Isabelle Ng

Join the lab The Caetano lab at Towson University (Maryland, USA) is seeking a Master's degree student to start in Fall 2026. A Research Assistant (RA) position is available to the student during part (or all) of....

Master's degree position at Towson University with Daniel Caetano on macroevolutionary and phylogenetic comparative methods! Daniel is an awesome human and a great mentor, share with your students!
caetanods.weebly.com/join-the-lab...

A job ad with multiple images, including the exterior of the museum, a view of collections (jars on shelves), and pictures of some cool, tropical fish but I don't know enough about fish to describe them other than to say they're pretty colors of yellow and blue/green

🚨We're hiring! The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History is seeking a tenure-track split position as Assistant Curator of Ichthyology and Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences. Please retweet & share with colleagues! 🐟🐠🧪

Apply here: apply.interfolio.com/174674

The Pygmy Shark (Euprotomicrus bispinatus), the world’s second smallest shark species and one of the species with a high overlap with proposed deep sea mining. Credit: Blue Planet Archive / Masa Ushioda.

🚨 NEW PUBLICATION 🚨

Today in @currentbiology.bsky.social, we found that 30 species of #sharks, #rays, and #chimaeras overlap with proposed #deepseamining in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction #ABNJ - over 60% are already #threatened with #extinction 🦈

📸 Blue Planet Archive / Masa Ushioda

New paper in @funecology.bsky.social led by @felixpleiva.bsky.social. We present ShareTrait, a community-driven platform for standardising & sharing individual-level trait data in ectotherms to improve data reuse across studies.

🔗 doi.org/10.1111/1365...

#OpenScience #FAIRdata

A JCU researcher is examining the challenges faced by women in receiving a diagnosis of endometriosis or adenomyosis – and wants to hear from people in North Queensland who have gone through the process.
Full story: shorturl.at/SE7HY

New in @science.org, meet Acronichthys maccagnoi, a new species from Late Creatacous Canada that changes what we know about the origins and evolution of one of the most successful fish groups on Earth.

An A4 flyer for the project "Little Fishes, Big Problems: Using Genomics to Inform Conservation and Management of Pygmy Perches". Text reads "This exciting PhD project will generate and apply cutting edge genomic datasets (whole genomes and genotype-by-sequencing) to inform conservation and management of two freshwater fish species endemic to Western Australia. The highly collaborative research program is will directly contribute to conservation actions and water management in the region. The ideal candidate will have experience with applying molecular techniques to answer ecological, conservation or evolutionary research questions, including DNA extraction bioinformatic pipelines and genomic analysis (not essential). To apply for the project, please submit your academic CV and one page cover letter describing your research interests and relevant experience to Dr. Buckley." It includes a photo of a male western pygmy perch in breeding colours, a QR code, and several logos.

Looking for a #PhD project (or know someone who is)? I'm currently recruiting for a student to work on #conservation and #PopulationGenomics of two freshwater #fish using whole genome and ddRAD data: more info in the flyer below! #PopGen #ConsGen #Biodiversity 🐟🧪🧬

#JobOpportunity in #Adelaide. SARDI is #hiring…

🎣 Senior Research Scientist (Marine Mammal Ecologist)
🗓️ Short Term Contract, up to 31/6/2026
💰$101,285 - $107,078

🚨Deadline: 18 Sep

👀 iworkfor.sa.gov.au/page.php?pag...

🏆 Octopus and Ice Sheet Team @marine-omics.bsky.social is awarded the Aspire Scholarship Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research.

Learn more: youtu.be/8H3bCE6wfjM

#EurekaPrizes
@janstrugnell.bsky.social
@lausally.bsky.social
@nick-golledge.bsky.social

Happy to hear this! 🙌 Congratulations Chris!

2) Importantly, I am looking to recruit a PhD-level graduate student to start next school year (August 2026). My lab website (still under construction: christopherhemings.wixsite.com/my-site) has the details outlining the position and applying.

I am recruiting graduate students to begin August 2026. Apply by Nov 15th!

Phylogeny of Aneides and Plethodon with animal photos

Phylomorphospace showing body shape variation

Morphospace of toe bones and box lots showing estimated gripping force

Representative SEM images of salamander feet

Excited to share the first paper from my PhD!

We looked at what traits help Aneides salamanders excel at climbing using museum specimens, CT scans, SEM, and more! No claws or toe pads, so how do they do it? In short, with long limbs, big feet and grippy toes! 🦎🧪

DM for PDF

doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

Macroevolutionary role reversals in the earliest radiation of bony fishes Troyer et al. examine lower jaw evolution in Silurian-Devonian bony fishes and find substantial differences in patterns of morphological disparity, rates of shape evolution, and functional diversity b...

Excited to announce that the 1st paper from my postdoc is now out in @currentbiology.bsky.social ! Using a large dataset of 3D preserved fossils, we explore the diversification of jaws in early bony fishes. 1/15
www.cell.com/current-biol...

go Helen!!! 🙌

🚨New PhD paper out today in @natcomms.nature.com with @renatoamorais.bsky.social and Dave Bellwood! 🚨

Marine fishes exhibit extraordinary patterns of diversity, but how does this diversity relate to their productivity? 🐟🐠🐡

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🔗 nature.com/articles/s41...

Governing novel climate interventions in rapidly changing oceans Marine systems are rapidly changing in response to global heating. The scale and intensity of change are triggering a host of novel interventions to sustain oceans and ocean-dependent societies. Howev...

