161 posts · 135,952 views
I'm a doctoral student in evolutionary ecology; D & T is my personal 'blog, and my top topics are science, religion, and politics, with particular interest in the interface between science and religion.
Jeremy Yoder
161 posts
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- August 14, 2010
- 06:59 PM
- 6,086 views
Cite more papers, get more citations?
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
Nature News is reporting some interesting results presented as a paper at a meeting of the International Society for the Psychology of Science & Technology last week: articles published in the journal Science with longer "Works Cited" sections are themselves more frequently cited [$$]. A plot of the number of references listed in each article against the number of citations it eventually received reveal that almost half of the variation in citation rates among the Science papers can be attribut........ Read more »
Webster, G.D., Jonason, P.K., & Schember, T.O. (2009) Hot topics and popular papers in evolutionary psychology: Analyses of title words and citation counts in Evolution and Human Behavior, 1979-2008. Evolutionary Psychology, 7(3), 348-348. info:other/http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/ep07348362.pdf
- August 31, 2008
- 11:33 AM
- 1,614 views
Big herbivores shape plant community response to global warming
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
The cover article from this week's PNAS has important implications for how we plan for, and deal with, climate change. Post and Pedersen report that the way an arctic plant community changes in response to warming depends heavily on the presence of large herbivores [$-a], like muskoxen and caribou.
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E. Post, & C. Pedersen. (2008) Opposing plant community responses to warming with and without herbivores. PNAS, 105(34), 12353-8. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0802421105
F.L. Russell, D.B. Zippin, & N.L. Fowler. (2001) Effects of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) on plants, plant populations and communities: A review. The American Midland Naturalist, 146(1), 1-26. DOI: 10.1674/0003-0031(2001)146[0001:EOWTDO]2.0.CO;2
- October 19, 2008
- 03:07 PM
- 1,612 views
Towards an empirical morality
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
Andrew Sullivan links to a thought-provoking 1998 essay by E.O. Wilson, in which the champion of sociobiology delves into the question of whether morality arises from divine revelation or natural selection. Wilson takes an interesting position, attempting to turn the question around by ninety degrees:But the split is not, as popularly supposed, between religious believers and secularists. It is... Read more »
J.D. Greene, R.B. Sommerville, L.E. Nystrom, J.M. Darley, & J.D. Cohen. (2001) An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment. Science, 293(5537), 2105-8. DOI: 10.1126/science.1062872
- August 29, 2008
- 01:50 PM
- 1,551 views
The evolution of offspring size
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
The question of offspring size - that is, how big a child is relative to its parent - can seem downright absurd. In fact, it was the subject of the only paper (to my knowledge) ever published in the journal Evolution that ends with a punch line. That piece, written by Ellstrand in 1983, pretended to seriously address the question of why juveniles are smaller than their parents [$-a]. It was... Read more »
N.C. Ellstrand. (1983) Why are juveniles smaller than their parents?. Evolution, 1091-4. DOI: http://www.jstor.org/pss/2408423
D.S. Falster, A.T. Moles, & M.Westoby. (2008) A General Model for the Scaling of Offspring Size and Adult Size. The American Naturalist, 172(3), 299-317. DOI: 10.1086/589889
C.C. Smith, & S.D. Fretwell. (1974) The optimal balance between size and number of offspring. The American Naturalist, 499-506. DOI: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2459681
- October 30, 2008
- 03:57 PM
- 1,473 views
Why do butterflies have four wings?
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
In this week's PNAS is a tidy result that demonstrates what you ca get away with when you study invertebrates: butterflies and moths can still fly if their hindwings are amputated, but they can't take evasive action [$-a]. That summary tells you just about all you need to about the reported experimental result; but the rest of the article has some interesting speculation.
.flickr-photo { }.... Read more »
B. Jantzen, & T. Eisner. (2008) Hindwings are unnecessary for flight but essential for execution of normal evasive flight in Lepidoptera. PNAS, 105(43), 16636-40. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0807223105
- September 7, 2008
- 02:45 AM
- 1,457 views
Christ Church as it is: Creationist Credentials
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
A couple of weeks ago, I introduced Christ Church, Moscow, Idaho's friendly neighborhood theocracy-in-embryo, which weds garden-variety Christian Right hypocrisy with creepy, racist Neo-Confederate overtones. Today, I'm going to have a look at the Christ Church-affiliated New Saint Andrews College.
