Podcasts about neotropics

To protect our migratory birds, it's vital that we understand their behaviors both during the breeding season in North America and when they migrate to the Neotropics — a region that includes Central and South America, and the Caribbean. Yet historical and systemic barriers in scientific research have stifled contributions from local Neotropical scientists and conservationists for centuries. Learn more about how to support Neotropical ornithology on the new season of Bring Birds Back.More info and transcript at BirdNote.org. Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks. BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible.

For Black History Month 2023, the British Ecological Society is celebrating the work of Black ecologists around the world. In this episode, Jhan Salazar joins Frank Harris to discuss his early fascination with nature and the importance of representation in academia. Jhan is fifth-year graduate working on understanding patterns of evolution and adaptation of species to mountain environments in the Neotropics. Jhan is doing this research in Dr. Jonathan Losos' Lab in the Department of Biology and Biomedical Sciences at Washington University, St. Louis, USA. Check out all of the British Ecological Society's BHM 2023 blog posts and podcasts here: https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/membership-community/black-history-month-2023/

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Local naturalist George Sirk was sick for Cortes Island's Spring Bird Count earlier this month, so bird watchers had to rely on a new app to help them identify species. This new app, called Merlin, is one of many topics that he and Nancy Kendel, from the Cortes Island Museum, discussed with Cortes Currents. The conversation started out with Kendel (NK) giving an overview:  “For quite a number of years, the museum has sponsored two bird counts every year. In December and early January, we co-host with Bird Studies Canada, the Christmas Bird Count, where groups of people spread out around the island and count the actual numbers of birds that they see, as well as recording the species.” “The Spring Migration Birding Event happens the first Saturday of May and usually includes the day before and the day after. This year the count was on May 7th and included birds spotted on the 6th and the 8th.” “This birding event has a slightly different purpose. We only count species that we have observed, and it gives birders the opportunity to spend time together, share information and their knowledge with each other. We encourage families and interested novices to birding, to join us. They may pick up some tricks on identifying certain species of birds.” “The Christmas Bird Count has been happening on the island since 2001, and the Spring birding event has been going since 2004.” “Birding is a really fun thing to do. George Sirk actually encouraged me to help organize the first Christmas Bird Count. It was one of the most fun things that I had been doing during the whole year, getting out for the day with other people and seeing the birds. Kudos to George for getting this going even way back then.” To which George Sirk (GS) responded, “I just want to point out that it's just great that the museum takes on the task of organizing the event and then later tabulating all the data and then putting it all on the museum website. Everybody can look at all the different species that have been recorded in the Spring. “I just wanted to talk a little bit about the ebb and flow of the birds of Cortes. “All the ducks are in Manson's Lagoon or off of Smelt Bay, or in Squirrel Cove or Whaletown in the wintertime, because ducks from up north come down here. They overwinter here because the area's so rich for food. Sometimes there are over 500 Surf Scoters in the Gorge. There are huge numbers of birds. They're well recorded and documented in the Christmas bird count.” “Over 95% of them leave here and they go to their nesting territories way up in northern BC, Alaska, and the Yukon.” “A few of those winter birds stay over because they're probably non-breeding birds, takes 'em a couple of years to mature. They hang around here. So when the museum plans the bird count in the first week in May, they're actually catching the tail end of the wintering birds. They're around in small numbers.” “The museum's also catching the migration coming up from the Neotropics, from Central America, South America, the birds that come here in the summertime. So a completely different group of birds. Most of them are forest birds. They're still coming every day or every couple of days.” “Barn swallows weren't on the count in the 6th of May, but John Sprungman got them a week later because the Barn swallow has to come from Argentina, that's a long flight. Not all of them come from there, but that is one of the longest migrations of any of our land birds.” “Our Wax wings, Western wood pewee and Olive-sided fly catcher have not yet arrived. They come a little later, and of course the last one to arrive is the Nighthawk on the 7th or so of June. It does not like any cold weather. They come here and they're the first to leave in September.” “That's the ebb and flow of the two groups of birds. And then the third group we have here are the residents. Pileated woodpecker, Varied thrushes, Song sparrows. They're here year round.”

