Laura Alencar 🇧🇷🐍🦎
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alencarlrv.bsky.social
Laura Alencar 🇧🇷🐍🦎
@alencarlrv.bsky.social
Associate Research Scientist @ Yale University | Macroevo/eco of Lizards & Snakes!
Reposted by Laura Alencar 🇧🇷🐍🦎
Reposted by Laura Alencar 🇧🇷🐍🦎
Applications now open for the International Travel Stipends to attend #Evol2026! Funds cover registration, travel, food, and lodging. Apply by January 30: www.evolutionsociety.org/content/soci... @evolmtg.bsky.social
November 26, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Reposted by Laura Alencar 🇧🇷🐍🦎
Excited to share our new paper where we find that the rise, decline and fall of clades is not explained by the usual suspects (diversity-dependence, ecological opportunities) but rather by species' insidious loss of macroevolutionary fitness: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/3
Loss of macroevolutionary species fitness explains the rise and fall of clades - Nature Ecology & Evolution
The interplay between speciation and extinction rates shapes clade diversity dynamics. Using a novel phylogenetic model that includes living and fossil lineages, the authors estimate speciation and ex...
www.nature.com
October 17, 2025 at 9:12 AM
Reposted by Laura Alencar 🇧🇷🐍🦎
Dream Job Alert !

Herpetology Collections Manager at the University of Michigan - manage one of the largest reptile and amphibian collections in the world in state-of-the-art facilities in the best college town in the world. #herpetology

careers.umich.edu/job_detail/2...
Res Museum Collection Manager | U-M Careers
careers.umich.edu
October 9, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Reposted by Laura Alencar 🇧🇷🐍🦎
Happy to see this finally out! Diego is a brilliant student that took our grad course on Macroevolution during lockdown, and this eventually escalated to me becoming a co-author in his PhD chapter.

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Interaction between floral rewards and floral symmetry shapes diversification dynamics in Amazonian trees
Floral zygomorphy, or monosymmetry, is thought to have a positive effect on the diversification rates of angiosperms, but its true impact is still an open topic. Given the controversy surrounding th...
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
October 9, 2025 at 11:38 AM
Reposted by Laura Alencar 🇧🇷🐍🦎
I am recruiting graduate students to begin August 2026. Apply by Nov 15th!
August 21, 2025 at 3:40 PM
Reposted by Laura Alencar 🇧🇷🐍🦎
Today is the day! Go visit @alencarlrv.bsky.social's poster to check the work she's brilliantly leading with the participation of a stellar team (and me)! See some cool stuff about the evolution of ovi/viviparity and climate in squamates, trying to uncover its hidden dynamics! #evol2025
June 23, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Reposted by Laura Alencar 🇧🇷🐍🦎
Brazilians at #Evol2025! @mjanuario.bsky.social and I are planning ab informal meetup tomorrow after the poster session (~7:30pm) at Creature comforts, a brewery 10 min from the conference center. Non-Brazilians who want to mingle and hear some Portuguese are always welcome!! 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷
June 22, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Reposted by Laura Alencar 🇧🇷🐍🦎
The #evol2025 FOMO is real 🥲 First one I'm missing since 2017.... Wishing you all a great conference, and make sure you check @alencarlrv.bsky.social's poster for some really cool stuff!
June 20, 2025 at 11:15 PM
Reposted by Laura Alencar 🇧🇷🐍🦎
Super excited to share our new paper investigating convergence across planktivorous fishes and assessing the impact of ancestry and light environment led by Dr Jen Hodge @fishncurious.bsky.social and including most members of the lab past and present academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...
Unravelling the Effects of Ecology and Evolutionary History in the Phenotypic Convergence of Fishes
Abstract. Understanding the ecological drivers and limitations of adaptive convergence is a fundamental challenge. Here, we explore how adaptive convergenc
academic.oup.com
May 14, 2025 at 4:50 AM
Reposted by Laura Alencar 🇧🇷🐍🦎
New from the Near Lab, a super collaboration led by @chasedbrownstein.bsky.social

Phylogenomics and evolutionary history of the iconic reef fish clade wrasses and parrotfishes (Labridae)

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adu6149
Phylogenomics establishes an Early Miocene reconstruction of reef vertebrate diversity
Phylogenomics reveals a younger-than-expected age of reef fish diversification.
www.science.org
May 7, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Reposted by Laura Alencar 🇧🇷🐍🦎
What can #population-level processes tell us about large-scale #biodiversity? 🧵:
1/8 A key question in #evolutionary #biology: Can we predict how quickly lineages diversify (#speciation rates) based on #traits observable at the population level?
#microevolution #macroevolution
March 12, 2025 at 1:11 AM
Reposted by Laura Alencar 🇧🇷🐍🦎
Please share this opportunity widely! Instructors: @fmachado.bsky.social @alencarlrv.bsky.social @joelmcglothlin.bsky.social Jacqueline Sztepanacz, Patrick Carter & Joe Felsenstein (virtually)
Interested in trait evolution and/or connecting micro and macroevolution? The Evolutionary Quantitative Genetics Workshop has returned, now at Mountain Lake Biological Station, VA, June 9-13th! Deadline for application April 4th, 5pm EST. More info here: eqgw.github.io
EQGW
eqgw.github.io
March 11, 2025 at 2:34 PM
Reposted by Laura Alencar 🇧🇷🐍🦎
Yesterday, we had a fantastic time at the Scientists in Action workshop at Dixwell Q House! Our team engaged with enthusiastic middle schoolers about our research. A big thank you to everyone who made this event a success! We look forward to more opportunities to inspire young minds!
February 21, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Reposted by Laura Alencar 🇧🇷🐍🦎
New preprint from postdoc @bpwaldron.bsky.social and coauthors! Love to get to think about salamanders sometimes with the help of real experts like Brian, was my original academic goal to be a salamander biologist and I'm largely failing.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Loss of a morph is associated with asymmetric character release in a radiation of woodland salamanders
Color polymorphism, the occurrence of multiple discrete color morphs with co-adapted sets of traits within the same population, may provide the raw materials for rapid species formation. It has been h...
www.biorxiv.org
February 17, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Reposted by Laura Alencar 🇧🇷🐍🦎
You are invited to an online presentation "The Secret Lives of California Snakes" on Feb 20 from 12-1pm PT. Register ahead of time here: lpfw.org/snakes-webinar. Please share!
Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Secret Lives of Snakes with Emily Taylor. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.
Fear of snakes is one of the most common phobias in the world, yet step into any local zoo and you'll find the snake pit to be among these menageries' greatest attractions. Join us as we host Dr. Emil...
lpfw.org
February 14, 2025 at 4:11 PM