Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

CU 91��Ҹ� scientists honored as AAAS fellows

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 14:20:24 +0000

CU 91��Ҹ� scientists honored as AAAS fellows Rachel Sauer Thu, 03/26/2026 - 08:20

Scholars Rebecca Safran and Tin Tin Su recognized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science for excellence in research, teaching and interpreting science to the public

Rebecca Safran, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology who has led groundbreaking research on the evolution of new species, and Tin Tin Su, professor and chair of molecular, cellular and developmental biology whose research is leading to novel cancer therapies, have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

The AAAS fellowship is among the highest honors in the scientific community, recognizing a distinguished cohort of scientists, engineers and innovators who “have been recognized for their achievements across disciplines, from research, teaching and technology to administration in academia, industry and government, to excellence in communicating and interpreting science to the public,” AAAS officials note.

“This year’s AAAS Fellows have demonstrated research excellence, made notable contributions to advance science and delivered important services to their communities,” says Sudip S. Parikh, AAAS chief executive officer and executive publisher of the Science family of journals. “These Fellows and their accomplishments validate the importance of investing in science and technology for the benefit of all.”

Rebecca Safran is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology who has led groundbreaking research on the evolution of new species.

A study of swallows

Safran, whose passion for biology took root in a plant taxonomy class during her undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan, and her research team, study the evolution of new species, focusing on the causes and consequences of individual variation across different scales of time and space.

Because studying the formation of new species can be difficult—given that most species are millions of years old and what caused them to diverge from their ancestors often can’t be determined—Safran and her team study barn swallows, a very closely related group of populations of migratory birds that are currently diverging. This allows Safran and her team to study the process of speciation in real time.

Safran won a National Science Foundation Early Career Development award to study speciation in barn swallows across their entire, expansive breeding range throughout the Northern Hemisphere and Middle East. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when it wasn’t possible to conduct research in other countries, Safran and her research team began focusing on the rapid decline in the population of barn swallows and its implications. For their work, Safran and team study the birds using a highly integrative approach including behavioral, physiological and genetic perspectives.

Among other discoveries, Safran and her team found that sexual selection, or the process by which organisms choose mates based on traits they find attractive, drives the emergence of new species. Her team’s research has been published in more than 120 peer-reviewed journals, including Science, Nature and Current Biology. She also co-edited a recent book on speciation (2024, Cold Spring Harbor Press).

“None of this work is possible without the incredible collaboration with students, colleagues at CU and around the world, private landowers who allow us to study populations of barn swallows on their properties and continuous funding support by the National Science Foundation and other agencies,” Safran says. “I am especially honored to have worked with so many talented undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students."

Studying fruit flies to treat cancer

Su, who attended Woodstock School in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India, credits her experiences there, in part, with helping her understand that her ideal environment is one in which “you do respect the elders or people who have had more experience or authority. But at the same time, if it doesn't seem right, you question it.”

Tin Tin Su is a professor and chair of molecular, cellular and developmental biology whose research is leading to novel cancer therapies.

Throughout her career, Su and her research colleagues have sought to develop new ways of attacking cancer. Through research on how tissues and organs in fruit flies regenerate after being damaged by X-rays, they synthesized the chemical SVC112, which helps prevent cancer cells from regrowing following radiation exposure. Su and her colleagues focused on the fruit fly because this insect shares more than 70% of disease-relevant genes with humans.

SVC112 is based on the chemical bouvardin found in the firecracker bush (Bouvardia ternifolia) that grows in the Southwest United States and Mexico. Su and her colleagues discovered that bouvardin can prevent regeneration of tissues in fruit flies.

More recently, Su, who also is a member of the CU Cancer Center, and her colleague Antonio Jimeno, co-leader of the CU Cancer Center’s Developmental Therapeutics Program, used SVC112 to target cancer stem cells in head and neck cancers. They are in the process of applying to the FDA to test SVC112 in human trials.

Su also has participated in the CU 91��Ҹ� Community Perspectives Program, conducting outreach in several rural Colorado communities that led to a research collaboration with Colorado State University Pueblo to assess the effect of heavy metals on the genome in fruit fly and human cells.

“I do what I do because I love science,” Su says. “The potential to help cancer patients in Colorado and beyond makes it even better. So, to be named a AAAS Fellow is really the cherry on top!”

About the AAAS Fellowship

The AAAS began naming fellows annually in 1874, people nominated by the AAAS Council to recognize those whose “efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications are scientifically or socially distinguished.”

Safran and Su join a cohort of more than 80 CU 91��Ҹ� faculty members who previously received the honor, as well as a broader cadre that includes Thomas Edison, W.E.B DuBois, Maria Mitchell, Steven Chu, Ellen Ochoa and Irwin M. Jacobs.

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Scholars Rebecca Safran and Tin Tin Su recognized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science for excellence in research, teaching and interpreting science to the public.

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Don’t just explain the science, dance it

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 16:14:04 +0000

Don’t just explain the science, dance it Rachel Sauer Thu, 03/12/2026 - 10:14

Rachel Sauer

Asia Kaiser, a bee researcher and ecology and evolutionary biology PhD candidate, is named social sciences category winner in the international Dance Your PhD contest sponsored by the journal Science

There’s a lot going on with bees right now. Because it was an unseasonably warm winter, queens may be emerging from hibernation and beginning to lay the eggs of their first broods. And since queens can choose the sex of their offspring, they are now or soon will be producing daughters.

It’s fascinating information about one of the planet’s most complex and charismatic insects, but how to convey it in dance?

PhD candidate Asia Kaiser (in a scene from her Dance Your PhD entry), studies how human land use affects different insect groups and, consequently, the ecosystem services they provide in coupled human-natural systems.

Start with a shimmy—reminiscent, perhaps, of the movement of bees’ wings or the vibration of their flight muscles. Then weave undulating patterns with fellow dancers, gliding and twirling in a choreography of bees in motion. And bring it home with a question about what happens when we remove native flowers from urban environments or destroy bee habitat to build roads or houses (answer: nothing good).

In short, dance your PhD. So, that’s what Asia Kaiser did.

Kaiser, a PhD candidate in the 91��Ҹ� 91��Ҹ� Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EBIO) and researcher in the Resasco Lab, this week was announced the social sciences category winner in the international Dance Your PhD contest sponsored by the journal Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Now in its 18th year, Dance Your PhD seeks, through a spirit of fun and of marrying art and science, to address a scenario that scientists commonly experience: “The party is just getting started when the dreaded question comes: ‘So, what’s your PhD research about?’ You launch into the explanation, trying to judge the level of interest as you go deeper. It takes about a minute before someone changes the subject,” contest organizers explain.

“At times like this, don’t you wish you lived in a world where you could just ask people to pull out their phones to watch an online video explaining your PhD research through interpretive dance?”

“I was a dancer all through college, so I have a background in belly dance and Latin dance,” Kaiser explains. “And I like to make music, so I thought this could be a really fun way to explain my research.”

