Rick Miller (he/him)

Great study. Very thoughtful

Just want to shoutout a new study from the Wessinger Lab by my colleague @trinitydepatie.bsky.social. bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/.... She investigated the repeated evolution of personate flowers within Penstemon by examining patterns of introgression, topological discordance, and

“The potato lineage is of ancient homoploid hybrid origin” — Zhang et al. 2025. Ancient hybridization underlies tuberization and radiation of the potato lineage. Cell 188: 1–17.

Fun to read and discuss.

It's my first time at #Botany2025 and I'm so excited! I'm giving a 3 min lightning talk about my work on hybrid speciation in Penstemons on 30th July (Wednesday). Room: Mesquite C, Time: 4:40-4:45 pm, Session: Lightning Talk.

Inference without significance: measuring support for hypotheses rather than rejecting them Despite more than half a century of criticism, significance testing continues to be used commonly by ecologists. Significance tests are widely misused and misunderstood, and even when properly used, ...

the go-to in my lab for introducing Bayesian statistics, by the way onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
#vaquita #porpoise #whale

Thank you!

ad to come, but I'm looking for an M.S. student to study the conservation genomics of swift foxes on the American Prairie Reserve in Montana beginning 9/1. this is a collaboration w/ Smithsonian & Justine Becker; strong candidates will have prior genomics experience and be up for remote fieldwork

thisimage shows a laptop with a homescreen of naturserve explorer on it. Text: Data you can depend on. -Covers 100,000 species and ecosystems across North America. - Fre access, with licensed data available through Explorer Pro. -Connected to expert-vetted, locally informed resources.

Conservation starts with good data. NatureServe Explorer helps you track species and ecosystems across North America.

Thanks to @natureserve for supporting #Botany2025!

Explore the data: explorer.natureserve.org

Coming to #Evol2025 and considering a non-academic career? Join me for our panel discussion on Friday afternoon!!

I hope it gets published in Nature. Wishing y’all the best on the next step.

I'm super pleased to have been involved in this project, and to see how Sasha's result have developed.

Please check out the paper, and @gbaucom.bsky.social 's thread on the results.

Two positions in the @TrEE_Lab
Looking for students who are interested in genomic work & have basic training in handling genomic data. If you have a penchant for coding, writing scripts, & an interest in solving population genetic patterns in plants, apply! April 15th deadline.

Cover of book with photo of lionesses & text titled FEMINISM IN THE WILD HOW HUMAN BIASES SHAPE OUR UNDERSTANDING OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOR AMBIKA KAMATH AND MELINA PACKER

I just recently got my copy & can't wait to read!

When I was 17 (over 50 years ago) I worked as a research assistant at Gonarezhou for the research officer. Helped with data collection during a lot of impala and elephant culling operations.

I was lucky to sit in on a course on primate behavior with Alison Richard. We discussed this with her. Do you know her?

anthropology.yale.edu/profile/alis...

Home - Together Colorado Together Colorado is a non-partisan, multi-racial, multi-faith community organization comprised of 220 congregations, schools, clergy and faith leaders across the state and a member of Faith in Action...

You are so right!

An example: www.togethercolorado.org

The personate flowers folks will probably be more likely to recognize are snapdragons — because they are so fun! My kids loved them.

The unique morphological basis and parallel evolutionary history of personate flowers in Penstemon Premise Adaptive radiation in ecologically and morphologically diverse plant lineages presents an opportunity to investigate the rapid evolution of novel floral traits. While some types of floral traits, such as flower color, are well-characterized, other types of complex morphologies remain understudied. One example is occluded personate flowers, dorso-ventrally compressed flowers with obstructed floral passageways, which have evolved in multiple genera, but have only been characterized from snapdragon. Methods Our study examined the morphological basis and evolutionary history of personate flowers in a clade of Penstemon species that includes three personate-flowered species. We characterized floral morphology and inferred phylogenomic relationships for 13 species in this group in order to examine the evolutionary history of personate flowers. We used phylogenomic tests for introgression to examine whether personate-flowered lineages have a history of introgression. Results Unlike the personate flowers of snapdragon, personate flowers in Penstemon are produced by deep pleats in the ventral petal tissue that curve the ventral petal surface upwards, obstructing the floral tube opening. Our phylogenetic tree suggests that personate flowers evolved in two separate lineages. Phylogenomic analyses indicate incomplete lineage sorting and introgression between certain taxa have contributed to phylogenomic discordance, however we found little evidence of recent introgression between the two personate-flowered lineages. Conclusions The evolution of personate flowers in Penstemon involves a distinct morphological basis than snapdragon. Personate flowers have evolved multiple times in Penstemon on a rapid evolutionary timescale. The source of genetic variation for repeated shifts may be de novo mutations or pre-existing variants. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.

In case you missed this — incredible work with careful analyses of ILS and introgression focusing on an often overlooked floral trait.

Depatie, T.H. and Wessinger, C., 2024. The unique morphological basis and parallel evolutionary history of personate flowers in Penstemon. bioRxiv, pp.2024-12.

Oak Origins On February 15, 2025, The Morton Arboretum hosted a lecture in honor of the release of Dr. Andrew Hipp's book Oak Origins: From Acorns to Species and the…

The most recent lecture I gave on Oak Origins at The Morton Arboretum was really nicely recorded and is available for free online. This is the fullest and cleanest version of the lecture I've given to date, with some new info.

I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to share.

vimeo.com/1057955943

Michael Cain welcomes feedback and new ideas.

I try to stay quiet here, but I see all the anguish and despair. I am finding my local unitarian church to be a great source for connection, shared values, and folks who are brilliant activists. We will be having training sessions to learn how best to fight back. Seize the time!

YouTube video by Tab Benoit - Topic One Foot In The Bayou

m.youtube.com/watch?v=qDhl...

The Rare Plant RaMP offers a 1-year, fully funded research experience in rare plant science at 4 U.S. botanic gardens! Open to post-baccalaureates, with mentorship, networking, & science communication training. Apply by March 14, 2025!

Details: atlantabg.org/conservation...

Krewe du Vieux could be great this year.

www.kreweduvieux.org

A screenshot of the author's response to the other reviewer "we cannot ignore that comments like "whether the authors understand what blank is" have no place in sceintific communication and should be avoided in future reviews". I blanked out the keyword for privacy reasons.

Reviewed paper I quite like, but to my surprise, the other reviewer seemed to really disliked it and left pages of comments that at times offensive. Now we got the revision & response to reviewers back, glad to see the authors did on tolerate it! Gearing up to write a response to support them.

Love making maps

Here are some samples from Penstemon newberryi x davidsonii hybrid zone at Virginia Lakes trail in the Sierras

Color = flower color!

1st paper from my lab this year. Chelsea & Erica showed that self-incompatible plants of this little groundcherry change to self-compatible as they get old, but they are only passable selfers, making less than half the number of seeds as plants are fixed for self-compatibility rdcu.be/d7ZM8

It is not too late to act on climate change because climate change is not pass/fail. Every faction of a degree matters and is worth fighting for.

That's not propaganda or wishful thinking. It's evidence-based. Suggesting otherwise is as unscientific as climate denial, and just as damaging.