Silu recently arrived from Molly Cummings’ lab at UT Austin, where she received an M.A. in Ecology, Evolution & Behavior for her thesis work on “Behavior, morphology and genetic signatures of sexual selection in poeciliid fish.”

Welcome Silu!!

Congrats to Kira!

The citation:

Delmore, K.E., and D.E. Irwin. 2014. Hybrid songbirds employ intermediate routes in a migratory divide. Ecology Letters, Early View DOI: 10.1111/ele.12326 Link

Feel free to email Darren Irwin for a PDF.

Some coverage in the media:

Discover Magazine blog
Tech Times
UBC press release

Read more about Kira’s work here.

Congrats to Miguel! The citation:

Alcaide, M., E.S.C. Scordato, T.D. Price, and D.E. Irwin. 2014. Genomic divergence in a ring species complex. Nature 511: 83-85.  Link

Feel free to email Darren Irwin for a PDF.

The press release:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-05/uobc-rmt052214.php

To read about our earlier work on the Greenish Warbler ring species, see here.

The citation:

Szabo, I., S. Cavaghan, G. Hurley, and D.E. Irwin. 2014. A call for the preservation of images, recordings, and other data in association with avian genetic samples, and the introduction of a solution: OMBIRDS. The Auk: Ornithological Advances 131: 321-326. Link

Feel free to email Darren Irwin for a PDF.

For more information, please see the OMBIRDS page at the Beaty Museum’s website:

http://beatymuseum.ubc.ca/ombirds

The full citation:

Toews, D.P.L., A. Brelsford, and D.E. Irwin. 2014. Isotopic variation across the Audubon’s–myrtle warbler hybrid zone. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 27: 1179-1191.  Link

On April 23rd, Michelle Chen gave an excellent defense of her Honours Thesis, titled “Song Divergence: the Case of Wilson’s Warblers (Cardellina pusilla). Congrats Michelle!

Dave Toews defended his Ph.D., titled “Hybridization, Speciation and the Biogeography of Genetic and Phenotypic Variation in Setophaga Warblers,” with much success on April 14th, 2004. We all wish Dr. Toews all the best with his future work. We have greatly enjoyed Dave’s presence as a M.Sc. and then Ph.D. student, and will miss him very much.

Haley Kenyon defended her MSc thesis, titled “Song in a hybrid zone between Townsend’s and black-throated green warblers,” with much success on Dec. 11th, 2013. Congrats Haley!!

Julie defended her thesis, titled “Understanding parapatric range limits in the Long-toed Salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum),” with much success on Friday, December 7th, 2013.

We wish Julie all the best with her move to Switzerland for a postdoc with Prof. Dr. Yvonne Willi, at the University of Neuchâtel, where Julie will continue studying range limits, this time with plants. She will be missed here at UBC!

Congrats to Dave!

The full citation:

Toews, D.P.L., M. Mandic, J.G. Richards, and D.E. Irwin. 2013. Migration, mitochondria, and the yellow-rumped warbler. Evolution 68: 241-255. Link; PDF

See also:

The UBC press release
The Guardian article
New Scientist article
Science Daily article
10,000 Birds article