Door 21: Insects are fun!

Among my favorite papers of 2022, as always, are the quarterly contributions to the American Entomoligist by May R. Berenbaum: “Terms of Art and Terms of Arthropods” https://doi.org/10.1093/ae/tmac051, “Sew-Sew Jokes” https://doi.org/10.1093/ae/tmac032, and “Bowl Games” https://doi.org/10.1093/ae/tmac006. Dr Berenbaum can write about anything related to entomology, and this year her […]

Door 20: Graham Budd – one of the greatest paleontologists of our time

As previously said, during this year FEZ advent calendar I have decided to briefly present you three works: a research paper, a researcher interview, and a book. For this occasion, my last contribution to this year FEZ advent calendar series, I would like to point out a publication […]

Door 19: A mysterious crustacean

For my second entry in our advent calendar, I will again present a taxonomic paper. This time it is surprisingly not about worms, but about a rather intriguing group of crustaceans, Facetotecta (Figure 1). It is a small group of about 14 species, all in the genus Hansenocaris. […]

Door 18: Ancestors in Evolutionary Biology: Linear Thinking about Branching Trees

As commented on a previous post of this 2022 Frontiers in Evolutionary Zoology advent calendar I have decided to briefly present you three works: a research paper, a researcher interview, and a book. Today, it is the turn of posting one of my favorite scientific books of the year. At least in life […]

Door 17: The carbon footprint of our computational analyses

In recent years, there has been a new movement in biology and especially in phylogenetics, which looks at the carbon footprint of our computational analyses. It is called green computing or green phylogenetics. Especially supercomputers have a high energy demand, not only for the actual calculation, but also […]

Advent Calendar Day 16: The March To Land

For the 16th day of our Advent Calendar, I’d like to talk about a pre-print. I thought the results were incredibly exciting and, if the article passes peer review, I assume we’ll see it in a journal in the new year! https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.07.25.501387v2.full The transition from sea to land […]

Door 15: Improving marine biodiversity assessments by sampling larvae

Another paper I really enjoyed reading this year was “Sampling multiple life stages significantly increases estimates of marine biodiversity”, published last April by Svetlana Maslakova and her colleagues. They argue that most surveys of marine life underestimate the total number of species because they rely almost entirely on […]

Door 14. The largest animal genus just got larger.

Today, most biologists would agree that there is no objective criterion to determine the rank of a supraspecific taxon. As a result, comparing how many species different taxa of the same rank include does not make much sense. Yet we keep doing it. Following that tradition we may […]

Door 13: Expanding Sources of DNA in Museums

Author: Rita Austin (former group member) Diverse museum holdings offer unique and exciting potential sources of ancient DNA and other biomolecules (e.g., RNA and proteins). As technology and methods advance, the accessibility and potential for success of ancient DNA has also increased; alongside the attainment of ancient DNA […]

Door 12: Measuring Functional Diversity

Currently, the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) is going on in Montreal, Canada. Again a COP soon after an earlier COP, namely the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) has been held in November in Sharm-El-Sheick, Egypt. For many of us, including myself, the twin crises of climate change and […]