Learning to dance

And what is that research? Bees. Specifically, how human land use affects different insect groups and, consequently, the ecosystem services they provide in coupled human-natural systems. Her research aims to improve the resilience of urban agroecosystems, increase equitable access to fresh produce and promote environmental justice in cities.

As for the dancing, Kaiser had wanted to take dance lessons while growing up in Philadelphia, but there wasn’t room in the budget for them. So, after graduating high school she took a gap year in Brazil to do service work and finally began learning dance. She started with belly dance, then branched into samba and other Latin styles.

When she began her ecology and evolutionary biology undergraduate studies at Princeton University, “I thought, ‘I’m going to invest in my secondary dream,’” Kaiser recalls, which meant stepping away from the books sometimes to immerse herself in the vibrant dance scene in Princeton and the broader New York City and Philadelphia area.

She also is a cellist, so when she came to CU 91��Ҹ� to pursue her PhD she began making music with other people in her department.

When she heard about Dance Your PhD, it dovetailed with so many of the things she loves: dance and music and science. However, the deadline to submit entry videos was Feb. 20, and she decided to enter the contest a mere two weeks before then.

She started with the music, composing a piece to score the story in her mind: “I wanted to tell a story of bees emerging in early spring in your backyard and what they’re up to. People know a lot about honeybees, but not other bee species, so I wanted to highlight how important they are to urban ecosystems.”

Kaiser put out a call for dancers and fortunately, the response from her fellow PhD students and candidates was abundant and eager. Then she and Ella Henry, a violinist and EBIO PhD student, recorded the music.

Science as art

Because of the quick turnaround, the troupe had time for just two rehearsals before their afternoon of filming in front of the EBIO greenhouses on 30th Street in 91��Ҹ�. It was an EBIO community collaboration. PhD students Manuela Mejía, Lincoln Taylor, Gladiana Spitz, Kaylee Rosenberger and Ella Henry danced Kaiser’s choreography alongside her. PhD student Luis de Pablo helped with sound engineering and Scott Taylor, EBIO associate professor and director of the Mountain 91��Ҹ� Station, was cinematographer. Kaiser’s husband, John Russell, provided voiceover narration for the final video.

And despite the extremely short timeframe, it all came together, Kaiser says. For example, she happened to have a pair of gold Isis wings, a traditional belly dance prop, that Lincoln Taylor wore “to depict the fact that male bees spend their lives flying around,” she says.

The dance, music and costumes united in a science-as-art visualization of her PhD, which she uploaded to YouTube and clicked submit on her Dance Your PhD entry. She was up against scientists from around the world, so learning that she won her category was especially significant.

“Obviously, I love bees,” she says, “and I love to dance and make music, so it was a really cool experience to create this piece with my friends and find a different way to talk about my research.”

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Asia Kaiser, a bee researcher and ecology and evolutionary biology PhD candidate, is named social sciences category winner in the international Dance Your PhD contest sponsored by the journal Science.

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A slow drama in the red rock canyons of the San Rafael River

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 23:14:00 +0000

A slow drama in the red rock canyons of the San Rafael River Rachel Sauer Wed, 03/04/2026 - 16:14

Jeff Mitton

Intentionally introduced to the western United States in the 1800s, tamarisk is a bully of a neighbor that replaces native species with a dense monoculture that no native herbivores care to eat

The San Rafael River is only 90 miles long, originating at the confluence of three creeks emanating from the Green River in the Wasatch Plateau, two miles upstream of the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness. This is red rock canyon country in Utah, rugged and sublimely scenic. It is a wonder that the San Rafael, which dwindles to a shallow creek during summer and fall, could have carved such deep canyons.

Approximately 15 miles downstream of the confluence is Little Grand Canyon, about 10 miles long, and at the Wedge Overlook, 1,000 to 1,200 feet deep. The overlook provides not only a fine view of the river below but also a panoramic view of Sid's Mountain Wilderness to the south and Mexican Mountain Wilderness to the east. The eastern end of the Little Grand Canyon opens to the Historic Swinging Bridge, built in 1937 to allow mining and cattle trucks to cross the San Rafael River at the Buckhorn Draw. Primitive campgrounds at Wedge overlook, Swinging Bridge and along Buckhorn Draw make this an adventurer’s destination.

The San Rafael River enters Mexican Mountain Wilderness at Swinging Bridge. From there, Mexican Mountain Road runs between the river and an escarpment of tall cliffs for 30 miles. This is a rough road, definitely 4WD-HC, but it is worth the time and jostling, for it leads to Mexican Mountain and three spectacular slot canyons: Lockhart, Upper Black Box and Lower Black Box. A slot canyon is particularly deep and narrow—for example, both Upper and Lower Black Box are miles long, and in some sections, each is 400 feet deep and other sections only 25 feet wide. In both slot canyons, the water is so deep that most of the passage is achieved by swimming or drifting in an inner tube. Upper Black Box is usually entered by rappelling vertical walls 60 or 80 feet tall. I don't do that. I have only peered into Lockhart and Upper Black Boxes—both provided awesome views and opportunities for photos of Mexican Mountain looming high above a deep and narrow slot canyon.

With all the pinnacles, canyons and cliffs to appreciate, it is easy to overlook the slow and silent drama gripping the plant community in the red rock canyons of the San Rafael River. In the early to mid 1800s, multiple species of tamarisk were introduced to the western United States, and today six species can be found on or around the Colorado Plateau. The most common tamarisk species is probably Tamarix chinensis (synonym ramosissima) from China. Tamarisk was purposely introduced to the southwest for its abilities to thrive in a dry climate and colonize and stabilize soils that no other plants could tolerate.

Tamarisk crowds both sides of an oxbow of the San Rafael River, strangling rabbitbrush. (Photo: Jeff Mitton)

The problem with tamarisk is that it is a bully of a neighbor, replacing native species, such as cottonwoods, willows and rabbitbrush, until the streams and rivers are lined with a dense and virtually impenetrable monoculture that no native herbivores care to eat. Although it has the growth form of a shrub, tamarisk is technically a tree, and dense stands turn into denser stands of deadwood, transforming the plant community and creating a fire hazard. Each plant can produce between 500,000 and 600,000 seeds per year, so when a fire comes, the dead branches spread the fire quickly, killing most plants. When the next rains come, an enormous bank of tamarisk seeds are waiting; tamarisk becomes more numerous with each fire.

Four or five decades ago I saw stretches of the Green River lined with stately cottonwoods that were inviting to campers, picknickers and fishers. Since then, tamarisk has moved in and changed that pleasantly shaded riverbank to a dense, sharp, scratchy thicket, profoundly unpleasant to fight through. In addition, tamarisk colonized the river's edge, trapping sediments and narrowing the channel. Some strands of cottonwoods, increasingly isolated from the water, have died. Narrowing the river channel changes its ecology for a variety of fish species. Tamarisk has many pretty flowers, but the only other civil thing that can be said for tamarisk is that it is very nearly the perfect weed: accumulates deadwood, is flammable and inedible, and has deep roots and high seed production.

