meeting of the semester. We will be discussing an article about multimodel courtship in peacock spiders from our next (2/27) EEB seminar speaker Damian Elias. Mateo Garcia will be leading the discussion. [PDF, Girard et al 2015]
… Join us at O’Bannon’s at 4 on Friday, Feb 17, 2017 for our fourth EEB Journal Club meeting of the semester. Janelle Goeke will be leading the discussion of “Saving two birds with one stone: solving the quandary of introduced, threatened species” by Gibson and Yong. [PDF]
… Please join us at O’Bannon’s at 4 pm on Friday, 2/10/17 for our third EEB Journal Club meeting of the semester. We will be discussing “Species interactions constrain geographic range expansion over evolutionary time.” [Abstract]
… Please join us at O’Bannon’s at 4 on Friday, 2/3/17 for the second EEB Journal Club meeting of the semester. We will be discussing “Divergent natural selection promotes immigrant inviability at early and late stages of evolutionary divergence” (Authors Ingley and Johnson) [Wiley Online]
If you would like to lead next week’s discussion, please bring two or three abstracts to the meeting for the group to choose from.
