W. Chris Funk

Please send me the PDF!

announcement for the SSE Sponsored Workshop "Avoiding Bias When Writing Tenure and Promotion Leters"

Hey folks going to #evol2025 in Athens. The SSE #DEI committee is sponsoring a workshop on how to avoid bias in writing T&P letters. Registration is required and the workshop is open to all career stages! Please share and help spread the word @sse-evolution.bsky.social @evolmtg.bsky.social

Climate change is projected to shrink phylogenetic endemism of Neotropical frogs - Nature Communications Climate change is a major threat to biodiversity. This study predicts that climate change will reshape Neotropical frog diversity, causing losses in phylogenetic diversity and phylogenetic endemism, w...

Congratulations to lab member Gabi Alves Ferreira who lead us in this fun project! She modeled how range shifts of neotropical frogs with climate change will change phylogenetic diversity and endemism in the new communities. So great to see this published #ProudPI 💪🐸 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Totally messed up.

I guess I didn't get the memo that every day isn't frog day.

Quantifying intraspecific variation in host resistance and tolerance to a lethal pathogen Our study highlights the importance of considering intraspecific variation in host tolerance and resistance to pathogens. We apply a multistate model as a new way to quantify host tolerance and resis...

Amidst *everything* going on, I'm still proud to see my 2nd chapter of my PhD out in full in the latest special issue of @animalecology.bsky.social! doi.org/10.1111/1365... (1/4)

NIH Again Tosses Grant Applications for Program That Funds Minority Researchers The agency, for the second time this year, has withdrawn applications for the F31 diversity fellowship, which is designed to “promote diversity in health-related research.”

These NIH applications have the same materials and the same scoring criteria. Panels were postponed more than a month. Hopefully enough time to make the common-sense decision to reclassify these as standard applications and give full consideration this cycle!

www.chronicle.com/article/nih-...

Learn more about Shanelle's research on her website: shanellewiks.github.io

Congratulations to my PhD student Shanelle Wikramanayake for being awarded a Rufford Small Grant and a HCI Michael Dee Grant to support her super cool research on the effects of fragmentation and climate change on rainforest lizards in her home country of Sri Lanka! #rainforest #ClimateChange

Here' comes Saruman for our forests. I love PNW old growth forests more than any other habitat on Earth. Devastating.

NSF fact sheet

The National Science Foundation benefits communities in every state.

Mass firings decimate U.S. science agencies White House dismissals and rationale challenged by dismissed scientists and lawsuits

"I’m feeling betrayed, gutted, lost, anxious, and furious."

Our story for @science.org—on the ongoing mass firing of federal employees and reactions in the scientific community.

www.science.org/content/arti...

Museomics and morphological analyses of historical and contemporary peninsular Italian wolf (Canis lupus italicus) samples - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Museomics and morphological analyses of historical and contemporary peninsular Italian wolf (Canis lupus italicus) samples

New analyses of Italian wolves across time confirms they are genetically and morphologically distinct from other European wolves.
Also, there’s as tiny rebound of genetic diversity relative to the 20th century bottleneck. Conservation works! #consgen

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

Look, I’m gonna break it to you, it’s a real shame you’re hearing or reading alt text and not seeing this incredible frog. It’s just… imagine a pancake, slightly burned in an intricate kind of pattern on top. Now puff it up like it’s some kind of incredible dumpling. Now put some legs evenly spaced around the edges, with stubby digits. And put some little bronze eyes in there for good measure. Now imagine that the pancake is deeply nonplussed, as is plain to see across its very flat face. That is what this frog looks like. It is perhaps one of evolution’s greatest achievements.

Bluesky has not yet had any Rhombophryne testudo. Let’s fix that. I think it will do all of us some good. 🐸🟤

...genetically diverse populations—also termed “genetic rescue”—is an effective way to boost genetic diversity and population sizes. To see it pop out as the top management action for offsetting genetic diversity loss in this global meta-analysis just puts an exclamation point on this conclusion.

I was stunned that population supplementation was by far the most effective conservation management action for slowing down and counteracting the loss of genetic diversity. A lot of experimental and observational studies have shown that supplementing populations with individuals from larger, more...

Wide range of Earth’s species are showing a decline in diversity The loss of genetic variation means species may be less resilient to climate change and other stressors

Congratulations to @robynshaw.bsky.social, @cegrueber.bsky.social, and too many other friends to list here on this important paper in @nature.com on the global extent of genetic diversity loss. It was a pleasure discussing it w/ Elizabeth Pennisi from @science.org.
www.science.org/content/arti...

Wide range of Earth’s species are showing a decline in diversity The loss of genetic variation means species may be less resilient to climate change and other stressors

Our long term project has finally been published - genetic diversity is lost worldwide, but we can also make a difference and conservation actions matters.
Find out more in the Science news here
www.science.org/content/arti...
#Consgen

A collage of a bunch of digital drawings of North American fishes, showcasing different body shapes, body sizes, and colors, including silver redhorse, longnose gar, black bullhead, rainbow darter, orangespotted sunfish, lake chub, bowfin, emerald shiner, pallid sturgeon, white crappie, central stoneroller, red shiner, largemouth bass, greater redhorse, quillback, blacknose dace, and paddlefish.

Diversity is pretty neat actually.

#SundayFishSketch

EXCITING BONUS: This paper presents the first published reference genome for the remarkable tailed frog (Ascaphus truei) from the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Along with its closest living relatives, New Zealand's Leiopelma, it forms a clade that represents the most basal lineage of all living frogs!

What do evolution and adaptation have to do with predicting vulnerability to climate change? Find out in our new paper led by the amazing Dr. @brennaforester.bsky.social and featuring the WORLD'S COOLEST 🐸 just published in Molecular Ecology: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...!
#congen

Redlisting genetics: towards inclusion of genetic data in IUCN Red List assessments - Conservation Genetics Genetic diversity is critical for adaptation in response to changing environments and provides a valuable metric for predicting species’ extinction risk. The International Union for Conservation of Na...

Redlisting genetics: towards inclusion of genetic data in IUCN Red List assessments link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Doh! Yikes! Stay safe!

A huge congratulations, Jeremy!

Marty Kardos

Lukas Keller, Chris Funk, and fury toothy friend.

What can genome sequence data reveal about population viability? (And equally important, what CAN'T it reveal??) These are key questions that @martykardos.bsky.social, Lukas Keller, and I address in our new paper in a Molecular Ecology special issue: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
#congens

Whoa, dude, this is crazy! We have spotted coralroot growing in our yard, which I will never look at the same way again.

“Experts and scientists are migrating to Bluesky in record numbers.” Welcome if you’re new (and if you’re not, please help by reposting) - here’s a starter pack for the #biodiversity science-policy community:

go.bsky.app/LjV86zg

Good morning from La Hacienda Águila on the Colorado Front Range.