Cameron So

Today will be the last time I survey lupines at Indiana Dunes National Park. I'm feeling a little at loss that I won't be returning to the field sites that I've been visiting for 4 years!!

Wondering how other people feel when they leave a field site for the last time. 🥲

#fieldwork #indianadunes

I have no clue how a month and a half passed since I set out for fieldwork, but here we are. Today I dismantled my transplant site in Ohi, wrapping up a 3 year experiment.

Check out the length of these lupine roots! Really had to dig deep.

#fieldwork #lupines

Now I gotta prep for CSEE 🫠🫠

Fieldwork update 5!

The lupines are approaching their peak bloom at Kitty Todd Nature Reserve near Toledo, Ohio (@nature.org), creating purple hues across the landscape. Counting plants is so much easier now 🤠

Fieldwork update 3!

Earlier last week I visited the Karner Blue Sanctuary managed by Lambton Wildlife. The @ncccnc.bsky.social applied a much needed prescribed burn, removing some of the successional growth that isn't conducive for lupines. We'll see how the burn did when I return in June! 🔥🔥

fieldwork update 2/n

After surveying the NH lupines by a lake (and visiting a kind local), Simon and I visited a private airport housing the National Guard. There were lupines right beside the runway. Not quite the field site I expected!

Thanks to Dan from the NH Fish & Game for giving us a hand!

A little late on the fieldwork posts but here's update 1 of many to come!

On April 27, I crossed into the US to survey lupines in New Hampshire. Was unexpectedly met with snow!! After passing through the white mountains, Simon (MSc labmate) found some just beside a lake.

A week from today I will be driving around southern Ontario and the US Midwest for my *last* extensive field season. I'm visiting oak savannahs, prairies, dunes, and pine barrens to survey Sundial lupine.

Fieldwork photos to come soon! Field season 4 here we go! 🌱🪻⛺🚙

A gray wolf clone with dire wolf DNA edits.

It's not a dire wolf. It's a gray wolf clone with 20 dire-wolf gene edits, and with some dire wolf traits. And here's my story! Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/s...

Still collecting data from this upcoming field season ... year 4! One of the challenges when working with perennials. But we will soon have genomic data to run GEAs. 😄

I'm running a reciprocal transplant across ON, OH, and MI for Sundial lupine (Lupinus perennis). Also recently established a transplant of hybrids at the range edge and beyond.

My job ad for Sundial lupine is due Jan 31st! Come join me on an extended road trip through the Great Lakes region.

More info at www.cameronso.ca

I'm also looking f

Anna Hargreaves, evolutionary ecologist Anna Hargreaves conducts research on the ecology and evolution of plant-animal interactions and the limits to species' geographic distributions

My lab (Anna Hargreaves) is hiring ~3 undergrad field assistants for this summer! Work in 1 of 3 study systems : White trillium (ON & QC), Sundial lupine (ON, QC, USA) and Yellow rattle (AB).

Job ads available at annahargreaves.wixsite.com/home

@biomcgill.bsky.social @mcgillscience.bsky.social 1/2

Here it is: www.theaga.org/eecg-awards-...

The deadline has passed something to keep in mind for December

For grad students and practitioners in conservation, check out this amazing list for potential funding/grants! Thanks @aerinj.bsky.social !!

If your conservation research involves genomics, also check the American Genetics Association. They offer up to $6000 USD and funded my sequencing project!

Finally finished the revisions for an old MSc manuscript... onto the next!! ⌨️🧑‍🔬😀

🔬🏕️🌱🥾

This is also an early reminder that I'm hiring a field assistant for Summer 2025!! Preferably a McGill undergrad who'd like to stay on for an Honour's project in Sept 2025.

Join the Hargreaves + Schoen labs at McGill Bio. More info at www.cameronso.ca.

Reviewing some photos from this past year and found a quick reminder that fieldwork is just around the corner!

Take a look at these flowering Sundial lupines, taken at Norfolk County on @ncccnc.bsky.social lands!

#lupines #speciesatrisk
@biomcgill.bsky.social @mcgillscience.bsky.social

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Estimating dispersal rates and locating genetic ancestors with genome-wide genealogies A new method to infer the spatial history of genetic ancestors from a sequence of trees along a recombining genome.

Congratulations to Matt Osmond on publication of the final version of "Estimating dispersal rates and locating genetic ancestors with genome-wide genealogies"
elifesciences.org/articles/72177

For 2025, I'm hoping more faculty and students show up to seminar, meetings, and other gatherings.

What are other grad students hoping for?

(besides more equitable pay of course!)

(3/3)

The pandemic has definitely changed the workplace and how school functions, but for academia, I think there's still value in in-person meetings.

We can still do better. And that means both graduate students *and* faculty showing up. To lunches, to seminars, to school.

(2/n)

Reflecting on this past year (3rd + 4th year PhD), I've noticed that grad school can be really fun when people gather at school. For journal club, for lunch, for lab meetings, for seminars, after work beers, etc.

I've also learned a lot of science just by conversing organically.

(1/n)

Hey there! 👋🏻

I'm a PhD student at McGill University in Montréal, Canada. I study the genetics of range-edge populations of the at-risk plant Sundial lupine.

If you like pretty flowers, prairies, and sand dunes, stay tuned until I return to fieldwork in 2025. 🏕️🪻⛱️

Testing concordance and conflict in spatial replication of landscape genetics inferences The degree to which landscape genetics findings can be extrapolated to different areas of a species range is poorly understood. Here, we used a broadly distributed ectothermic lizard (Sceloporus occi...

Happy to announce the 3rd and final chapter of my PhD is now published in the October 2024 issue of Molecular Ecology!
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Largest publication PDF of my career so far at 123.6 MB 😱

but what if your dataset has excess heterozygosity? 🤔