Die Themen in den Wissensnachrichten: +++ Ultrahoch verarbeitete Lebensmittel besonders gesundheitsschädlich +++ Journalistinnen werden besonders oft online angegriffen +++ Lianen können Bäume töten +++ **********Weiterführende Quellen zu dieser Folge:ICFJ-UNESCO Global Study: Online Violence Against Women Journalists, International Center for JournalistsLandscape-scale drivers of liana load across a Southeast Asian forest canopy differ to the Neotropics, Journal of Ecology, November 2022Is vaccine confidence an unexpected victim of the COVID-19 pandemic? Vaccine, Oktober 2022AWARE II (AWAreness during REsuscitation) - A Multi-Centre Observational Study of the Relationship between the Quality of Brain Resuscitation and Consciousness Neurological Functional and Cognitive Outcomes following Cardiac Arrest, NYU Langone HealthTriassic sauropodomorph eggshell might not be soft, Nature, Oktober 2022**********Ihr könnt uns auch auf diesen Kanälen folgen: Tiktok und Instagram.**********Weitere Wissensnachrichten zum Nachlesen: https://www.deutschlandfunknova.de/nachrichten

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Research summary: brain cell counts in Black Soldier Flies (Hermetia illucens; Diptera: Stratiomyidae), published by Rachel Norman on August 15, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Summary An organism's number of brain cells (e.g., neural processing power) may be a relevant proxy in assessing its likelihood of being sentient and, consequently, its capacity for welfare. In addition, quantitative proxies like brain cell numbers allow for more objective comparisons of moral weight across species, or across developmental stages within the same species. Isotropic fractionation (IF), a technique recently pioneered for application in insects by Godfrey et al. 2021, allows for insect brain cells to be quickly and reliably counted. IF can be used to determine the number of brain cells in insects, such as the black soldier fly (BSF; Hermetia illucens). Billions of BSFs are farmed annually across the globe, mainly to be used as animal feed, and the industry is growing. Understanding the likelihood of sentience in BSFs is important due to the massive scale of this new agricultural sector. My study co-authors and I determined the number of brain cells in adult male and female BSFs as well as L1, L4, and L6 stage larvae. As shown in the paper (preprint here), larvae produced a 9-fold increase in brain cell numbers across larval development; pupation caused a 16-fold increase in brain cell numbers for adults. Adult BSFs had an average of ~331,000 brain cells; males and females differed in the number of cells in their brains, due to differences in the optic lobes (peripheral processing regions responsible for the input of visual information). In the central brain, BSF adults had ~42,000 CB cells irrespective of sex. These data allow for BSF (at multiple developmental stages) to be included in interspecific welfare comparisons that use brain cells as a relevant measure of capacity for welfare. Caveats This post assumes sentience in insects is possible, but does not attempt to assess how probable it is based on the data gathered. In addition, it assumes cognitive capacity may be considered a proxy for sentience. Brain cell counts by themselves provide limited evidence for cognitive capacity, and should be used in conjunction with other behavioral and anatomical data. With insects there is often very little data on these other features (recently reviewed here); brain cell counts may represent an initial foray, then, into understanding a species' cognitive complexity. Thus, this research does not assess cognitive sophistication, nor the capacity for welfare in BSF, but may still be of interest to those working to understand BSF sentience. This post is not meant to examine the utility, or pros/cons, of brain cell numbers as a proxy for cognitive capacity, sentience, or moral weight. The data reported herein are for total brain cell numbers, which includes non-neuronal cell populations. Data from other Diptera (flies, mosquitoes, etc.) suggest neurons may make up ~90% of all brain cells (Raji & Potter 2021). Introduction Between 200 and 300 billion individual black soldier flies (BSFs) are estimated to be farmed annually to be used as animal feed, and the industry is expected to grow (Rowe 2020). The vast majority of farmed BSFs are killed as larvae. Larvae have excellent biomass conversion abilities (Cicková et al. 2015, Lalander et al. 2015), and exchange any waste products they may consume into nutrition for livestock and exotic pets (among other products; Lee et al. 2021, Hopkins et al. 2021, de Souza Vilela et al. 2021). BSFs belong to the order Diptera, family Stratiomyidae; they are in the same order as the model organism, Drosophila melanogaster (though D. melanogaster belongs to a different family, Drosophilidae). BSFs are native to the Neotropics, but due to globalization have...