When tamarisk invaded national parks and monuments and state parks, state and federally employed ecologists initiated control measures. Dinosaur National Monument, Arches National Park, Saguaro National Park, Mojave Trails National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Glen Canyon and Lake Mead National Recreation Areas all initiated programs to manage the perfect weed. They were joined by programs in the Colorado, Virgin, Dolores, Green and San Juan Rivers. It isn't easy to remove the perfect weed from a landscape. Fire, herbicides, chainsaws and bulldozers have all been tried, and although they can diminish the population of tamarisk, it always returns. Tamarisk is in the Little Grand Canyon and along the San Rafael River to Upper Black Box and below the Lower Black Box to the Green River. It is hard to find a stream or river in the southwest that is not being slowly claimed by tamarisk.

A new tool for the managers of public lands is being applied now. When tamarisk was introduced to North America, it escaped the herbivores that had evolved to eat its leaves and roots. But now, closely related species referred to as "tamarisk beetle" are being introduced to tamarisk thickets—including some in the downstream portions of the San Rafael River. Introductions by managers evoke both hope and dread.

Some introductions have been wonderful successes; others have been disastrous. So far, the managers have not seen any proclivity for the tamarisk beetle to eat anything other than tamarisk. Experienced managers do not use the word eradicate, but a realistic goal is to reduce tamarisk to a minor species in an otherwise healthy community of native species.

Jeff Mitton is a professor emeritus in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the 91��Ҹ� 91��Ҹ�. His column, "Natural Selections," is also printed in the 91��Ҹ� Daily Camera.

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Intentionally introduced to the western United States in the 1800s, tamarisk is a bully of a neighbor that replaces native species with a dense monoculture that no native herbivores care to eat.

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Top photo: Fremont's cottonwoods flourish along the San Rafael River in the Mexican Mountain Wilderness in Utah. (Photo: Jeff Mitton)

91��Ҹ�ers learn new lessons from old butterflies

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 18:00:00 +0000

91��Ҹ�ers learn new lessons from old butterflies Rachel Sauer Fri, 02/06/2026 - 11:00

Alexandra Phelps

91��Ҹ� co-authored by CU 91��Ҹ� PhD graduate Megan E. Zabinski and evolutionary biology Professor M. Deane Bowers reveals how museum butterfly specimens, some almost a century old, can still offer insight into chemical defense of insects and plants

You’re sitting in a field, a garden or another outdoor space, basking in a beautiful summer day. Clouds drift across the sky when something catches your eye. You turn to see a butterfly, its delicate wings and vibrant coloring shifting as it moves from flower to flower. For a moment it’s there, but soon, it moves too far away for you to see.

At first glance, butterflies appear to be just simple, dainty creatures that fly around feeding on plants. For 91��Ҹ� 91��Ҹ� PhD graduate Megan E. Zabinski and evolutionary biology Professor M. Deane Bowers, however, butterflies are anything but simple. Beneath their wings lies a complex system that plays an integral role in their survival.

In recently published research, CU 91��Ҹ� PhD graduate Megan E. Zabinski (left) and evolutionary biology Professor M. Deane Bowers (right), emphasize the value that museum specimens have in current scientific research.

In a recently published study in the Journal of Chemical Ecology, Zabinski and Bowers researched how two Euphydrays butterfly species—E. phaeton and E. anicia—sequester certain chemical compounds, a process by which organisms capture and store substances from their host plants to defend themselves against their enemies. The researchers found that they were able to understand how these butterflies sequester substances using both historic specimens as well as fresh ones.

Their project points to the value museum specimens can have in scientific research. By comparing historic butterfly specimens from CU 91��Ҹ�’s Museum of Natural History (CUMNH) with freshly collected and laboratory-reared butterflies, their research demonstrates the benefits, as well as the limitations, of using preserved insects to study chemical defenses decades after collection.

Hatching a plan

Although museum collections house billions of specimens, only a small fraction are used in research after they are acquired. Recognizing this gap inspired Zabinski to begin her research. While Zabinski was still a graduate student, an encounter with Bowers helped shape the trajectory of her academic career.

“Deane came up to me one day—I was in the EBIO club—and she told me she had a job for me. And I thought, ‘A job! You mean I can quit waiting tables at Applebee’s?’”

This opportunity allowed Zabinski to explore her interest in insects and plant-insect interactions within a laboratory setting.

“I absolutely loved being in the lab, doing the physical work with my hands, (whether it was) being able to be outside in the field or looking after the plants,” she says.

Working alongside Bowers—whose research also focuses on how insects interact with their environments—Zabinski began developing her own research questions. She specifically focused on how butterflies in different developmental stages consume and store defensive chemicals to use them later.

Zabinski became interested in whether museum butterfly specimens—which have rarely been investigated and examined for their chemical defenses—could still be helpful.

“We thought about how detecting sequestered defenses in museum specimens really has rarely been done,” she says. “The world of sequestration hadn’t really delved into museum collections. So, we were curious if there was utility there.”

The project was made possible in part by Bowers’ extensive research background and personal butterfly collection, which is housed at CUMNH. The collection includes the species used in the study. When combined with outside specimens, this collection, which includes the species used in the study, allowed Bowers and Zabinski to enrich their understanding of the butterflies.

The Euphydryas anicia butterfly is able to sequester compounds that plants create in defense against herbivores. (Photo: Robert Webster/Wikimedia Commons)

“There has been work done on detecting chemical compounds in plants,” Bowers says. “But there had been less done on insects, and Megan’s thesis had centered on looking at how this particular group of compounds in my lab has worked on particular compounds. We thought it would be really interesting to see if we could find them in old specimens.”

For Zabinski, the combination of Bowers’ expertise and insects available for research made this experiment uniquely valuable.

“It’s kind of the perfect storm for a good experiment. You have a colony in the lab; you also know where there is a field lab where you can get fresh specimens. You know that the museum also has them, but one of the species we had sequestered a high amount, so we thought that … even if there was some degradation, we would still be able to detect them,” she says.

Crawling toward a new understanding

Zabinski and Bowers analyzed specimens from two checkerspot butterfly species in the genus Euphydryas: Euphydryas anicia and Euphydryas phaeton. The species were selected because they are known for their high sequestration ability, abundance in the CUMNH entomology collection and the ease of obtaining live adult specimens. Their research aimed to better understand how the insects use and store these compounds after consuming them as larvae.

Both species sequester iridoid glycosides (IGs), which Zabinski explains are “compounds created by the plants in defense against the herbivores. They’re trying not to get eaten, but there are certain insects— including these butterflies—that capitalize off this process.” Bowers adds, “I’ve tasted (iridoid glycosides), and they’re really bitter. So they are a really good defense against predators and diseases.”

“They’ve been able to find a way to store these compounds in their own bodies and then they can confer some defense against predators,” Zabinski says.

In an initial pilot experiment, the researchers chemically extracted from only one set of wings—a forewing and a hindwing—from historic specimens to determine whether IGs could be detected from the wings alone. Previous experiments have determined that, because in butterfly wings there’s hemolymph (a circulatory fluid similar to blood), it’s possible to detect IGs there. Unfortunately, the results showed extremely low concentrations. To obtain detectable amounts, they found it necessary to analyze both the body and a pair of wings together. For documentation and future research, the set of right wings from each specimen was removed and preserved.

