Spring isn't all it's quacked up to be. Pollen levels are high, magpies are terrorising cyclists and pedestrians alike, and protective duck parents are in attack mode.
Our new research unites genomic sequencing and museum collections to reconstruct the evolutionary tale of native rodents, including many extinct and elusive species – and they have a fascinating origin story.
If swooping season strikes fear into your heart, you're not alone. Fortunately, Dr Chaminda Ratnayake from the ANU Research School of Biology has the intel you need to navigate the great outdoors this spring.
To measure the speed of adaptive evolution in the wild, we studied 19 populations of birds and mammals over several decades. We found they were evolving at twice to four times the speed suggested by earlier work.
The vast majority of plants are mycorrhizal, with two of the most dominant types (arbuscular [AM] and ectomycorrhizal [EcM]) existing at opposite ends of multiple spectra.
An individual’s environment can substantially impact its health, fitness, and the traits it invests energy to. This is something that I am particularly interested in and has been a focus of my research career to date.
The long-tailed finch, Poephila acuticauda provides a long-established example of sub-species divergence across the Top-End of Australia based on bill colour, with red-billed birds in the east and yellow-billed birds in the west.