Sam Price

Pass the pepper: Piper fruit traits are linked to frugivore diversity in Costa Rica Sharlene E. Santana, Anusha Aggarwal, Sneha Sil, Gloriana Chaverri This is a plain language summary of a Functional Ecology research article which can be found here. Fruit traits, such as color, sc…

Plain language summary: fesummaries.wordpress.com/2026/01/14/p...

Way to go Jack! Congratulations

Gummy candy ‘sour elderflower fish’ packet light blue covered in abstract green and white elderflower blossoms and yellow sugar covered fish with no foral find and hetercercak tail

Yellow gummy candy fish covered in sugar - deep bodied with homocercal tail.

I thought I may have been given gummy gymnotiform fishes or perhaps gummy early vertebrate Haikouichthys based on the package illustrations. Sadly what was inside didn’t live up to the expectations - still tasty though!

Congrats @hippieherper.bsky.social!

'Tis the season for some festive science songs.

If you've ever wanted to hear someone sing about a dimunitive tyranosaur then now is your chance

📣 Welcome to DPCB!
We’re SICB’s Division of Phylogenetics & Comparative Biology — the home for tree-thinking, evolutionary relationships, and comparative approaches across organisms.
#DPCB #SICB2026 #Phylogenetics

Very excited for this incredible lineup of talks at #SSB2026!

ssb2026.github.io/talks.html

For those giving talks, more instructions will be sent shortly.

@systbiol.bsky.social

🧪🐠 I am hiring a postdoc! Work will be on patterns of biodiversity across phylogenetic scales using teleost fishes as a model. Apply by end of Jan 2026 for full consideration apply.interfolio.com/179070 I encourage folks to reach out with any questions. Please Share!

Thank you to ICB journals for highlighting @keifferwilliams.bsky.social’s 1st PhD paper - it’s especially apt as he is coming back to Clemson for his hooding ceremony on Wednesday!

Random encounter modelling as a viable method to estimate absolute abundance of reef fish Remote underwater video (RUV) surveys are increasingly replacing diver-based underwater visual censuses (UVCs) in fish ecology studies, especially on coral reefs. However, extracting reliable esti...

My newest paper and 1st chapter from the PhD is also officially out!

I test how random encounter models work on reef fish 🐠Also great for anyone with a healthy dose of scepticism about reef fish survey methods

*Contains one of the most painful tables I've ever written.

doi.org/10.1111/2041...

Policy Notice: Implementation of Policy Changes to Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) 24-1, Supplement 1 This notice implements several revisions to NSF's Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) 24-1.

NSF policy changes - some updates that PIs should be aware of.

www.nsf.gov/policies/doc...

Heartbreaking. The University of Nebraska will terminate its entire Earth science department.

One of the country's most successful and respected geology & climate programs: gone.

When ideologues & politicians are threatened by the very act of studying climate change, I wonder: who of us is next?

Check out our review/perspective piece on phylogenetic diversification analysis, intended for the 75th anniversary of
@systbiol.bsky.social. I had the privilege of working with great coauthors, @fhenaodiaz.bsky.social, @tvasconcelos.bsky.social and @roszenil.bsky.social!
doi.org/10.1093/sysb...

Congratulations to UMMP Associate Research Scientist Miriam Zelditch on the release of the third edition of the indispensable "Geometric Morphometrics for Biologists" (a.k.a. the green book)! #FossilFriday

An illustration of a man standing in water that comes up to his neck surrounded by fish, with text: I dropped out of high school. Now, I’m living my dream as a fish scientist

"No one should be made to feel inferior or that they do not belong in science because of their origins." #ScienceWorkingLife https://scim.ag/48JF6Pg

Another nice Oreosomatidae on the way back to the surface. They're hoping for 2 more dives before the expedition ends. @schmidtocean.bsky.social dive 875 #asgardarchaea #MarineLife

Introduce yourself with 5 animals you’ve seen in the wild:
Platypus
Blue whale
Andean condor
Yellow-eyed penguin
Archer fish

#OnThisDay in 1859, Charles Darwin's landmark book 'On the Origin of Species' was first published. The work is one of the foundations of evolutionary biology, and one of the most important scientific works of the 19th century. #HistoryOfScience

An ontological morphological phylogenetic framework for living and extinct ray‐finned fishes (Actinopterygii) The ray-finned fishes include one out of every two species of living vertebrates on Earth and have an abundant fossil record stretching 380 million years into the past. The division of systematic kno...