With their methodology established, they chose six E. phaeton specimens from the CUMNH that had been collected from 1936–1977. For comparison, E. phaeton larvae were collected from Burlington County, Vermont, brought back to 91��Ҹ� and raised in the laboratory with their host plant, white turtlehead, Chelone glabra. Once the butterflies reached adulthood, they were freeze-killed and analyzed for their IG content.

Zabinski and Bowers also examined nine historic E. anicia specimens collected between 1933–1998. Fresh adult E. anicia were collected from Crescent Meadows in Eldorado Springs, Colorado, freeze-killed and immediately underwent extraction for chemical analysis. Although it’s almost impossible to tell what plant the freshly caught butterflies consumed as larvae, the field they were collected from is known to have four catalpol-containing host plants. Catalpol, an IG that is found in these plants, allowed the researchers to determine whether the butterflies were sequestering these compounds, even if they weren’t sure what specific plant was the butterflies’ food source.

“Raising butterflies is not easy,” Zabinski says. “Plants can’t just be alive and available—they have to be high quality, because it’s been shown in studies with these plants that if the plant is not happy, it will not allocate energy to create those compounds. Then your caterpillars are not going to want to eat it.”

Shifting predetermined perceptions

Despite being preserved for decades, the historic specimens still contained detectable traces of sequestered chemical defenses. While IG concentrations were significantly lower in museum specimens than in freshly collected butterflies, Zabinski’s results demonstrate that even after nearly a century, chemical traces of larval diets can still be detected in preserved specimens.

Euphydryas phaeton butterflies have "been able to find a way to store (plant defense) compounds in their own bodies and then they can confer some defense against predators,” says researcher Megan E. Zabinski. (Photo: Joshua Mayer/Wikimedia Commons)

By focusing on the detectability of chemical compounds in older specimens, Zabinski’s work contributes to a broader discussion about preservation methods. She notes that museums often have little control over how donated specimens were originally collected or preserved. She says that despite this, “If you’re a collections manager and you have a researcher that conducted a research experiment and would like to donate them to your collection, if you have the capacity to access them, you’re probably not going to say ‘no.’”

Zabinski explains that previous research demonstrating how preservation methods affect scientists’ ability to detect DNA in museum specimens really shifted how people preserve certain organisms.

“Most insects are preserved as dried specimens, although some are preserved in alcohol,” she says. “In other groups of organisms, like vertebrates and other invertebrates besides insects, they’re often preserved in alcohol or formaldehyde. We now know that using formaldehyde destroys DNA, and so I think the protocol for specimen preservation has changed, trying to preserve the DNA. That’s been one change that museums have been trying.”

Zabinski’s project and others like it are creating an incentive. “As more research comes out about the extended museum specimen and the utility of specimens—particularly with standardization—museums will find a draw to create some uniformity,” she says.

Soaring to new heights

On that summer day, someone who was watching the butterflies move was Bowers.

“I started collecting insects when I was a little kid,” she says. “In undergrad, I did some independent research on butterflies, [and later,] in graduate school, I had a really supportive advisor who told me to spend my first summer going out and looking at butterflies and seeing if I could find some interesting questions. That’s been the focus of my research since.”

Recognizing Zabinski’s curiosity and potential, Bowers recalls, “I brought Megan into the fold.”

“We hear a lot about climate change and we don’t really hear about these smaller interactions that are quite literally under our feet every day,” Zabinski reflects. She says this paper offers one example of how museum specimens are not just remnants of the past, but tools that can be used to better understand specimens today. As technology advances and more research is conducted into chemical defenses, Zabinski says museum specimens can prove to be even more valuable in understanding how organisms interact with their environments long after they’ve been collected.

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Top image: Euphydryas anicia butterfly (Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife)

Boxelder bugs and other insects are invading houses

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 17:31:39 +0000

Boxelder bugs and other insects are invading houses Rachel Sauer Wed, 02/04/2026 - 10:31

Jeff Mitton

The good news is none of them bite, sting or carry diseases that can be passed to humans

My house is being invaded. It happens to some extent in fall of most years, but this is the most intense invasion we have experienced, and on the first day of February we are still heaving cadavers and active insects into the backyard. One day I caught eight invaders. Most years, we have just one species trying to get in, but this year it is three.

Let me introduce the combatants: First is the small milkweed bug, Lygdaeus kalmi; next is the boxelder bug, Boisea trivitatti; and third is the western conifer seed bug, Leptogossus occidentalis. These three insects have much in common. For example, all of them are looking for a safe, warm place to spend the winter so they can reproduce in spring; more about this later. None of the three has cryptic coloration, they all have aposematic (or warning coloration) and each has a chemical defense. They all suck sap from green plants.

None of them bites or stings or carries diseases that can be passed to us.

The aposematic colorations advertise to predators that they are wielding chemical defenses. The colors and patterns of the three species make them easily identified, and the foul and poisonous fluids make any encounter poisonous and memorable.

Small milkweed bugs, like monarch butterflies, sequester cardiac glycosides that they take from the sap of the pods and seeds. Boxelder bugs have abdominal glands that release a foul smelling, disgusting-tasting liquid when they feel threatened. The western conifer seed bug has glands between its legs that release a repulsive, pungent smell taken from the seeds of Douglas fir, western white pine and lodgepole pine. Their bright colors, backed up by an awful taste with sickening effects, adequately protects these three bugs from predators.

Home-invading insects including (left to right) small milkweed bug, boxelder bug and western conifer seed bug. (Photos: Jeff Mitton)

I find it interesting that monarch butterflies, large milkweed bugs, milkweed leaf beetles and milkweed tiger moths, all feeding on milkweed, have adopted the orange and black aposematic coloration. They undoubtedly gain protection from the legions of herbivores, similarly colored, all carrying similar cardiac glycosides synthesized by milkweeds.

All three of these insects eat by sucking fluids sap or fluids inside green leaves and developing seeds. Their common names from their most common source of sap: small milkweed bug, boxelder bug and western conifer seed bug. Boxelder bugs favor the sap that they get from developing boxelder seeds, although they grow adequately by feeding from silver maples in 91��Ҹ�.

By far the most common of these bugs that I encounter inside the house are the boxelder bugs. At first, it was puzzling that such a high proportion of them, approaching 50%, are lifeless chitinous sheaths lying on the floor. This observation reminded me of the reason that ladybugs, Hippodamia convergens, fly to the tops of mountains, such as Green Mountain and Bear Peak, as winter approaches. Ladybugs head to high elevation peaks for winter so that they can go into an undisturbed dormancy until spring. If they try to overwinter at lower elevations, they stir and fly about on warm sunny days in the winter. They fly about and search for food when none is available. They might die of starvation while searching for food, or they may exhaust lipid stores that they need to lay eggs in spring. Natural selection favors those that leave the most offspring, so ladybug genes that favor prolonged hibernation are most common. The insects trying to get inside houses should talk to ladybugs!

