New York Times: End the University as We Know It

Here is a recent NYTIMES article I've come across that is pertinant to our world (and especially for anyone in the flux of academic transitions). The suggestion for reorganizing of study disciplines in terms of general basic interests, ie Mind, Body, Time, Space etc., is especially intriguing and pertinent I think. I wish my undergrad years had more of an interdisciplinary focus as it is!

Enjoy! -Lisa

End the University as We Know It
By MARK C. TAYLOR

GRADUATE education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans).

Widespread hiring freezes and layoffs have brought these problems into sharp relief now. But our graduate system has been in crisis for decades, and the seeds of this crisis go as far back as the formation of modern universities. Kant, in his 1798 work “The Conflict of the Faculties,” wrote that universities should “handle the entire content of learning by mass production, so to speak, by a division of labor, so that for every branch of the sciences there would be a public teacher or professor appointed as its trustee.”

Unfortunately this mass-production university model has led to separation where there ought to be collaboration and to ever-increasing specialization. keep reading...

Repeatability of behaviour

Last lab meeting we discussed behavioural repeatability.
Now, I just found a recent review by Alison Bell, Shala Hankison and Kate Laskowski entitled "The repeatability of behaviour: a meta-analysis".


Abstract

There is increasing interest in individual differences in animal behaviour. Recent research now suggests that an individual's behaviour, once considered to be plastic, may be more predictable than previously thought. Here, we take advantage of the large number of studies that have estimated the repeatability of various behaviours to evaluate whether there is good evidence for consistent individual differences in behaviour and to answer some outstanding questions about possible factors that can influence repeatability. Specifically, we use meta-analysis to ask whether different types of behaviours were more repeatable than others, and if repeatability estimates depended on taxa, sex, age, field versus laboratory, the number of measures and the interval between measures. Some of the overall patterns that were revealed by this analysis were that repeatability estimates were higher in the field compared to the laboratory and repeatability was higher when the interval between observations was short. Mate preference behaviour was one of the best studied but least repeatable behaviours. Our findings prompt new insights into the relative flexibility of different types of behaviour and offer suggestions for the design and analysis of future research.

Sanna

And we got another journal cover….introducing the lizard Podarcis gaigeae

Isolation and characterization of polymorphic microsatellite loci for the Skyros wall lizard Podarcis gaigeae (Squamata: Lacertidae)

M. WELLENREUTHER, A. RUNEMARK, E. I. SVENSSON and B. HANSSON

This paper got published in the April 2009 issue of the fine journal Molecular Ecology Resources. My co-authors and I have developed fifteen new microsatellite markers for Anna’s PhD study species Podarcis gaigaea, the Skyros Wall lizard. Anna is studying mainland and island populations of Podarcis gaigeae near the Skyros Peninsula in Greece, and one of her objectives is to estimate the rate of gene flow and genetic differentiation between populations. Previous molecular work using eleven microsatellites showed that although the eleven markers were able to distinguish between different island populations, they did not provide the necessary power to distinguish between the mainland populations. Therefore, we set out to develop additional novel polymorphic microsatellite markers for P. gaigeae in an attempt to resolve the population structure of the mainland populations, and to estimate in more detail the magnitude and direction of gene flow between mainland and island populations of this species. Preliminary analyses in STRUCTURE have shown that, with the help of these new microsatellites, Anna can now distinguish between mainland populations.

ABSTRACT

Fifteen polymorphic markers were developed from a microsatellite-enriched library for the lizard Podarcis gaigeae. The loci were checked for variability in 68 individuals from a population on the island of Skyros, Greece. The number of alleles ranged from 3 to 23 per locus and expected heterozygosity from 0.29 and 0.94. Most markers were also polymorphic in three closely related Podarcis species, namely P. erhardi, P. taurica and P. milensis. The markers will be used to examine gene flow and differentiation of island and mainland populations of P. gaigeae.

Lab meeting, Wed. the 29th at 10:15

Lab Meeting Spectacular!!!

In lab meeting this week, we'll watch "Life in Cold Blood", by David Attenborough. It's about amphibians and reptiles, and the section on lizard thermoregulation should provide much inspiration about the possible uses of a thermal image camera.