This episode we're joined by Diego Calderon, biologist and co-host of The Birders Show, to discuss all things birds and birding in Colombia and beyond!Topics discussed: Species discovery including the Antioquia Wren, ground rollers, ornithology and recreational birding in the Neotropics, birding with FARC, vagrancy and rare bird chasing, and the Morro Bay Winter Bird FestivalSend your topic ideas to lifelistpodcast@gmail.com

Who Says Buzzed, Scary MRI's, FUCK Cats, Animal Butt Plug, Syllable Shuffle, New Orleans Pelicans, Rodger Goodell Hater, Old Jerzee Worth, Watching People, Dog Shit on My Lawn, Jujitsu and Yoga, Kung Fu Flicks, Sucking Your Own Penis, Combatting Your Plateau, Neotropics, Testosterone Levels, Transsexual Athletes, Rich Piana, John Walton, Being Gangster and Old, Todd's Stalker,  Side Hustles, CALL IN!! (504)457-8011, email: Reloaded504@yahoo.com, New Orleans # 1 Podcast, New Orleans best podcast

Today on Mushroom Hour we are joined by freethinker, activist and mycologist Dr. Patricia Kaishian. Dr. Kaishian received a B.A in Biology with a concentration in Environmental Studies in 2013 from Wheaton College, MA. In August 2020, she defended her Ph.D. in Forest Pathology & Mycology from SUNY College of Environmental Science & Forestry. She is broadly trained in the taxonomy of macro and micro fungi, with considerable field experience in the Neotropics. Currently, she is working as a postdoctoral researcher in the Aime Lab at Purdue University where she is serving as curator of fungi at the Arthur Fungarium & Kriebel Herbarium. Beyond more traditional scientific work, Dr. Kaishian also works in the realms like the philosophy of science, feminist bioscience, ecofeminism and queer theory, exploring how mycology and other scientific disciplines are situated in and informed by our sociopolitical landscape. She is a founding member of the International Congress of Armenian Mycologists, a research organization comprised of ethnically Armenian mycologists who seek to simultaneously advance mycological science and Armenian sovereignty and liberation.   TOPICS COVERED:   Childhood Embracing Nature in NY State  Activism & Science Intertwined  The Practice of Science & the Institution of Science  Western Eurocentric Perspectives Embedding into Modern Institutions  Historical Dynamics Between Institutional Science, Institutional Christianity, Agriculture & Colonization  Agro-Heterosexuality  Queer Theory & Queer Ecology  Mycology as a Queer Science  Upliftment of Marginalized People & Organisms  Influence of Dr. Robin Kimmerer  Armenian Advocacy  Link Between Biodiversity & Indigenous Sovereignty  Dr. Kaishan's Research on Laboulbeniales & Rust Fungi  EPISODE RESOURCES:   Dr. Kaishian Twitter: https://twitter.com/queendom_fungiDr. Kaishian ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Patricia-Kaishian  "Mycology as a Queer Discipline" Paper: https://catalystjournal.org/index.php/catalyst/article/view/33523  Dr. George Hudler “Magical Mushrooms Mischievous Molds”: https://www.amazon.com/Magical-Mushrooms-Mischievous-George-Hudler/dp/0691070164  "Queer Ecologies": https://www.amazon.com/Queer-Ecologies-Nature-Politics-Desire/dp/0253222036  "The Mushroom at the End of the World": https://www.amazon.com/Mushroom-End-World-Possibility-Capitalist/dp/0691178321/  "Braiding Sweetgrass": https://www.amazon.com/Braiding-Sweetgrass-Indigenous-Scientific-Knowledge/dp/1571313567/  Tiokasin Ghosthorse: https://www.humansandnature.org/tiokasin-ghosthorseInternational Congress of Aremenian Mycologists: https://icarmenian-mycologists.github.io/  Entoloma salmoneum: https://www.mushroomexpert.com/entoloma_quadratum.html