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Published today in Science:

“The pace of new interventions is outstripping the capacity to prevent unintended consequences - because governance systems are not yet in place.”

Stop the cowboys before they do even more damage!

Global heating is changing marine systems. 🌊 🌡️
In response, novel interventions are gaining traction fast.
They aim to sustain ocean systems and ocean-dependent societies - but come with risks. 💥

New review paper in Science

More below 👇 and paper here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Open position for PhD student / Postdoc in biogeochemistry For a fully funded four-year project exploring environmental and ecological dynamics in the Mediterranean and Red Sea, we seek a top tier PhD student or postdoc. The project aims to understand the formation and persistence of biodiversity hotspots, especially in light of global climate change and local stressors. The ultimate goal is to gather insights across different organizational levels, from molecular, organismal, and community to habitat structure and biogeochemical pathways, in order to construct comprehensive models that forecast the future dynamics and fate of these ecosystems under changing conditions. This position would be focused on a key aspect of this project – the variability of seafloor fluxes and their interaction with the microbial community to facilitate the habitability of shallow (up to 40 m) and mesophotic (up to 200 m) biodiversity hotspots such as reefs. Interested candidates, please contact by email Dr. Or Bialik (obialik@ocean.org.il) or Prof. Eyal Rahav (eyal.rahav@ocean.org.il) with a letter of motivation, CV, and contact details of at least one referee for this post not later than the 28th of August 2025.

I have a fully funded open #position for a PhD student/postdoc in marine #biogeochemistry. As part of the MARBEDS project, we are seeking someone to study seafloor fluxes and their interactions with microbial communities in biodiversity hotspots.
🧪⚒️🌊
Contact me if you want more details.

Unsolicited listicle: My list of the most criminally underused/underappreciated phylogenetic comparative methods. Note, I am not involved in ANY of these methods; but I see them as things people are often asking of comparative data but have been surprised at how infrequently they have been cited.

Ecological interactions and genomic innovation fueled the evolution of ray-finned fish endothermy Cetacean interactions, body size, and genomic innovations shaped endothermy evolution in ray-finned fishes in the Eocene-Miocene.

Evolution of endothermy in marine fishes is related to competition with cetaceans. This incredible paper is a masterpiece of phylogenetic comparative methods and a future classic for marine biologists

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New paper alert: 42 ecological traits for all 6,000+ valid species of #Neotropical_freshwater_fishes, the most diverse continental vertebrate fauna on Earth. A foundation for future studies on the ecology and conservation of tropical aquatic biodiversity.

nature.com/articles/s41...

Historical ecology of the Southern Central American Pacific coast | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences The Pacific coast of the Southern Central American Isthmus is a highly productive and biodiverse region with a rich human history. Although the interaction of the oceans, climate, biodiversity and early human systems has shaped the region’s ecology, ...

🌊Just out! We reviewed the history of human-ocean interactions, focusing on the Pacific coast of the Southern Central Asmerican Isthmus (Panamá and Costa Rica).

Over 16K years of stories on culture, environment, and ecology!

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10....
Illustration: Madeline Dall

Incompatibility between two major innovations shaped the diversification of fish feeding mechanisms Large teeth and highly protrusible jaws are two feeding innovations that have evolved in fishes. High-speed videography and comparative phylogenetic analyses indicate that they are incompatible with e...

Out today in @plosbiology.org! We show that two major advances in fish feeding - highly protrusible jaws and large teeth - are functionally and evolutionarily incompatible with each other. @mikemihalitsis.bsky.social and Peter Wainwright. Free to read: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

🐠🦈 Just out: In this paper we ask "How has reef trophic structure changed since humans started removing predatory fishes from Caribbean coral reefs?".

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Illustrations @cookedillustrations.com

Panels c-f of Figure 1 depicting the lower jaw of Devonian actinopterygian Gogosardina coatesi

Curious about Devonian actinopterygian lower jaws? Look no further--our new paper provides comprehensive descriptions for 19 species in a tidy ~50 page summary! anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Devonian ray-finned fishes were not particularly species rich, particularly compared to their lobe-finned cousins. This implies early actinopts might've also been anatomically monotonous. But a deep dive into their jaw anatomy w/ µCT reveals subtle but important structural diversity.

Our new paper on the historical and scientific basis of Darwin’s ‘coral reef paradox’ is out @currentbiology.bsky.social! Summary below by @gobyone.bsky.social.

Also with @paulinenarvaez.bsky.social
@oclaripv.bsky.social
and Vale Parravicini!

Free-access link:
authors.elsevier.com/a/1lDFm3QW8S...

Heard of "Darwin's paradox"? It refers to Charles Darwin's observation that coral reefs are wildly productive despite occurring in nutrient-poor tropical oceans. Reefs are, so the story goes, oases in marine deserts 🏝️...

Turns out that 2/3 of these assertions are very wrong...

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Repeated and widespread evolution of biofluorescence in marine fishes - Nature Communications Biofluorescence is widespread in fishes. Here, the authors compile data on biofluorescence presence across teleost fishes and demonstrate that it may have originally evolved in eels 112 million years ...

Repeated and widespread evolution of biofluorescence in marine fishes

Carr et al. 2025 Nature Comm.

459 known biofluorescent teleosts (the majority are associated with coral reefs); estimate biofluorescence evolved multiple times but first ~112 mya

www.nature.com/articles/s41...