I asked a neighbor about boxelder bugs, and he responded that “all their lifeless bodies are scattered around the house.” Bugs that get inside have a comfortable environment, but they need more water and food to remain active inside, where familiar sources of water and food are not available. Natural selection needs more time to teach boxelder bugs the lesson that ladybugs have learned.

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The good news is none of them bite, sting or carry diseases that can be passed to humans.

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Top image: boxelder bugs attempting to get into Jeff Mitton's house (Photo: Jeff Mitton)

One photo, many whales: scholar captures research above the Arctic Circle

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 21:31:55 +0000

One photo, many whales: scholar captures research above the Arctic Circle Rachel Sauer Mon, 02/02/2026 - 14:31

Cody DeBos

For CU 91��Ҹ� ecology and evolutionary biology alumna Emma Vogel, an award-winning photo captured a vital moment of research and science

Soft light slanted across the gray Norwegian sky, bouncing off the frigid water where Emma Vogel sat in a research boat. She had just helped her team tag a whale and was scanning the waves for the next group. It was a rare reprieve in what otherwise tends to be a chaotic venture.

She lifted her camera, but not for data collection this time. The scene was simply too vivid not to capture.

“I was super surprised about catching the little whale in the background of it, framed in the platform,” Vogel recalls. “That was a very, very nice surprise. I’m not often using my camera to take pictures of people, but the lighting was so atmospheric, I thought it would be a good shot.”

Emma Vogel, a 2016 CU 91��Ҹ� graduate in ecology and evolutionary biology, is a postdoctoral researcher at The Arctic University of Norway.

The photo, showing a researcher poised to launch a tracking tag set against a backdrop of swarming seabirds, went on to win Nature’s 2025 Scientist at Work photo competition.

For Vogel, a 2016 91��Ҹ� 91��Ҹ� graduate, the image is more than an award-winner. It’s a snapshot of her life spent tracking giants of the ocean through the shifting currents of science and sustainability.

A path north

Vogel’s journey to the coast of Northern Norway, firmly situated in the Arctic Circle, began in Washington, D.C., but when it was time to go to college, the mountains of Colorado called.

“I thought Colorado looked beautiful. And I kind of always knew I wanted to do science or ecology, so it seemed like a perfect place for that,” she says.

During her time at CU 91��Ҹ�, Vogel studied ecology and evolutionary biology, exploring the impact of forest fires and regrowth. A semester abroad in Sweden opened her eyes to marine science.

“I got to take some more aquatic and ocean marine-based courses and I fell in love with the field.”

After graduation, Vogel spent two years working in animal welfare policy with the Humane Society of the United States. However, she felt drawn to do hands-on research.

That led her to Tromsø, Norway, where she earned her master’s and PhD and now works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Arctic University of Norway’s Arctic Sustainability Lab.

Fieldwork at the edge of the world

As one might imagine, life and research in the Arctic come with their own rhythms.

“Some of the unique, really wonderful things that maybe people wouldn't expect, is that it's such a diverse place, both the people and the ecosystems, the organisms that live here,” Vogel says. “We have a beautiful combination of mountains and ocean right in the same space.”

Fieldwork in this environment is both harsh and intimate. Vogel and her team spend weeks tracking and tagging humpback and killer whales in the fjords during the winter herring season. She says the process can be logistically easier than in other places because the whales stay close to the coast.

But the conditions are punishing.

“In the morning, we often need to shovel snow out of our boats before we can get started, and it’s cold enough where the seawater is freezing onto the boat. Temperatures are often well below zero while we’re out doing research.”

Luckily, Vogel has discovered something of a superpower.

“The thing that changed it for me was when I discovered battery-powered socks that you can put on a little cycle to heat up every 30 minutes,” she says with a grin. “They really make all the difference.”

Those socks come in handy during long days on the water when Vogel and her team are using air-powered tracking equipment to attach satellite transmitters to whales. The tags allow researchers to track their movements long after they disappear from the coast.

“Normally, once the whales get enough of the herring, we don’t know where they go. With the tags, we can see their movement patterns for a month to six months, depending on the species and tag,” she says.

From there, Vogel and her team can interpret the data to paint a clearer picture of what these oceanic giants do when they slip below the waves.

“We can figure out their behavior based on the data. If they’re slowing down and turning a lot in one area, we can say they’re possibly looking for food and foraging. If they’re traveling in a straight line really fast, then it’s kind of transiting behavior. For humpbacks, we’ve tracked them through a full migration. So, going down to the Caribbean and then back up to Norway and even up into the Barents Sea.

“These tags let us track them through the entire ocean and see things we otherwise wouldn’t be able to, which is, I think, really exciting.”

Emma Vogel's award-winning photo shows biologist Audun Rikardsen, her PhD advisor at The Arctic University of Norway, battling waves in a northern Norwegian fjord, aided by the glow from a nearby fishing trawler.

Data-informed decisions

Part of Vogel’s work in the Arctic Sustainability Lab involves turning movement data into better marine policy.

“We are working to create ways to use tracking data to help spatial planners consider these migratory animals when designing local marine protected areas,” she says.

It’s a tricky challenge. Protected zones often prioritize stationary habitats for sea grasses and corals (and the animals that rely on them), not animals that travel hundreds or thousands of miles every year. Vogel and her team hope to change that by giving planners reliable data to inform their policy decisions.

But her work isn’t solely focused on marine life. She’s also part of a project called the Coastal Barometer, which helps quantify the health and sustainability of Northern Norway’s seaside communities.

“We developed a website called the Coastal Barometer to offer different ways of looking at and considering sustainability. It lets people from different municipalities click on where they’re from and see where they’re performing well and where there needs to be improvement,” Vogel says.

The project includes metrics for biodiversity, water quality, carbon storage, tourism, economic resilience and even a unique measure called “sense of place” that considers how much people value their connection to the local land and sea.

The latter is more urgent than ever. While Vogel doesn’t want to attribute all changes in her community to climate change, she’s already seen worrying signs.

“This last summer and the summer before we had about a month of days that you were able to go hiking in shorts in the Arctic. That’s been rare since I came here in 2018. For now, they’re nice, but you don’t want it much warmer.”

Those summer days may be rare enough to feel like a novelty today. But for researchers like Vogel, they are a quiet warning that even in the planet’s most rugged corners, change is underway. Thanks to valuable data collected by humans who care, communities and conservationists can be equipped with tools to adapt to those changes.

91��Ҹ� foundation, global reach

Despite her current home being thousands of miles away, Vogel still sees her time at CU 91��Ҹ� as a defining chapter.

“It really set me up so well, I think, to be an interdisciplinary researcher. Not only taking science courses, but also exploring literature, communication, human geography. I even took a course about Vikings, which was quite fun,” she recalls.

That foundation has served her well in a career that now sprawls across ecology, community engagement and policy innovation. For students hoping to follow in her footsteps, Vogel has one piece of advice: “Genuine curiosity.”