Using semi-supervised learning, I propose an anomaly-based network intrusion detection system (NIDS) to detect and classify anomalous and/or malicious traffic. With this proposed machine learning approach, we detect botnet traffic and distinguish it from the normal and background traffic in the IPv4 flow datasets. I evaluate the prediction performance results for the flow-based NIDS algorithms. I show an improvement in detection accuracy and reduction in error rates, when compared with signature-based NIDS and previous studies. About the speaker: Dr. Nandi Leslie is an Engineering Fellow at Raytheon Technologies, serving as an Applied Mathematician and Principal Investigator at the U.S. Combat Capabilities Development Command/Army Research Laboratory (ARL)customer, since 2015. She supports the Raytheon Intelligence and Space business area and ARL on research and development projects related to machine learning, and cyber and electromagnetic activities. Dr. Leslie has published over 40papers in journal, conference proceedings, magazines, and government technical reports on machine learning,cybersecurity, network resilience, submarine security, and mathematical biology with over 375 citations. She has given over 30 research talks at national and international conferences in both unclassified and classified settingsBefore joining Raytheon, Dr. Leslie led and contributed to multi-target tracking projects at Systems Planning and Analysis, Inc. from 2007 to 2015. In this role, she served as Program Manager and Senior Operations Research Analyst, and she developed modeling approaches for the U.S. Navy Submarine Security Program, Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), and Joint Program Offices, using stochastic processes, to understand various tactical problems in different domains; such as submarine search and detection in oceanographic and atmospheric environmental conditions for the Navy, and damage assessments and remediation of cyber attacks to the Defense Industrial Base for OSD. In addition, she spent two years as a Lecturer and Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Maryland, College Park in Department of Mathematics from 2005 to 2007. She earned her Ph.D. in Applied and Computational Mathematics from Princeton University in 2005, where her research focused on developing and analyzingspatially-explicit stochastic models of deforestation in forest ecosystems of the Neotropics.

Episode #25 of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Lisa Schonberg. We sat down at her home in Portland, Oregon, in-between her various research projects in the tropics. Lisa is a composer, percussionist, field recordist, teacher, and writer with a background in entomology and ecology. Lisa has traveled extensively to carry out fieldwork and perform environment-informed music. She earned her Masters in Environmental Studies at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA with a focus on ant biodiversity in the Neotropics. She documents soundscapes, insects, and habitat through music composition, writing, and multimedia collaboration. She strives to draw attention to endangered species, habitat loss, and other environmental issues through a merging of artistic and scientific practices, often in collaboration with ecologists.  More info and artwork can be found on our website: https://www.ofsedgeandsalt.com/ground-shots-podcast/lisaschonberg   In this episode of the podcast, we talk about:   Lisa's ATTA fieldwork (Amplifying the Tropical Ants), a project in collaboration with Brazilian entomologists investigating ant bioacoustics in the Amazon, the ecological and cultural relevance of “sons escondidos” (hidden sounds) and how they can impact our perception of non-human species and our decision-making processes   the importance of acoustic ecology and combining music composition and ecological field research how Lisa performs her place-based compositions with her ensembles Secret Drum Band and UAU. The Hylaeus project and Lisa's study of endangered bees that are endemic to Hawai'i  Developments in citizen science in Hawai'i for the Hylaeus bees How research on the bees in Hawai'i can help to raise awareness about behavioral changes people can make to protect the bees' habitat The current administration's push to weaken the Endangered Species Act and how this is extremely problematic How cross-discipline collaborative research can make questions and findings more accessible Making art from scientific data to make it more fun for folks to learn about The pattern ecology project and the exploration of making art about science and through the scientific process As an additional component to this interview with Lisa, we're including a Ground Shots mixtape episode with a selection of music from the various projects Lisa mentions. Download that episode and enjoy listening to Lisa's compositions that utilize her field recordings in the Amazon, Hawai'i and beyond. (next episode)   Links: Lab Verde Brazil : an art immersion program in the Amazon: https://www.labverde.com/ Secret Drum Band: https://secretdrumband.bandcamp.com/ Lisa's website that features info on ATTA, the Hylaeus Project, Pattern Ecology and more: http://www.lisaschonberg.com/ HJ Andrews Experimental Forest https://andrewsforest.oregonstate.edu/ Signal Fire http://www.signalfirearts.org Digital Naturalism Conference we mention in the episode: https://www.dinacon.org/ @secret drum band : https://www.instagram.com/secretdrumband @patternecology: https://www.instagram.com/patternecology @lisaannschonberg https://www.instagram.com/lisaannschonberg/?hl=en @atta________ https://www.instagram.com/atta________   Support the podcast on Patreon to contribute to our grassroots self-funding of this project.  Support the Ground Shots Project with a one time donation: paypal.me/petitfawn  Our website with backlog of episodes, plant profiles, travelogue and more: http://www.ofsedgeandsalt.com  Our Instagram page @goldenberries Join the Ground Shots Podcast Facebook Group to discuss the episodes Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on the Ground Shots Project Theme music: 'Sweat and Splinters' by Mother Marrow Produced by: Opia Creative      

