Evelien de Greef

The Weir Lab logo. Two birds pull apart a DNA strand, representing speciation. A small blue butterfly on the i in Weir represents some of the lab's more recent work.

Interested in the genomic, behavioral, and morphological drivers of bird evolution? The Weir Lab at UT Scarborough has PhD positions available!

Please share widely. As a current postdoc in the lab, I am happy to share my experiences with applicants.

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I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

I’m recruiting a PhD student in macrogenetics at Dalhousie University 🇨🇦! Focus will be on the biogeography of vertebrate genetic diversity or urban evolutionary ecology.
Full ad: www.schmidt-biodiversity-lab.org/macrogenetic...
If the ad is up, applications are still open.
Please share widely! 🧬🧬

hiiii come chat with me about how to make stellar presentations to tell your science stories 🥲🫶🏼

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So happy that this one is finally out, today in @naturecomms.bsky.social Migrating baleen whales transport nutrients from their high-latitude feeding grounds to the tropics and subtropics www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The cover of a book called The Birding Dictionary: A Tongue-in-cheek guide for people who find themselves obsessed, against all logic and reason, with birds. Written and illustrated by Rosemary Mosco.

A hand holding the same book.

A book excerpt: snood /ˈsnüd/ noun: The naked, erectile lump of flesh on a turkey’s forehead. It can stick up like a hideously gnarled unicorn horn or droop down like a meaty teardrop, and it changes color from salami-red to corpse-blue depending on a turkey’s arousal and anxiety levels. Female turkeys prefer males with longer snoods. This word and its definition are best invoked when you’re in a dull conversation and you’d like to bring it to an abrupt end."

I’m so excited to announce that my new book THE BIRDING DICTIONARY is available for preorder! It's a humorous dictionary of real birding terms and goofy definitions, plus a ton of silly illustrations. It's out May 6 but you can preorder it here: www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/rosem...

🚨NEW OPEN ACCESS PAPER🚨details how we delineated six #MarineFlyways applying a novel approach onto #seabird #tracking data: doi.org/10.1111/geb.70004 🧪

See the short animation via: www.seabirdtracking.org/case-studies... explaining how the marine flyways can be a framework to support #conservation

Want to make an epigenetic clock for your non-human study species but don't know where to start? Check out our new preprint that guides you through the process!

A picture of a humpback whale just below the sea surface taken by Marc Quintin

A thread explaining our new discovery about humpback whale song published today in Science... We found key statistical properties that characterise all human languages in another species for the first time. We have more in common with whales than we previously thought! doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Posted our summer positions if you are keen on conservation recruiting.ultipro.ca/ASS5002APAC/...

@eveliendegreef.bsky.social and I wrote a follow-up piece in @theconversation.bsky.social. It was great to write more about the context surrounding bowhead whale and narwhal genomics.
theconversation.com/commercial-w...

Excited to share our latest paper in Global Change Biology! 🐳Here we examined bowhead and narwhal genomics and the legacy of commercial whaling: dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb....
Collabs w/ C. Müller, @biomatt.bsky.social, S. Ferguson, C. Watt, M. Marcoux, S. Petersen, @colingarroway.bsky.social

Big thank you to all the collabs who made this project possible! @colingarroway.bsky.social , Kyle Lefort, @biomatt.bsky.social, @andrewfoote.bsky.social, Cory Matthews, @jeffhigdon.bsky.social, Caila Kucheravy, Stephen Petersen, Aqqalu Rosing-Asvid, Fernando Ugarte, Rune Dietz, Steve Ferguson. 3/3

Both populations appear to be at risk from both inbreeding and harvest. Although these killer whales are threatened, they may also disrupt the Arctic food chain by their increased access to Arctic prey, which presents a complex case for conservation in the Arctic ecosystem. 3/4

Killer whales are moving northward into the Arctic as sea ice melts from a warming climate. Using genetics, we identified 2 highly distinct Canadian Arctic populations with origins from the western and eastern North Atlantic. 2/4

Climate change introduces threatened killer whale populations and conservation challenges to the Arctic Global Change Biology is an environmental change journal tackling issues such as sustainability, climate change and environmental protection.

Check our new paper in Global Change Biology by
@colingarroway.bsky.social
& I with many great collaborations! doi.org/10.1111/gcb.... 1/4

Our latest polar bear pre-print is up. Big congrats to study lead Ruth Rivkin! 🧪

"Assessing the risk of climate maladaptation for
Canadian polar bears"

ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

New pre-print!

*Climate change, age acceleration, & the erosion of fitness in polar bears*

Epigenetic age acceleration reflects an individual’s cumulative lifetime experiences of stress. Polar bears aged 1 year faster on ave per °C temp rise since 1980 1/n

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doi.org/10.1101/2024...

#addOcean

Big thank you to all the collaborators who made this project possible! @colingarroway.bsky.social, Kyle Lefort, Matt Thorstensen, @andrewfoote.bsky.social, Cory Matthews, @jeffhigdon.bsky.social, Caila Kucheravy, Stephen Petersen, Aqqalu Rosing-Asvid, Fernando Ugarte, Rune Dietz, Steve Ferguson. 3/3

Killer whales are increasingly seen in the Arctic as sea ice melts. We found 2 highly distinct Arctic populations that appear not to interbreed, and are as genetically distinct as ecotypes elsewhere in the species' range, and appear to be at risk from inbreeding and harvest. 2/3

New preprint on the population genetics of Arctic killer whales led by @colingarroway.bsky.social
& I with many great collaborations! doi.org/10.1101/2023.... Photo taken by Maha Ghazal. 1/3