Plus, it's just cool.

Maren will bring the DVD, and I'll bring some popcorn.

Density-dependent male mating harassment, female resistance and male mimicry

In keeping with the last two posts Erik has asked me to write a small blog spot introducing our recent Am Nat paper. I am pleased with the outcome as there was not only a lot of work getting the data and writing the paper, but also in convincing the editors and referees that this paper deserves to be in Am Nat. We were lucky this time as there was only one round of reviews, although the associate editor did a good job of ensuring we worked for our spot. It is easy to over look the amount of work and time needed to get papers published after writing the final draft. There is certainly no such thing as a free lunch. Even after jumping through fiery hoops, there is still the chance they can turn around a shoot you down.

I am yet to find a large error, this is mainly due to not looking over it since it was released. Please don't point any out to me, let me have a few weeks of ignorance. 

So here is the Abstract:

Genetic variation in female resistance and tolerance to male mating harassment can affect the outcome of sexually antagonistic mating interactions. We investigated female mating rates and male mating harassment in natural populations of a damselfly (Ischnura elegans). This damselfly species has a heritable sex‐limited polymorphism in females, where one of the morphs is a male mimic (androchrome females). The three female morphs differ in mating rates, and these differences are stable across populations and years. However, the degree of premating resistance toward male mating attempts varied across generations and populations. Male mating harassment of the female morphs changed in a density‐dependent fashion, suggesting that male mate preferences are plastic and vary with the different morph densities. We quantified morph differences in male mating harassment and female fecundity, using path analysis and structural equation modeling. We found variation between the morphs in the fitness consequences of mating, with the fecundity of one of the nonmimetic morphs declining with increasing male mating harassment. However, androchrome females had lower overall fecundity, presumably reflecting a cost of male mimicry. Density‐dependent male mating harassment on the morphs and fecundity costs of male mimicry are thus likely to contribute to the maintenance of this female polymorphism.

Link to the paper and to the press release (complete with Erik's fantastic photos)

I will also take this opportunity to bring your attention to another lab paper by Jessica and I. This is in the early view slots for Ecological Entomology. It is the first time that Erik let go of the reins and let his first two students run free. Hopefully we didn't let him down.

Understanding the "Egalitarian Revolution" in human social evolution

Inspired by the previous bloggpost, here is some other news about a recent publication in this research laboratory. In the lastest issue of Trends in Ecology & Evolution I have a so-called Research Update about a recently published model by theoretical evolutionary biologist Sergey Gavrilets and colleagues which deals with the evolution of cooperation in humans. One striking aspect of humans that makes us different from our closest relatives, the great apes, is that our society is less hierarchical and hence more egalitarian, and the evolutionary transition from a great ape society to ours is something that took place during the Pleiostocene and this transition is often called "The Egalitarian Revolution".

The TREE-article comments uponGavrilets et als' new model that aims to explain this evolutionary transition, as well as some recent experimental studies by behavioural economist Ernst Fehr who have done some elegant work on human cooperation and "altruistic punishment". Here is the Abstract for my TREE-article:

"Humans are unique among animals in cooperating in large groups of unrelated individuals, with a high degree of resource sharing. These features challenge traditional evolutionary theories built on kin selection or reciprocity. A recent theoretical model by Gavrilets and colleagues takes a fresh look at the ‘egalitarian revolution’ that separates humans from our closest relatives, the great apes. The model suggests that information from within-group conflicts leads to the emergence of cooperative alliances and social networks."

One of the original articles discussed in this TREE-paper, the model by Sergey Gavrilets et al., was originally published in PLoS ONE, under the title "Dynamics of alliance formation and the Egalitarian Revolution." I had the pleasure of being an academic editor of this highly interesting piece of work. Here is the abstract for that paper:

Background

Arguably the most influential force in human history is the formation of social coalitions and alliances (i.e., long-lasting coalitions) and their impact on individual power. Understanding the dynamics of alliance formation and its consequences for biological, social, and cultural evolution is a formidable theoretical challenge. In most great ape species, coalitions occur at individual and group levels and among both kin and non-kin. Nonetheless, ape societies remain essentially hierarchical, and coalitions rarely weaken social inequality. In contrast, human hunter-gatherers show a remarkable tendency to egalitarianism, and human coalitions and alliances occur not only among individuals and groups, but also among groups of groups. These observations suggest that the evolutionary dynamics of human coalitions can only be understood in the context of social networks and cognitive evolution.