“You need to really want to understand and be inquisitive,” she says. “To understand for the sake of understanding—not just taking your courses. Asking questions and not taking things at surface value, just always wondering, ‘Why? Why? Why?’ can really get you far.”

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For CU 91��Ҹ� ecology and evolutionary biology alumna Emma Vogel, an award-winning photo captured a vital moment of research and science.

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Inferring the evolutionary tree of antelope ground squirrels

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 15:25:19 +0000

Inferring the evolutionary tree of antelope ground squirrels Rachel Sauer Fri, 01/16/2026 - 08:25

Jeff Mitton

Desert dwellers offer evidence that genes carried by an individual store information that literally reaches back millions of years

Sitting in my campsite at Goblin Valley State Park, I saw an antelope ground squirrel standing erect on its back feet, which I found amusing. I soon found that this was a common posture evoked by vigilance. Antelope ground squirrels are in the genus Ammospermophilus, which has five species, all in North America. I was watching white-tailed antelope ground squirrels, A. leucurus, the only antelope ground squirrel in Colorado and Utah.

Antelope ground squirrels (AGS) occur primarily in deserts, including Great Basin, San Joaquin, Mojave, Peninsular, Sonoran and Chihuahuan. They also occur in dryland environments like sagebrush communities and some grasslands. Most species of ground squirrels hibernate, but living in relatively warm and dry environments allows AGS to be active year round.

AGS have several adaptations that allow them to live in the deserts of the western United States and Mexico. Later that day, in the heat of the afternoon, AGS were walking with their white tails coiled above their backs to shed their own portable shade. They would also linger in the shade of a piñon pine, dumping heat by stretching out their legs and pressing their bellies onto the soil. This posture is used frequently in their burrows, between bouts of foraging on the surface. Their body temperatures can rise to 108 to 110 degrees F without damage, much higher than most mammals.

AGS are adapted to deserts or drylands and A. leucurus occupies the greatest distribution, including Oregon, Idaho, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and the Baja California Peninsula. Background reading turned up a paper in a scientific journal that nicely demonstrated, with AGS, how biologists can utilize DNA sequences to infer an evolutionary tree of the genus, and to not only estimate the date that the genus first arose but also infer when and where each species arose.

Antelope ground squirrels occur primarily in deserts and also in dryland environments like sagebrush communities and some grasslands. (Photo: Jeff Mitton)

From 10 million years ago to the end of the Miocene, 5.33 million years ago, a single lineage sustained the ancestors of AGS, but approximately 4 million years ago, as deserts were spreading and developing in the Southwest, the lineage split into three clades. That is, from a solitary trunk the tree of AGS sprouted three branches. A. interpres evolved east of the Sea of Cortez, A. leucurus south ranged from the southern tip of Baja to the middle of the peninsula and A. leucurus north ranged from the middle of Baja to Oregon and Idaho.

Fewer than 1 million years ago, another three species evolved. Pioneers from the leucurus south clade colonized two small islands east of Baja in the Sea of Cortez and evolved into A. insularis. The leucurus north form spread into the San Joaquin Desert in California and evolved into A. nelsoni, and subsequently the AGS in Arizona and northern Mexico evolved into A. harrisii. A. leucurus still ranges from the southern tip of Baja to Oregon and Idaho, but within A. leucurus nine subspecies are recognized today.

Dates on the AGS phylogenetic tree were estimated with mutation rates in three genes and with fossil data. A. insularis, A. harrisii and A nelsonii evolved recently, with an average of 0.32 million years ago. On a different continent, modern humans evolved around 0.20 to 0.30 million years ago—approximately the same time.

At first, the differentiation of A. leucurus into northern and southern forms or clades seems curious, but similar vicariances or taxonomic boundaries have been noted in systematic and biogeographic studies of other mammals, birds, fish and insects. The barrier has been attributed to the Vizcaíno Seaway, which is now the Vizcaíno Desert. While systematists agree that there was a barrier to gene flow near the middle of the Baja Peninsula, estimates from different studies yield different estimates, which vary from 1 to 3 million years ago. One description of the modern desert mentions multiple marine terraces, but another states flatly that there is no convincing evidence of an open, freely flowing seaway. Perhaps the marine terraces were formed by recurrent, ephemeral lagoons or marshes that were sufficient to disrupt gene flow.

Studies like this one emphasize the point that the genes carried by an individual store information that literally reaches back millions of years. Historical biogeographers working with genetic data in animals or plants or microbes can peer through the roiling mists of time to infer relationships among species, to detect speciations and extinctions and to map the migrations of species driven by glacial cycles. Similar techniques to those used in this study of AGS were used to map the migration routes that brought humans from southern Africa to every continent, archipelago and island in the world. Furthermore, our genome carries the evidence that humans hybridized with Neanderthals in Europe and the Middle East and Denisovans in Siberia.

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Desert dwellers offer evidence that genes carried by an individual store information that literally reaches back millions of years.

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Wally the Wollemi finds a new home

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 14:30:00 +0000

Wally the Wollemi finds a new home Rachel Sauer Mon, 12/01/2025 - 07:30

Rachel Sauer

CU 91��Ҹ� alumni Judy and Rod McKeever donate a tree once considered extinct to the EBIO greenhouse, giving students a living example of modern conservation

Wally probably doesn’t know he’s a dinosaur.

He’s just living his best life in a bright spot—but not directly sunny, he doesn’t like that—in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology greenhouse on 30th Street.

This guy! Talk about charisma. People have certain stereotypes and expectations for what he should be, and he defies them. For starters, he’s here and not, after all, extinct.

Yes, Wally the Wollemi is something special—a Cretaceous Period pine tree thought to have gone extinct 2 million years ago, rediscovered in a secluded Australian canyon in 1994 and, with a few steps in between, recently donated to the greenhouse.

. “Where we are right now with climate change, we’re losing plants and animal species and insect diversity at an extremely rapid rate, so as scientists and horticulturists and curators it’s our job to maintain the diversity of the world in collections, and Wally is an important part of that," says Malinda Barberio, EBIO greenhouse manager.

“The Wollemi pine is an interesting story about paleobotany as well as conservation,” explains Malinda Barberio, greenhouse manager. “Where we are right now with climate change, we’re losing plants and animal species and insect diversity at an extremely rapid rate, so as scientists and horticulturists and curators it’s our job to maintain the diversity of the world in collections, and Wally is an important part of that.”

Back from extinction

How Wally came to live in a quiet spot in the 30th Street greenhouse is a story that started in the Cretaceous. Scientists theorized that herbivorous dinosaurs living then dined on Wollemi pines, which belong to a 200-million-year-old plant family and are abundantly represented in the fossil record dating as far back as 91 million years.

Where they weren’t abundantly represented was in the living world. They were theorized to have gone extinct, living only in stone impressions.

However, in 1994, New South Wales (Australia) National Parks ranger David Noble was rappelling in a remote canyon about five hours west of Sydney when he happened upon a stand of pine trees unlike anything he’d seen before. They had fern-like foliage, distinctive bumpy bark and a dense, rounded crown. They towered over other trees in the canyon.

