Ecology, evolution and conservation of reptiles and amphibians • Senior Lecturer in Ecology and Evolution at Newcastle University • Scientific Associate at Natural History Museum, London • He/Him
Our new paper (led by Rémi Martin) found that British toads have low genetic diversity and low geographic structuring. Most of the genetic differences were driven by isolation-by-distance. Levels of genetic diversity decreased the further north the population tinyurl.com/43wxrfuk 🧪🐸🌎🐍#consgen
I am very happy to see Becci Morris' first ever paper published 🥳 In this study we find that the New Guinea frog genus Mantophryne diversified due to a combination of tectonic activity and climate reorganisation in the Late Pliocene – Early Pleistocene doi.org/10.1002/ece3...
🧪🐸
Amazing first full day of our Newcastle University undergraduate Biology/Zoology Scotland fieldcourse. This year we have come to the shore of Loch Lomond. My group have been doing reptile and amphibian ecological surveys and we found adders, slow worms, frogs, toads, and palmate newts 🐍🐸🧪
Workshop on #ConservationGenetics at #HWM2026 led by Axel Barlow and @simonmaddock.bsky.social of @bangoruniversity.bsky.social and Newcastle University -assessing participant knowledge and solving scenarios.
As a geoscientist with lots of biology in my background, training, & interests, I love these examples of how plate tectonics intersects with evolution: in this case, frog diversification driven by tectonic processes, with the latter also influencing climate. 🧪🪨⚒️🐸🌋
Adios *Anilios*! Glad our phylogeny was somewhat helpful in synonymising @simonmaddock.bsky.social! mapress.com/zt/article/v...
The most exciting find of my recent fieldwork: the Montane Mahé Caecilian. Only found on the highest peak in Seychelles, this Critically Endangered amphibian had not been observed since 2015.
📷: @simonmaddock.bsky.social
Interesting new tool to extract phylogenies from images (Tremble). It is crazy that this is still something we have to do. doi.org/10.1093/bioi...
I have a new preprint demonstrating a genome-architecture-aware approach to inferring species trees and introgression landscapes from a small number of genomes. If you are interested in phylogenomics, birds, or hybridization, this is for you! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
