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From VT News | May 24, 2019
Frank O. Aylward, an assistant professor with the Department of Biological Sciences in the Virginia Tech College of Science, has been awarded a Simons Early Career Investigator in Marine Microbial Ecology and Evolution Award.
The three-year, $540,000 grant will help Aylward to understand evolutionary trends in prokaryotes and the roles they play in carbon and nitrogen cycling, and other biogeochemical processes that are vital to ...
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MAY
Think about the fast sprint of a cheetah or the rapid undulation of a swimming fish.
All biological motion is dependent on the rules of mechanics, which is a branch of physics that deals with the motion of material bodies and the forces exerted upon them.
But, how do the static laws of physics impact the dynamic process of evolution? Do stronger relationships between a morphological trait and swimming speed, for example, ...
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[Featured image: An Anolis evermanni lizard, photo courtesy Edmund D. Brodie III.]
A new study from Virginia Tech takes on the decades-old battle of which has more impact on evolution: genetic variation or natural selection.
In a study published in the latest issue of Evolution Letters, Virginia Tech researcher Joel McGlothlin has found that genetic variation can leave a much longer-lasting stamp on evolutionary patterns than was previously ...
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SEP
Evolution can be both stimulated and halted by an animal’s behavior, it just depends which trait you’re talking about, according to a groundbreaking study led by a Virginia Tech researcher.
The study, published Oct. 25 in the journal American Naturalist, shows behavior can be both a brake and a motor for evolution in a manner where slowing evolution in one trait actually requires accelerating evolution in another, according to Martha Read More →
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NOV
A select group of garter snakes can thank their ancestors for the ability to chow down on a poisonous newt and live to tell the tale.
Common garter snakes, along with four other snake species, have evolved the ability to eat extremely toxic species such as the rough-skinned newt — amphibians that would kill a human predator — thanks to at least 100 million years of evolution, according to Joel McGlothlin, an assistant professor of biological sciences ...
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JUN
Polar bears are unable to adapt their behaviour to cope with the food losses associated with warmer summers in the Arctic. Scientists had believed that the animals would enter a type of ‘walking hibernation’ when deprived of prey. But new research says that that bears simply starve in hotter conditions when food is scarce.
The authors say that the implications for the survival of the species in a warmer world are grim.
Back in 2008 polar bears were Read More →
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From VT News:
Snakes in evolutionary arms race with poisonous newt
Blacksburg, November 17, 2014: The rough-skinned newt is easily one of the most toxic animals on the planet, yet the common garter snake routinely eats it. How does a newt which produces enough toxin to kill several grown humans manage to become prey in the food chain?
The answer comes in the form of an evolutionary arms race that pits the toxin of the newt, tetrodotoxin or TTX, against the voltage-gated sodium ...
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NOV