I am looking for a PhD student to join my new Socio-Eco-Evo group, hosted in Katie Peichel's Evolutionary Ecology Division @ University of Bern. We're offering a fully funded 4-year position, studying social plasticity and behavioral adaptation among stickleback in Greenland. Please share around!
Boy do I love phase images of salamander sperm 🌈
Pictured: Bolitoglossa peruviana
Highly recommend the Book of Frogs. It was an excellent read, and is accessible and interesting to folks at all levels! 🐸
Sunday #book review by IOB author @arielkahrl.bsky.social
The Book of Frogs, second edition” by O’Shea & Halliday is a perfect resource for someone who wants an up-to-date, detailed, & engaging introduction to the natural history, #taxonomy, & diversity of #frogs..."
iobopen.com/2026/01/25/t...
I need this on spoonflower so I can make a blouse!
“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.” - James Baldwin
Sperm in spaaaaacccceee 🧑🚀
(MitoView green staining some green frog sperm to measure midpiece volume and playing with our confocal).
A plea from an editor:
postdocs & grad students who want to review manuscripts, please (!) have an online presence with your current email. I try to solicit reviews from ECRs, but we all move a lot, and it's hard to know if we'll be able to reach you at the email address on your last paper 🧪🌍
It me.
Gives me a new craft idea! They really are beautiful structures
Some beautiful TEMs of Rhinella marina flagella cross-sections! Axonemes on the left, connected with a membrane to axial fibers on the right (black teardrop shapes).
Oh my gosh you guys! The House just passed my bill to extend the health care tax credits for three more years!
Join us in Brittany? One week left to apply for this postdoc position deciphering the mysteries of inbreeding depression...
Love the photo booth at #SICB2026!
Thanks so much for sharing this @arielkahrl.bsky.social
We are proud for you all🙌
& we hope no one at #SICB2026 missed your own co authored IOB work
doi.org/10.1093/iob/...
So proud of team frog sperm representing at #SICB2026! 🐸
Off to #SICB2026! Come check out the work from my lab:
Sun at 11am (202)- My talk about the evolution of amphibian sperm
Tues poster session - two posters about green frog sperm performance in egg water presented by my awesome students!
See you there! 🐸 ⚫〰️
All I want for Christmas are my TEMs, my TEMs... 🤓
Our first TEMs of frog sperm rolling in! This species of Chiromantis has a flagellum with two axonemes surrounded by microtubles. Frogs are so weird! 🐸
Interestingly, we see a similar organized structure in Plethodon cinereus, which has a kind of hex grid of proteins making their fiber (left is fiber and axoneme, right is sperm head)
A side quest/future project of mine is to figure out what the axial fiber in amphibian sperm tails is made of. Maybe the same material that makes up the fibrous sheath of mammal sperm? These SEMs show an intact cell and one where the cell membrane is lost revealing the protein structure of the fiber
Maxwell Girard is a Masters Student at the University of Helsinki in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Programme. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology with honors from Hamilton College (Clinton, NY) in 2024 where he studied amphibian reproduction in the herpetology research lab. His research focused on identifying trade offs within the traits involved in sexual selection. He is very excited to present his results, along with his co-authors, in IOB.
IOB co-author Maxwell Girard is a Masters Student at the University of Helsinki. His research focused on identifying trade offs within the traits involved in sexual selection.
He's excited to present his results, along with his co-authors, in IOB:
doi.org/10.1093/iob/...
#biology #amphibians
IOB
"These results suggest that males must make complex investments in suites of sexual traits to maximize fitness in the face of energetic trade-offs..."
Relationships between Pre- & Postcopulatory Sexually Selected Traits in Green #Frogs
Girard et al
doi.org/10.1093/iob/...
Another highlight of Max and Charlotte's project! 🐸
This is the first paper to originate from my lab and include Hamilton undergraduates! So proud of the hard work they put into this paper 🐸
Thrilled to be at the @nhm.org collecting testis from frogs this week. We are hopeful that these museum specimens will allow us to look at the ultrastructure of sperm in a diverse set of frogs with different fertilization modes (pictured is a foam nesting flying frog with giant balls!)
Utica turning up for #NoKings!
New amphibian gifts to add to my menagerie
The first batch of wall of famers! ⚪〰️
The male green frogs just started calling tonight. Where did I find the females? Sitting in the grass, avoiding them 😅
