As genomic data have become increasingly cheap to generate, they have seen a range of new uses for understanding pest populations.

Phenotypic plasticity is an important adaptation for organisms that live under fluctuating environmental conditions.

In this presentation, I show that geographically widespread triploid parthenogenetic forms of the Australian gekkonid Heteronotia binoei are considerably diverse despite their clonal reproductive mode, with patterns of SNP variation consistent with two previously identified reciprocal hybrid origins and numerous backcrossing events.

Hybridisation events – together with other biological processes such as recombination and incomplete lineage sorting – can create gene tree discordance, where different genomic regions describe different evolutionary histories.

The repeated, independent evolution of similar traits in different species is a fascinating phenomenon that affords deep insights into the relative importance of deterministic vs. stochastic forces in evolution.

In this talk, I introduce how white-winged choughs, highly social cooperative breeders, integrate multiple features of alarm and contact communication to coordinate antipredator behaviour and maintain cohesion.