NSA cultivates a reputation as the ivory tower's ivory tower - the curriculum includes lots of... Read more »
W. Godsoe, J.B. Yoder, C.I. Smith, & O. Pellmyr. (2008) Coevolution and Divergence in the Joshua Tree/Yucca Moth Mutualism. The American Naturalist, 171(6), 816-23. DOI: 10.1086/587757
R. Gomulkiewicz, D.M. Drown, M.F. Dybdahl, W. Godsoe, S.L. Nuismer, K.M. Pepin, B.J. Ridenhour, C.I. Smith, & J.B. Yoder. (2007) Dos and don'ts of testing the geographic mosaic theory of coevolution. Heredity, 98(5), 249-58. DOI: 10.1038/sj.hdy.6800949
G.L. Wilson, & C.H. Ernst. (2005) Reproductive Ecology of the Terrapene carolina carolina (Eastern Box Turtle) in Central Virginia. Southeastern Naturalist, 4(4), 689. DOI: 10.1656/1528-7092(2005)004[0689:REOTTC]2.0.CO;2
J.B. Yoder, & B. Shneiderman. (2008) Science 2.0: Not So New?. Science, 320(5881), 1290-1. DOI: 10.1126/science.320.5881.1290
- August 22, 2008
- 02:28 PM
- 1,428 views
How the chili got its hots
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
In this week's PNAS: capsaicin, the stuff that makes chili peppers hot, may have originally evolved as an anti-fungal agent [$-a].
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Photo by bleu celt.Tewksbury et al. examine variation in "pungency" (that is, concentration of... Read more »
J. J. Tewksbury, D. J. Levey, M. Huizinga, D. C. Haak, & A. Traveset. (2008) Costs and benefits of capsaicin-mediated control of gut retention in dispersers of wild chilies. Ecology, 89(1), 107-17. DOI: 10.1890/07-0445.1
J. J. Tewksbury, & G. P. Nabhan. (2001) Seed dispersal: Directed deterrence by capsaicin in chilies. Nature, 412(6845), 403-4. DOI: 10.1038/35086653
J. J. Tewksbury, K. M. Reagan, N. J. Machnicki, T. A. Carlo, D. C. Haak, A. L. C. Penaloza, & D. J. Levey. (2008) Evolutionary ecology of pungency in wild chilies. PNAS, 105(33), 11808-11. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0802691105
- January 2, 2009
- 10:19 AM
- 1,388 views
Evolution applied: Biological warfare against mosquito-borne disease
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
This week's issue of Science starts the new year with an exciting application of evolutionary dynamics: a sort of biological warfare agent to control disease-bearing mosquitoes.
Even in the twenty-first century, mosquito-borne diseases like malaria and Dengue fever remain major public health challenges, particularly in the developing world. When vaccines are not available, the only way to... Read more »
C.J. McMeniman, R.V. Lane, B.N. Cass, A.W.C. Fong, M. Sidhu, Y.-F. Wang, & S.L. O'Neill. (2009) Stable introduction of a life-shortening Wolbachia infection into the mosquito Aedes aegypti. Science, 323(5910), 141-4. DOI: 10.1126/science.1165326
A.F. Read, & M.B. Thomas. (2009) MICROBIOLOGY: Mosquitoes cut short. Science, 323(5910), 51-2. DOI: 10.1126/science.1168659
- August 14, 2008
- 03:11 PM
- 1,343 views
Michael Phelps is fast, but what's his z-score?
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
Even without following the Olympics in any detail, it's hard not to hear about the success of U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps: a new record for career gold medals won by an athlete in any sport, and new time records for just about every race he swims.
