JOURNAL CLUB
Fall 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 literature that may be outside of your field.
EEBISO
. . . February 2019. New EEB T-shirts are for sale! This year’s T-shirt features a LIMITED EDITION design and is only available in the hippest color of the year – dark heather grey. They will surely sell out fast. We will be selling them next Monday (2/10) ~ 30 minutes before EEB seminar starts (HFSB 102) and next Friday (2/14) at the Darwin Day 2020 event. If you want a shirt but can’t make it to these events, email me off of the list-serv and we will figure something out. All sizes are $15. Cash only. Proceeds from this sale are used to fund EEBISO events.
As a graduate student, networking and connecting with your fellow student researchers is an important way to share information, discover innovative solutions to research problems, and even set up collaborations.
The Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Interdisciplinary Student Organization (EEBISO) facilitates the formation of these connections by providing a relaxed setting for students to stay abreast of our ever-changing field(s), socialize with students from a vast array of departments and research backgrounds, have fun and make lasting friendships and collaborations in the process.
Below is a list of some of the events the EEBISO hosts. All are student-run, with the goal of fostering leadership and community within the graduate students participating in EEB.
If you want to get on the EEBISO (student organization) listserv, send an email to listserv@listserv.tamu.edu with SUBSCRIBE eebiso FirstName LastName in the body of the message.
Weekly Journal Club
Every week, EEBISO students meet up to discuss a journal article that is ecology or evolutionary biology-themed. This serves as a way for students to learn about cutting-edge research across our wide disciplines. See the journal club schedule on this page.
Monthly Shop Talks
The first week of every month, in-lieu of journal club, students may present talks in progress, a discussion about a new lab methodology they’re trying, photos from a recent field expedition, or data they’re trouble shooting to their peers for help and feedback. Pizza is often provided!
Weekly Happy Hours
EEB students and faculty at A&M know that relaxing after a long week in the lab is important for mental and emotional health—and many take part in this informal happy hour event held at Northgate (just north of campus) to relax and catch up with colleagues.
Fall EEBISO-hosted Picnic and Spring Crawfish Boil
Every semester, EEBISO officers and volunteers put together these often huge and always fun social gatherings. In fall, activities include eating great food catered from local businesses and a pre-Halloween/science themed costume contest. Our crawfish boil takes advantage of the spring crawfish harvest and is one of our most popular events.
Additional activities
In addition to the activities listed above, EEBISO members also play intramural soccer, go on camping adventures together, and often assist with other EEB sponsored activities, such as the Ecological Integration Symposium (EIS), which happens every spring.
For more information about Journal Club or EEBISO, contact Alyson Brokaw.
