So much has happened over the past several months that I’ve forgotten to update this page!

Nevertheless, I’ve great news to share. Since July 2020, I’ve had three papers accepted for publication!

The first, titled “Rapid morphological change in multiple cichlid ecotypes following the damming of a major clearwater river in Brazil”, uses geometric morphometrics (a fancy way of using math to study how geometric shapes differ across organisms) to see how cichlid populations have changed over the past 50 years. As the titles states, dams are involved. One in particular, and a major predicted driver in our study, is quite large, and, in the area it exists, has changed the Tocantins river from being shallow and clear, to being a massive reservoir. In short, we find that all five cichlid species in our study have changed shape over the past 50 years! For more detail, check out the full paper here!

Our second, titled “Extreme Morphology, Functional Trade-Offs, and Evolutionary Dynamics in a Clade of Open-Ocean Fishes (Perciformes: Bramidae)” takes advantage of a small, but rare family of fishes that have some unique, but clear family relations. One of the groups, the Ptericlinae, have exaggerated medial fins that we feel can provide unique insights into how some traits are prevented from changing during evolution based on the history of the family. In short, we think history matter and we explore and explain why, here!

Our third, titled “Ciliary rootlet coiled-coil 2 (crocc2) underlies evolutionary divergence and plasticity of cichlid jaw shape”, uses zebrafish to investigate a possible mechanism plasticity (the ability for an organism to change in response to a unique environment). We find and discuss a molecular mechanism and present our case for why we think it may play a role in plasticity. For more, check out our paper here!