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Chatterjee, S, & Yilmaz, MR. (1999) The NBA as an Evolving Multivariate System. The American Statistician, 257-262. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2686106
- October 2, 2008
- 04:28 PM
- 1,302 views
Joshua tree genetics suggest coevolutionary divergence
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
The latest results from the Pellmyr Lab's ongoing study of Joshua tree and its pollinators are online as part of the new October issue of Evolution. It's the cover article, no less. The study, whose lead author is Chris Smith (now on the faculty at Willamette University) compares patterns in the population genetics of Joshua trees and the moths that pollinate them, and shows that although the... Read more »
W. Godsoe, J.B. Yoder, C.I. Smith, & O. Pellmyr. (2008) Coevolution and Divergence in the Joshua Tree/Yucca Moth Mutualism. The American Naturalist, 171(6), 816-23. DOI: 10.1086/587757
C.I. Smith, W.K.W. Godsoe, S. Tank, J.B. Yoder, & O. Pellmyr. (2008) Distinguishing coevolution from covicariance in an obligate pollination mutualism: asynchronous divergence in Joshua tree and its pollinators. Evolution, 62(10), 2676-87. DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2008.00500.x
- July 29, 2008
- 11:41 PM
- 1,296 views
Against specialist herbivores, plants give up
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
Plants put up with a lot - everyone wants to eat them! And, basically, there are two ways a plant might respond to being eaten. They can put energy into regrowing bits that get eaten, or they can put energy into making a lot of some nasty chemical, like the milky sap in milkweed. The trouble with the first option is obvious - it doesn't do anything to stop the damage. But the trouble with the... Read more »
A. A. Agrawal, & M. Fishbein. (2008) Phylogenetic escalation and decline of plant defense strategies. PNAS, 105(29), 10057-10060. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0802368105
P.R. Ehrlich, & P.H. Raven. (1964) Butterflies and plants: A study in coevolution. Evolution, 18(4), 586-608. http://www.jstor.org/pss/2406212
- July 27, 2010
- 09:05 AM
- 1,278 views
Before they were yucca moths
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
Yuccas and yucca moths have one of the most peculiar pollination relationships known to science. The moths are the only pollinators of yuccas, carrying pollen from flower to flower in specialized mouthparts and actively tamping it into the tip of the pistil. Before she pollinates, though, each moth lays eggs in the flower—the developing yucca seeds will be the only thing her offspring eat. How does such a specialized, co-adapted interaction evolve in the first place? My coauthors and I attemp........ Read more »
Brown, J., Leebens-Mack, J., Thompson, J., Pellmyr, O., & Harrison, R. (1997) Phylogeography and host association in a pollinating seed parasite Greya politella (Lepidoptera: Prodoxidae). Molecular Ecology, 6(3), 215-24. DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-294X.1997.t01-1-00171.x
Pellmyr, O. (1999) Forty million years of mutualism: Evidence for Eocene origin of the yucca-yucca moth association. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA, 96(16), 9178-83. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.96.16.9178
Yoder, J.B., Smith, C.I., & Pellmyr, O. (2010) How to become a yucca moth: minimal trait evolution needed to establish the obligate pollination mutualism. Biol. J. Linnean Soc., 100(4), 847-55. DOI: 10.1111/j.1095-8312.2010.01478.x
- October 17, 2008
- 01:05 PM
- 1,264 views
Sympatric skepticism
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
The new issue of The Journal of Evolutionary Biology has a great article on a question that dates back to Darwin: sympatric speciation[$-a].
Sympatric speciation is simply speciation that occurs when a species splits into two reproductively isolated groups without any physical barrier arising between those groups. It's often treated as the opposite of allopatric speciation, in which a species is... Read more »
B.M. Fitzpatrick, J.A. Fordyce, & S. Gavrilets. (2008) What, if anything, is sympatric speciation?. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 1452-9. DOI: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2008.01611.x
- March 15, 2009
- 02:55 PM
- 1,255 views
The environmental impacts of war
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
Last year Bioscience published a review article proposing a new discipline in conservation ecology: warfare ecology [PDF]. It's now making the rounds in the science blogosphere, with good coverage at Conservation Blog and Deep Sea News, where I first happened upon it - and it deserves all the attention it can get.
In the U.S., at any rate, war and preparation for war tend to get priority over everything - especially tree-hugging environmental concerns. Exhibit A is last year's Supreme Court dec........ Read more »
G. Machlis, & T. Hanson. (2008) Warfare ecology. BioScience, 58(8), 729-36. DOI: 10.1641/B580809
- September 11, 2009
- 10:34 PM
- 1,251 views
Bat-eating tits!
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
Like pretty much anyone else writing about this, I'm in it for the headline. Well, maybe 30% for the headline -- this is also just freaky natural history. A paper in Biology Letters reports that great tits (Parus major -- basically big chickadees) will hunt and eat hibernating bats [$-a] if they can't find other food sources.
The paper reports on ten years of recorded bat-eating by a population of great tits in Hungary, capped by two years of systematic observations and a couple simple experime........ Read more »
Estok, P., Zsebok, S., & Siemers, B. (2009) Great tits search for, capture, kill and eat hibernating bats. Biology Letters. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0611
- September 14, 2008
- 06:12 PM
- 1,244 views
DNA barcoding: a glitch in the system?
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
Following up on last week's post about uncovering hidden species using DNA diversity (or "DNA barcoding"), an open-access paper in this week's issue of PNAS demonstrates a potentially significant glitch in the system: mitochondrial pseudogenes.