Methodology/Principal Findings

Here, we develop a stochastic model describing the emergence of networks of allies resulting from within-group competition for status or mates between individuals utilizing dyadic information. The model shows that alliances often emerge in a phase transition-like fashion if the group size, awareness, aggressiveness, and persuasiveness of individuals are large and the decay rate of individual affinities is small. With cultural inheritance of social networks, a single leveling alliance including all group members can emerge in several generations.

Conclusions/Significance

We propose a simple and flexible theoretical approach for studying the dynamics of alliance emergence applicable where game-theoretic methods are not practical. Our approach is both scalable and expandable. It is scalable in that it can be generalized to larger groups, or groups of groups. It is expandable in that it allows for inclusion of additional factors such as behavioral, genetic, social, and cultural features. Our results suggest that a rapid transition from a hierarchical society of great apes to an egalitarian society of hunter-gatherers (often referred to as “egalitarian revolution”) could indeed follow an increase in human cognitive abilities. The establishment of stable group-wide egalitarian alliances creates conditions promoting the origin of cultural norms favoring the group interests over those of individuals.

Closing the ring: historical biogeography of the salamander ring species Ensatina eschscholtzii

"Science has not been the same since Kuchta et al. 2009," says Erik Svensson 4 April 2009.

A B S T R A C T

Aim The salamander Ensatina eschscholtzii Gray is a classic example of a ring species, or a species that has expanded around a central barrier to form a secondary contact characterized by species-level divergence. In the original formulation of the ring species scenario, an explicit biogeographical model was proposed to account for the occurrence of intraspecific sympatry between two subspecies in southern California (the ‘southern closure’ model). Here we develop an alternative ring species model that is informed by the geomorphological development of the California Coast Ranges, and which situates the point of ring closure in the Monterey Bay region of central coastal California (the ‘Monterey closure’ model). Our study has two aims. The first is to use phylogenetic methods to evaluate the two competing biogeographical models. The second is to describe patterns of phylogeographical diversity throughout the range of the Ensatina complex, and to compare these patterns with previously published molecular systematic data.

Location Western North America, with a focus on the state of California, USA.

Methods We obtained mitochondrial DNA sequence data from 385 individuals from 224 populations. A phylogeny was inferred using Bayesian techniques, and the geographical distributions of haplotypes and clades were mapped. The two biogeographical ring species models were tested against our Bayesian topology, including the associated Bayesian 95% credible set of trees.

Results High levels of phylogeographical diversity were revealed, especially in central coastal and northern California. Our Bayesian topology contradicts the Monterey closure model; however, 0.08% of the trees in our Bayesian 95% credible set are consistent with this model. In contrast, the classic ring species biogeographical model (the southern closure model) is consistent with our Bayesian topology, as were 99.92% of the trees in our 95% credible set.

Main conclusions Our Bayesian phylogenetic analysis most strongly supports the classic ring species model, modified to accommodate an improved understanding of the complex geomorphological evolution of the California Coast Ranges. In addition, high levels of phylogeographical diversity in central and northern California were identified, which is consistent with the striking levels of allozymic differentiation reported previously from those regions.

This paper can be found on the Journal of Biogeography web page, or taken from my web page.

My comments: Erik suggested I make this post, in part because I managed to score a cover shot showing the world our critter. Ain't he cute?? This is the Yellow-eyed salamander, Ensatina eschscholtzii xanthoptica, collected from Ice Cream Grade in Santa Cruz, California.

What I like best about this paper is the very explicit geological reconstruction (which was really difficult to decipher from the geology literature!), and the first ever alternative biogeographic scenario for the formation of the ring species complex. We end up (mostly) rejecting the new model, but it was not a scam: this new model really does make a lot more sense when you consider the geomorphological evolution of the California landscape.

What I dislike about this paper is that I misspelled "Unites States" in Figure 1. Sigh.