“Typically, you think of pines as Christmas tree-shaped, fairly triangular, so that dense top crown that’s very rounded is a little odd for pines,” Barberio says. “And you typically expect large, fluffy branches, but the Wollemi’s branches are covered in thicker, flat needles that are in two rows parallel to each other along the sides of branches, which is really distinctive.”

Intense scientific investigation followed Noble’s discovery, including comparison to the fossil record, until it was agreed: This was the Wollemi pine—back from extinction.

The ongoing threat of extinction loomed large, though, because there were fewer than 100 trees in that canyon, whose location remains a closely guarded secret. So, in 2006, and in an unusual partnership between the National Geographic Society, the Floragem plant wholesalers, conservationists, botanists and scientists, 10-inch Wollemi pines were offered for sale in National Geographic’s holiday catalog.

Follow Wally and his friends in the greenhouse at @CU91��Ҹ�EBIOGreenhouse on Instagram.

“You are now the owner of a tree that is a survivor from the age of the dinosaurs, a miraculous time traveler and one of the greatest living fossils discovered in the twentieth century,” began the catalog description of the 10-inch saplings selling for $99.95.

That’s what caught Judy McKeever’s attention.

A tree named Wally

“My husband (Rod) does bonsai and loves his bonsai garden, so when I saw the advertisement for National Geographic selling these trees, and it was a love story about finding a dinosaur in an Australian canyon, I thought it would be the perfect addition to his collection,” recalls McKeever (A&S’76). “But he never got bonsaied or really trimmed at all, and just kind of grew out of control.”

The couple named him Wally because it sounds like Wollemi, and he lived in a sheltered, south-facing spot on their 91��Ҹ� deck in the summer and under a grow light in their basement in the winter. Between seasons, they toted him up and down the stairs—and every year he was bigger.

CU 91��Ҹ� alumni Judy and Rod McKeever donated Wally the Wollemi pine tree to the EBIO greenhouse in October.

“We didn’t really do anything special, just treated him like every other plant we have,” McKeever says. “He lived a sheltered little life, occasionally got fertilized, and he was very happy. We just let him do whatever he wanted to do; he’s an Australian free spirit.

“We just loved Wally, but he grew a few inches every year and with the soil and pot, he just got to be too heavy to take down to the basement every winter.”

In early autumn, McKeever began looking for places that might be interested in adopting Wally and found the EBIO greenhouse. There was an element of homecoming since both Judy and Rod are 1976 CU 91��Ҹ� graduates (Rod in chemical engineering); Wally would be staying in the family.

“We are very happy to bring Wally into our collection,” Barberio says. “For the university to have a Wollemi pine is a really special privilege. It allows students to have an example of conservation efforts that are modern and recent in history and shows them that they have the opportunity to participate in these efforts as well.”

Plus, she adds, Wally is a great opportunity for public outreach: People can schedule time to visit him in the greenhouse and see science, conservation and worldwide partnerships at work. And students in future paleobotany classes will be able to see just how close scientists and artists got in visually rendering the Wollemi pine from fossil evidence.

“It’s surprisingly accurate how well they were able to reproduce (Wollemi pines) in theory,” Barberio says. “We have all of these animals and plants that are extinct, and having this living example is a really cool way to show how close we got it.”

A part in plant diversity

As for the care and feeding of Wally, who actually isn’t only male since pines produce both male and female cones, he likes acidic soil and bright but not direct light, given that he’s prone to sunburn. He likes regular watering and doesn’t like his soil to completely dry out, but he also dislikes “wet feet,” or for the bottom layer of soil to be damp.

Because his very few wild relatives live in a protected canyon, it may be implied that Wollemi pines prefer protection from rapid temperature changes, Barberio says, adding that so far, he’s shown no signs of producing cones.

“We would love to have Wally produce cones in the future,” she says, “and of course we would try to plant and grow them.”

Until that time, Wally the Wollemi pine will be a signature plant in the greenhouse collection and an example, Barberio says, “that we can play a part in maintaining the diversity of the plant world.”

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CU 91��Ҹ� alumni Judy and Rod McKeever donate a tree once considered extinct to the EBIO greenhouse, giving students a living example of modern conservation.

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Migration no guarantee of bird biodiversity

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 01:11:14 +0000

Migration no guarantee of bird biodiversity Rachel Sauer Thu, 10/23/2025 - 19:11

Cody DeBos

CU 91��Ҹ� researchers challenge long-held assumptions about the relationship between bird migration and the process by which new species arise

Every year, billions of birds take to the skies, riding thermal currents and navigating with an innate sense of direction across distances that would humble even the most accomplished commercial pilots.

“Migration is one of the most spectacular natural phenomena,” says Gina Calabrese, an evolutionary biologist and postdoctoral research fellow in the Safran Lab at the 91��Ҹ� 91��Ҹ�.

Gina Calabrese, an evolutionary biologist and postdoctoral research fellow in the Safran Lab at CU 91��Ҹ�, and her research colleagues, tested the theory that bird migration may be a leading force behind the genesis of new species.

Aside from inspiring awe in bird enthusiasts, this ancient ritual has also sparked many scientific theories. One suggests that migration—by way of dividing populations across different routes and destinations—may be a leading force behind the genesis of new species.

“The idea that this behavior could be a major driver of biodiversity has been an attractive one,” Calabrese says.

But does it hold up under evolutionary scrutiny? That’s what she and a team of co-researchers set out to test in a new study published in Systematic Biology.

Rethinking migration and diversity

Calabrese and her colleagues’ research challenges long-held assumptions about the relationship between migration and speciation, or the process by which new species arise. While scientists have documented cases where migratory behavior appears to be splitting populations, her team wanted to know whether this pattern was widespread enough to have shaped bird diversity at a large scale.

“There’s a body of literature that suggests migration could promote the formation of new species, by isolating populations that use different migratory routes or wintering areas,” she explains. “If this were a widespread pattern, we might expect migratory lineages to be more diverse today than other non-migrating birds.”

To test the hypothesis, Calabrese and her collaborators examined evolutionary trees called phylogenies that map out how present-day bird species are related to one another. Drawing from massive data sets of two avian superfamilies, they used statistical 91��Ҹ� to estimate how quickly different bird lineages have diversified over evolutionary time. They then compared the rates of speciation in migratory birds to those that make a home in one location year-round.

The results weren’t what they had expected.

“We found no consistent evidence that migratory birds speciate faster than non-migratory ones,” Calabrese says. “This was a surprise—especially given how much attention the idea of migration-driven speciation has received.

“There are clear examples where migration is leading to population splits—those are real,” she says. “But those examples are often recent, and they might not always result in fully separate species.”

In other words, migration might occasionally set the stage for speciation, but it’s no guarantee.

“Not every population split leaves a lasting imprint in the fossil record or leads to a new species,” Calabrese adds.