The original DNA barcoding concept is straightforward, if not uncontroversial - use a standard DNA sequence marker to identify ("barcode") species that... Read more »
P.D.N. Hebert, A. Cywinska, S.L. Ball, & J.R. deWaard. (2003) Biological identifications through DNA barcodes. Proc. Royal Society B, 270(1512), 313-21. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2002.2218
H. Song, J.E. Buhay, M.F. Whiting, & K.A. Crandall. (2008) Many species in one: DNA barcoding overestimates the number of species when nuclear mitochondrial pseudogenes are coamplified. PNAS, 105(36), 13486-91. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0803076105
- March 1, 2011
- 09:05 AM
- 1,185 views
Pollinating birds leave plants in the lurch
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
Plants' ancient relationship with animal pollinators is pretty crazy, when you think about it. On the one hand, it gives plants access to mates they can't go find on their own, and it's more efficient than making scads of pollen and hoping the wind blows some onto another member of your species. On the other hand, it can leave a plant totally dependent upon another species for its reproduction.
This catch is probably why lots of plants still use wind pollination strategies, or reserve the opti........ Read more »
Anderson, S., Kelly, D., Ladley, J., Molloy, S., & Terry, J. (2011) Cascading effects of bird functional extinction reduce pollination and plant density. Science, 331(6020), 1068-1071. DOI: 10.1126/science.1199092
Sekercioglu, C. (2011) Functional extinctions of bird pollinators cause plant declines. Science, 331(6020), 1019-20. DOI: 10.1126/science.1202389
- March 31, 2009
- 04:33 PM
- 1,184 views
That "mystery of mysteries": What makes a species?
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
In a special issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society on speciation, James Mallet argues that the Biological Species Concept is at odds with Charles Darwin's original ideas about what a species is - and that current research supports Darwin [$-a].
When The Origin of Species was first published, biologists mostly thought species were easy to recognize - they looked different from each other, and they couldn't successfully interbreed with each other. This view was a problem for Da........ Read more »
Mallet, J. (2008) Hybridization, ecological races and the nature of species: empirical evidence for the ease of speciation. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 363(1506), 2971-86. DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2008.0081
Smith, C., W. Godsoe, S. Tank, J. Yoder, & O. Pellmyr. (2008) Distinguishing coevolution from covicariance in an obligate pollination mutualism: asynchronous divergence in Joshua tree and its pollinators. Evolution, 62(10), 2676-87. DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2008.00500.x
- August 21, 2009
- 12:10 PM
- 1,179 views
That possum you just ran over? It might have saved you from Lyme disease
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
Growing up in suburban Pennsylvania, where the most hazardous wildlife not extirpated from our woods is the occasional crazed whitetail deer, there was really only one danger I associated with the outdoors -- ticks. Specifically, ticks carrying Lyme disease, a not-very-pleasant bacterial infection that attacks the joints, heart, and nervous system if left untreated. According to a paper released online early in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, my risk of picking up Lyme disease on an excursio........ Read more »
Keesing, F., Holt, R., & Ostfeld, R. (2006) Effects of species diversity on disease risk. Ecology Letters, 9(4), 485-98. DOI: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2006.00885.x
Keesing, F., Brunner, J., Duerr, S., Killilea, M., LoGiudice, K., Schmidt, K., Vuong, H., & Ostfeld, R. (2009) Hosts as ecological traps for the vector of Lyme disease. Proc. R. Soc. B. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.1159
- February 22, 2011
- 09:05 AM
- 1,176 views
One of these mutualists is not like the other
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
Over the last few months I've been writing a lot about how different species interactions have different evolutionary effects. The studies I've looked at so far focus on effects over just a few generations—barely time to take notice, in evolutionary time. The February issue of The American Naturalist remedies this short-term perspective with a paper showing that over millions of years, two different kinds of mutualists had very different effects on the history of one group of orchids [$a].
Th........ Read more »
Armbruster, W., & Muchhala, N. (2008) Associations between floral specialization and species diversity: cause, effect, or correlation?. Evolutionary Ecology, 23(1), 159-79. DOI: 10.1007/s10682-008-9259-z
Waterman, R., Bidartondo, M., Stofberg, J., Combs, J., Gebauer, G., Savolainen, V., Barraclough, T., & Pauw, A. (2011) The effects of above- and belowground mutualisms on orchid speciation and coexistence. The American Naturalist, 177(2). DOI: 10.1086/657955
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