Very excited to share my exploration of the phylogenetics of early ray-finned fishes, out today in the Anatomical Record! Really busy day but I’ll have more info shortly.

anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Congratulations to Joe Felsenstein on being awarded the 2026 Mendel Medal!

What is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma.

It's *scientific publishing*.

We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing.

Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Background: doi.org/10.1162/qss_...

Thread @markhanson.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy 👇

Consider Sharing Health Challenges With Colleagues (opinion) Being open with my colleagues about my cancer diagnosis has allowed me to access an enormous source of support and comfort.

I’m stuck in bed between chemo treatments for metastatic coloncancer, wearing a take-home chemo pump attached to my chest.

I wanted to share my advice that you can benefit from ‘Letting Your Colleagues In’ don’t need to struggle alone
@insidehighered.com

www.insidehighered.com/opinion/care...

The Passing of the Tree of Life Web Project The Tree of Life Web Project began its journey almost 40 years ago, and was formally announced in early 1996. It has served thousands of pages of information about the evolutionary tree of life and…

The end of an era: the Tree of Life Web Project is going dark after 3 decades. Anyone interested in communicating phylogeny online should read David's account of goals, history, and future. @bembidion.bsky.social
subulatepalpomere.com/2025/11/02/t...

Natural History- a review of IOB author , Brandon Kilbourne’s poetry National Book Month Blog In the poetry collection, Natural History, scientist and poet, Brandon Kilbourne, writes about the origins of everything- species, scientific practices dealing with these s…

IOB's author & poet interview :
Brandon Kilbourne, a Pushcart-nominated, Cave Canem Foundation, Inc. prize winning #poet & #biologist carved out a little time to talk about his latest #poetry #book
via
iobopen.com/2025/10/31/n...
& watch the interview via
youtu.be/NmHkZ0iHn_o?...

#science

Genome-wide phylogeny reshapes our understanding of the evolution of deep-sea dragonfishes, bristlemouths, viperfishes, and allies (Stomiiformes) - BMC Ecology and Evolution Background The evolutionary relationships within Stomiiformes, a diverse order of deep-sea fishes dominating the mesopelagic and bathypelagic zones, remain contentious due to conflicting morphological...

New phylogeny and family-level classification of Stomiiformes (viperfishes, hatchetfishes, bristlemouths)

bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

Distinct evolutionary signatures underlie body shape diversity across deep sea habitats Abstract. The deep sea is known for extreme biological conditions such as high pressure, little-to-no solar light and cold temperatures. Despite these chal

New paper on deep-sea fish diversity out now in @sse-evolution.bsky.social, with @cmartinez.bsky.social and @sarahtfried.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

Phylogenetic relationships and the evolution of fin and body shape in the surgeonfishes Patterns of evolutionary change in the fin and body shapes of fishes are strongly related to dietary ecology and locomotor mechanisms, and associations between shapes affects ecomorphological relation...

No better reason to join Bluesky then to say the first chapter of my PhD is out as a preprint! New surgeonfish phylogeny, ecomorphological relationships, evolutionary shape correlations-with NEW method to accurately account for phylogenetic covariation among shapes!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Please spread widely and quickly - the more signatures we get the better chances we have of cajoling NSF into changing course on this small but very impactful item

Here's my comment--join me. This would effectively remove foreign PhD students and postdocs from our labs. please share