The Fly Tree of Life – Big Science, Big Results?

 Cool Science, Entomology, Publication, Review, Taxonomy  8 Responses »
Apr 112011
 

This post is going to be longer and a little more technical than normal; feel free to jump in and out, or just check out some of the photos on your way to the conclusions. Although I may come across as critical and occasionally cynical at times, I’m not picking on anyone just to be a thorn, but rather to promote scientific discussion; I fully encourage you to join the discussion in the comments section. Finally, in the spirit of full disclosure, a portion of my graduate research was funded via the NSF Tree of Life grant behind this paper (although neither myself nor my research contributed to this project in any manner that I’m aware of), and one of my academic advisors is a co-author on the paper.

Asilidae with Prey - Ecuador

Robber Fly with Prey - Asilidae - Ecuador

Despite my best efforts here at Biodiversity in Focus, research on flies very rarely makes the mainstream media (besides mosquitoes, malaria and Drosophila of course), so when one of the most important papers on fly evolution was released and started making the science blog circuit, I was excited to see people taking an interest in Dipterology! There was one problem however, which is not limited to the blogosphere and this paper, but has been an increasingly common trend in insect systematics: the blind acceptance and assumption that a new phylogeny is the definitive answer because the researchers used an ever increasing number of genes. One influential blogger, who’s also an evolutionary entomologist, summarized the results of the Diptera tree of life as such:

But they’re solid results, since they’re based on lots of molecular data and the branch positions are well supported.   — Jerry A. Coyne, Ph.D

Similarly, the research team who published the tree are encouraging the idea that their results are infallible by labeling their work the “New Periodic Table of Flies”. A bold statement, and one that many taxonomists might be hesitant to make as it implies that they don’t expect future studies to return different relationships, much as the periodic table of chemical elements is not about to change. An analogy like this requires a strong body of evidence to support it, so let’s take a look at what they did and how the Diptera family tree looks!

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Busy British Bees

 Cool Science, Entomology, Insects  7 Responses »
Dec 232010
 

Ever wish you didn’t need those pesky references, formal writing style, or time consuming computer graphics when going to publish your work? A new study published in Biology Letters demonstrates that as long as your science is well done, nothing else matters. The project I’m referring to was done by a group of 8-10 year old elementary school children under the guidance of an ophthalmology professor at University College London (Dr. Beau Lotto), and studied the ability of bumblebees to utilize colour and spatial information while foraging. There have been papers published in the past by student researchers, but what makes this paper special is that the students not only helped with the experiments, but dictated the actual paper itself over a Coke at the local pub and hand drew the figures!

Figure 1 from Blackawton Bees (Blackawton P.S. et al)

Figure 1 from Blackawton Bees (Blackawton P.S. et al)

There are absolutely no references within the paper as it was argued that the comprehension level of the background material was beyond that of the research group, and ultimately irrelevant to their experimental design and conclusions. Likewise, the writing itself is refreshingly simple and full of truths that many researchers (or at least many grad students I know) can’t put into their papers. My favourite quote (discussing the need to train the bees prior to experimentation):

We did this so that they would learn not to go just to the colours, but had to learn the pattern. Otherwise they might fail the test, and it would be a disaster.

It apparently took Lotto 18 months to find a journal willing to accept it for review given its unorthodox style, with the likes of Nature, Science and pLOS One turning it down before the Royal Linnean Society agreed to run with it. Biology Letters included several independent commentaries on the paper vouching for the novelty of the study. The research itself is a nice little example of citizen science, and worth a read all on its own, but the style in which it was presented is a huge paradigm shift for the scientific community. While I wouldn’t want this sort of publication to become commonplace, it does illustrate that just because someone doesn’t have the resources of an extensive library or 8 years of postgraduate work (heck, even a high school diploma) behind them, doesn’t mean they have nothing to contribute to our understanding of the natural world. The kids say it best:

Science is cool and fun because you get to do stuff that no one has ever done before.

Reference:

Blackawton, P. S., S. Airzee, A. Allen, S. Baker, A. Berrow, C. Blair, M. Churchill, J. Coles, R. F. J. Cumming, L. Fraquelli, C. Hackford, A. Hinton Mellor, M. Hutchcroft, B. Ireland, D. Jewsbury, A. Littlejohns, G. M. Littlejohns, M. Lotto, J. McKeown, A. O’Toole, H. Richards, L. Robbins-Davey, S. Roblyn, H. Rodwell-Lynn, D. Schenck, J. Springer, A. Wishy, T. Rodwell-Lynn, D. Strudwick and R. B. Lotto “Blackawton bees.” Biology Letters.

http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/12/18/rsbl.2010.1056.abstract

Thanks to Danielle Fife for passing along the story!