“We found no consistent evidence that migratory birds speciate faster than non-migratory ones. This was a surprise—especially given how much attention the idea of migration-driven speciation has received," says CU 91��Ҹ� researcher Gina Calabrese. (Photo: Todd Trapani/Unsplash)

One reason for this, she suggests, is that many observed migratory divides are evolutionarily young. These populations may just be starting to diverge, and many might merge again over time. Others may remain distinct but not reproductively isolated.

If the goal is to understand how biodiversity has accumulated over millions of years, a short-term snapshot—whether looking at bird lineages today or thousands of years ago—may not tell the full story.

“This is a good example of how something can be true in some cases but not necessarily explain large-scale patterns,” Calabrese says.

Following evidence, not expectations

Calabrese’s recent work is also a case study in scientific humility. When she and her colleagues first set out to test the migration-speciation connection, they weren’t looking to debunk anything. However, when the results started pointing in a different direction than their hypothesis, they remained committed to following the data.

“I think it’s important that we test assumptions—even appealing ones—with data,” Calabrese says.

The process also gave her a new perspective on how the scientific method plays out in real-world applications.

“I was a little anxious at first, until I kind of really felt like I had a handle on what my results were and felt confident in them. And then at that point, your job is just to tell the story of what your data show,” she adds.

While this study might have raised more questions than it answered, that’s part of what keeps Calabrese curious and driven to study the incredible phenomenon that is migration.

“It’s a little disappointing because you want to believe that what you’re studying today is explaining the answers to your bigger questions,” she says. “But it’s also cool because our findings mean that there’s still a lot to understand about how we get the diversity we see today and there’s still some mystery out there to solve, which is cool to me.”

CU 91��Ҹ� Professor Rebecca Safran contributed to this research, as did Kira Delmore, Jochen Wolf and Daniel Rabosky.

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CU 91��Ҹ� researchers challenge long-held assumptions about the relationship between bird migration and the process by which new species arise.

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Top image: InstaWalli/Pexels

Science inherits the wind of century-old verdict

Clint Talbott — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 04:28:59 +0000

Science inherits the wind of century-old verdict Clint Talbott Tue, 07/15/2025 - 22:28

Clint Talbott

On the 100-year anniversary of the Scopes Evolution Trial, CU 91��Ҹ� scientist reflects on science education and on ‘same issues, different players’

Andrew Martin first became interested in biology as a child growing up in the Sonoran Desert, which is in southern California and western Arizona. He was captivated by living things like butterflies: “They don’t weigh anything. They have these beautiful wings, and they fly off and visit flowers, and it’s just amazing.”

Professor Andrew Martin

Martin was about 6 or 7 years old then, and he collected every live thing he could find and took it home. “I turned my room into a museum of living organisms, and half the time the things would escape somewhere in the house.”

For a long time, Martin notes, he was “totally hooked on biology” and was “always asking the question of ultimate causation without really realizing it.” It wasn’t until college that he realized the scientific answer to that question was evolution.

“Evolution as a coherent explanation of the diversity of biology structure and function was not on the syllabus until I got to college,” Martin says.

Today, Martin is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the 91��Ҹ� 91��Ҹ�. Recently, he discussed the teaching of evolution on the occasion of the 100-year anniversary of the Scopes trial, a landmark case in 1925 in which a substitute high school biology teacher was found guilty of teaching evolution, then a crime under Tennessee law.

That trial, which was immortalized in Inherit the Wind, a play (and, later, movie), is a parable about the conflict between religion and science, social conformity and intellectual freedom, intuition and reason.

Teaching evolution was legal when Martin went to school, but state legislatures could criminalize the teaching of evolution until 1968, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an Arkansas law banning the teaching of evolution violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which established a separation of church and state.

For Martin, learning evolution for the first time in college was not only exciting, but it also helped him understand how life came to exist. “I had been looking for those answers for a long time. I didn’t really understand the process of mutation and sexual recombination during reproduction,” he says.

His reaction was, “This is amazing.”

The Scopes trial is an indication that evolution was not an acceptable topic for education. My grandparents likely did not learn about it, and their children, my parents, who were born in the decade after the Scopes trial, also likely did not learn about it except in very general ways.

Then, all the biological diversity he’d seen as a child made sense. “And the common-ancestry piece blew my mind. We [all life on Earth] were all basically different combinations of the same set of parts.”

Martin didn’t begin college focused on a particular career. “I was just following my passion for knowledge, and I ended up here,” he says. “If anything, I was much more a product of evolution of my own self than a plan, a directed deterministic plan to arrive at a place. I’m not sure every evolutionary biologist has that trajectory, but I certainly did.”

Martin seldom thinks about the Scopes trial, but he believes something like it could play out today in a similar way. As was the case a century ago, there is conflict between belief systems and scientific knowledge.

When he does reflect on the Scopes trial, he says, “It’s the same issues, different players, still playing out today.”

First, he notes, when the issue of ultimate causation comes up in biology courses, students are sometimes unprepared to explore and understand it. Evolution is “a result of a really large and complex emergent process that leads to different outcomes in different places, and if we ran the tape again it would be a completely different show. So, there’s the inability to grapple with emergent processes, for everyday thinking about what evolution is.”

Second, a lot of people believe in various forms of the supernatural, a world beyond the ability of science to detect, Martin says, noting that only about a third of Americans think about biology as scientists do—namely that evolution is a natural, emergent process and not a direct process.

“Every time I go into class, I know that there’s a whole bunch of people in there who will have difficulty trying to get their head around how evolution happens and what it really means.”

Scientific education, particularly at the K-12 level, bears some responsibility for this, Martin suggests. “Science curriculum, especially in biology, is consumed with content, when it should be focused on process.”

Martin also notes that popular conceptions of evolutionary biology are lacking. Specifically, that many people think of evolution as a good process that inevitably leads to the improvement of species, “that mutation is always advantageous, that things get better and that that’s the reason everything is here.”

When he asks students to draw a picture of evolution, Martin notes, most will draw a picture of a single cell transitioning into a more complex organism and portray the ultimate result as a human.

“Everybody sees the world through their own perspective, and it’s hard for them to escape it. They have a coherent narrative that allows them to explain their own existence as an individual that is often unconnected to other organisms and histories.”

Additionally, Martin says, there could be lingering effects of scientific illiteracy resulting from the Scopes verdict, which effectively allowed states to ban the teaching of evolution.

“The Scopes trial is an indication that evolution was not an acceptable topic for education. My grandparents likely did not learn about it, and their children, my parents, who were born in the decade after the Scopes trial, also likely did not learn about it except in very general ways: like there were adaptations and a fossil record showing life on Earth has been in place for millions of years. I don’t remember ever talking about evolution in my house when I was growing up,” he says.

Also, to the extent that evolution and religious belief might compete for space in people’s minds, religious traditions have an advantage: “If there’s a conflict between those two with how people see themselves in the world, then it’s usually the case that religion wins.”

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On the 100-year anniversary of the Scopes evolution trial, CU 91��Ҹ� scientist reflects on science education and on ‘same issues, different players.’

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The anti-evolution league at the Scopes trial in 1925.

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The anti-evolution league at the Scopes trial in 1925.

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