Check out this recent and extremely interesting paper by Andrew Hugall and Devi Stuart-Fox just published in Nature! In it, Andrew and Devi use species-level molecular phylogenies from five families of non-passerine birds (i.e. falcons, owls, nightjars, accipitrids and pheasants) to show that colour polymorphism is associated with accelerated speciation rates in the three groups where colour-polymorphism is more prevalent. Their study included more than 700 hundred taxa, which is very impressive! Finally, they corroborated the generality of their finding using a species-level molecular phylogeny of passerines (the largest order of birds including more than half of all bird species), incorporating 4,128 (66.5%) extant species, to show that polymorphic species tend to be younger than monomorphic species. Their article provides definitive empirical proof for the idea that where colour polymorphism does occur, processes generating and maintaining it can promote speciation, and is bound to become a citation classic!
‘Animals in translation: why there is meaning (but probably no message) in animal communication‘, our theoretical paper published in August 2010, continues to be among the most read papers in Animal Behaviour. It was the most read (by downloads) paper of the journal last trimester, and ranked fifth overall for 2011! Click on the title or go to publications for more details. You can also check out our related previous paper ‘Putting information back into biological communication‘, published previously in Journal of Evolutionary Biology.
Lizards found to send secret signals – Australian Geographic.
Martin Whiting’s latest publication on UV communication in Platysaurus hits the headlines, one of the coolest lizards on the planet!
Finally, after a 22h flight from London featuring two sunrises, two sunsets, a (perhaps too) talkative guy from Worcestershire (yes, where the sauce is made), some massive passenger-spraying by the crew with some sort of anti-biotic stuff that took me completely by surprise, and a 8-buck tiger beer at Sanghai airport…I landed safely in Sydney, where I will be spending the next 6 months thanks to an Endeavour Post Doc research award. During this time, I will be working with Martin Whiting on his awesome project on lizard cognition and social intelligence. For more details on this and other of Martin’s endeavors, don’t hesitate to visit his really cool webpage at The Lizard Lab. You would be crazy not to! Check our some of the impressive installations we will be using.
 We made it to the top five! The news arrived. ‘Animals in translation: why there is meaning (but probably no message) in animal communication‘, one of my latest papers with Enrique Font, hit the headlines! The paper was published last August in Animal Behaviour, and was the third most downloaded article of the journal from July to September. In this paper, we defend the concept of information in animal communication against recent attacks. Click on the title for more details. You can also check out our related previous paper ‘Putting information back into biological communication‘, published in Journal of Evolutionary Biology but a few months before.
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