Behavioral Ecology Blog

’cause 2008 is the United Nations International Year of the Potato
As my readership is essentially non-existant in Idaho, the existance of pornography focused on this occasionally lumpy vegetable will come as a shock to most.   For a primer- see here 
Below the fold: a shocking example.  Beware: not for the faint of heart or children.

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Now I’m no Coleoptera systematist, but it’s hard not to say “Holy Shit” when you look- really look at the evolution of the Coleoptera.
There is a new paper in Science: A Comprehensive Phylogeny of Beetles Reveals the Evolutionary Origins of a Superradiation that is really impressive. Here is the abstract:
Beetles represent almost one-fourth of all [...]

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For the practicing scientists reading this blog (are there any??), you know that there are certain people whose work it pays to take note of. For behavioral ecologists (and evolutionary biologists in general), Tim Clutton Brock (TCB) is one such researcher. His work as spanned multiple decades, and has ranged from hard-core field oriented studies [...]

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But really… what caption would you give this photo.. From MCS. For PZ

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I’ve added a link and slide show to my new flickr account up in the header and eft sidebar respectively.. Please check them out.. I’ll be adding more soon.

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Person1:
I have cats… and  I never feed them cause the eat the mice.. And my dog, he eats the ground squirrels. Those ground squirrels are real pests, they eat all my bulbs and make holes in the yard.
Person2:
What are ground squirrels?
Person1:
Oh, they are like gophers
Me:
Actually, gophers and squirrels are not all that similar- save for [...]

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There is a cool paper in Evolution this month that demonstrates the power of natural selection. By Kleven, et. al. “Intraspecific Variation in Sperm Length is Negatively Related to Sperm Competition in Passerine Birds“
Abstract:

Spermatozoa are among the most diversified cells in the animal kingdom, but the underlying evolutionary forces affecting intraspecific variation in sperm morphology [...]

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It’s unusual for me to blog about plants- but here goes, it’s too cool to pass up!  The UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens has a world class collection of plants of the Genus Agave. There are something like 80 species represented, making this a very large representation. One particular species though it causing a lot of [...]

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What’s an RSS feed you say:  Read Here

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Thanks Greg
1971 Academy Awards
Short Subjects (Animated Films)

Evolution - National Film Board of Canada, Columbia - Michael Mills

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