Overturning Evolutionary Doctrine

July 3, 2019

In a new study in Nature, Cassandra Extavour and her lab disprove an old hypothesis and prove a new one. Extavour says insects make up 80 percent of all animal species on Earth. She and PhD students, Sam Church, Seth Donoughe ('18), and Bruno de Medeiros analyzed a large data set to challenge the untested assumptions about egg size in insects. Across all insects, the team found...

Tokyo Tech and Jim Hanken Developmental Cell Study 2019

Oxygen Shapes Arms and Legs

June 13, 2019

A collaboration between professors at Tokyo Tech and Yamagata University and Prof. Jim Hanken has identified a surprising factor that the amount of oxygen surrounding the embryo could have been crucial for the appearance of interdigital cell death in tetrapods during evolution. The study, published in Developmental Cell, looked to understand the role of environmental oxygen in the...

Image from 2019 Science Advances Article by Stephanie Pierce

Fin-to-Limb Evolution

May 8, 2019

Stephanie E. Pierce collaborated with London's Royal Veterinary College to help explain how tetrapods (animals with limbs - hands and feet and fingers and toes) arose from animals that were fish with fins and lived in water. The team examined fossil evidence using the innovative technique, anatomical network analysis (AnNA) and found a pattern not before seen. The study published in May 8 issue of Science Advances helps to explain how sea-dwelling creatures' fins became specialized... Read more about Fin-to-Limb Evolution

Scott Edwards Awarded 2019 Molecular Ecology Prize

May 2, 2019

Congratulations to Scott Edwards, awarded 2019 Molecular Ecology Prize! Read more about Scott Edwards Awarded 2019 Molecular Ecology Prize

L. Mahadevan and Team Describe How Bacteria Spread in Different Forms

April 30, 2019

Prof. L. Mahadevan and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences researchers have developed a new model to describe how bacteria spread in different forms. The study, published in the open-access journal, eLife, combines mechanics, hydrodynamics and transport to describe the dynamics of growth and formation of thin bacterial swarms and biofilms; revealing the spread in both forms of microbial community are limited by the constraints of water and...

Convergent Regulatory Evolution and Loss of Flight in Paleognathous Birds

April 5, 2019

Species from widely divergent taxa can experience similar changes in traits. What underlying genetic drivers cause these parallel changes remains an open question. Tim Sackton (Director of Bioinformatics and former postdoc in Scott Edwards Lab), PhD student, Phil Grayson and Prof. Scott Edwards used a new method developed by collaborators in the Harvard Statistics Department to look across groups of birds that have repeatedly lost flight. The team showed there is convergence in the regulatory regions associated with genes related to flight, but not...

Dan Hartl Awarded 2019 Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal

March 20, 2019

Congratulations to Dan Hartl, awarded the 2019 Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal by the Genetics Society of America!

Mansi Srivastava and Andrew Gehrke with specimens in the laboratory. Courtesy of Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer

The Genetics of Regeneration

March 15, 2019

In a study in the March 15 issue of Science Magazine, Mansi Srivastava and lab members Andrew Gehrke, Emily Neverett, Yi-Jyun Luo, Lorenzo Ricci (Postdocs) and Ryan Hulett (PhD student) shed light on how some animals have the amazing ability to regenerate and uncovered a number of DNA switches that appear to control genes for whole-body regeneration.

The team used three-...

How Evolution Modified the Reptiles' Snouts

February 20, 2019

A new study led by PhD Student, Zachary Morris (S.Pierce Lab) and Stephanie Pierce examines how evolution modified the long-surviving reptiles' snouts. The study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows the evolutionary history of crocodiles, alligators, and their kin, once thought to be unchanged for millions of years, has actually altered developmental...

Cheetahs stalk around a meters-high termite mound in Namibia Courtesy of Harvard SEAS

How Termite Mounds Get Their Shape

February 12, 2019

How the centimeter-sized termite is able to build meter-sized structures all over the world has long puzzled scientists. In a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Prof. Mahadevan and PhD student, Alexander Heyde, developed a simple model that shows how differences in the environment lead to the distinct morphologies of termite mounds in Asia, Australia,...

oebfancylogo2_0.jpeg

Faculty News