Who Says Buzzed, Scary MRI’s, FUCK Cats, Animal Butt Plug, Syllable Shuffle, New Orleans Pelicans, Rodger Goodell Hater, Old Jerzee Worth, Watching People, Dog Shit on My Lawn, Jujitsu and Yoga, Kung Fu Flicks, Sucking Your Own Penis, Combatting Your Plateau, Neotropics, Testosterone Levels, Transsexual Athletes, Rich Piana, John Walton, Being Gangster and Old, Todd’s Stalker,  Side Hustles, CALL IN!! (504)457-8011, email: Reloaded504@yahoo.com, New Orleans # 1 Podcast, New Orleans best podcast

Three scientists discuss the challenges and importance of amphibian conservation in the Neotropics.

Today I chat with Dr. Gerardo Ceballos about his work in conservation.  Dr. Ceballos is a major figure in global conservation science, carrying out strenuous field work testing ideas in countryside biogeography and doing important theoretical/practical work on the global distributions of mammals and their significance for mammal conservation as well as on global rates of extinction as humanity triggers the sixth great extinction event.  Ceballos also has been responsible for enormous direct contributions to the preservation of the biodiversity of  Mexico -- a global "hotspot." On top of that he has written a series of important books on Latin American conservation. His theoretical work on biogeographic patterns resulted in the first evaluation ever of the conservation status of a whole class (the mammals) at a global scale. The work has raised consciousness of the need to consider not only the problem of species extinction, but of population extinctions, as a more immediate and measurable threat to biodiversity. Closely related, but applied at the national scale in Mexico, he is the first and only person to have assessed the effectiveness of the protected areas of Mexico to maintain populations of all terrestrial vertebrate species, using complementarity analysis.   Professor Ceballos work has been diverse, and its impact clear. He started the Long Term Ecological Research Network Chapter in Mexico, and has the longest (22 years) population and community ecology study of small mammals in the Neotropics.  He proposed, for the first time, that prairie dogs were keystone species, which now is a well accepted fact and is being used as one of the main arguments for the conservation of prairie dogs and associated species in North America. He has carried out the longest and more complete study on jaguars, and recently he finished the first jaguar census at a National scale, showing that there are roughly 4200 jaguars in Mexico. This pioneering work is leading to implement conservation actions to save this species from extinction.   Professor Ceballos work has made a profound impact on the conservation of endangered species and protected areas in Mexico. He proposed the first Mexican endangered species act, that includes roughly 4000 species of plants and animals in the country. This is the most important environmental legislation providing protection to those species in Mexico. In addition,  he has tiredly proposed the establishment and better management of Mexican protected areas. He has been personally proposed to the government and seen through to establishment more than 20 protected areas such as the Cuixmala – Chamela, Janos, and Calakmul biosphere reserves. Those protected areas cover almost 2% of the Mexican land territory and protect thousands of plants and animals, including around 15% of all endangered species. No other Mexican scientist – perhaps no other individual scientist in the world -- has accomplished so much in hands-on conservation.   Find me on social media @drhayleyadams Questions for the show?  Email me hayley@drhayleyadams.com    

Betty Petersen, director of the Birders’ Exchange, discusses her work and her birding travels on BirdCallsRadio. This episode originally aired on Sept. 9, 2012. Take a listen to this archive as Betty talks about the Birders’ Exchange, a program of the American Birding Association whereby donated new and used equipment is collected and distributed to ABA colleagues working to conserve birds and their habitats throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Betty has traveled extensively in the Neotropics to distribute the equipment and has plenty of fascinating stories to tell about the people who receive the materials and the conservation work they do.

The Environmental Leadership & Training Initiative (ELTI) is a joint program of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES) and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), whose mission is to enhance environmental management and leadership capacity in the Neotropics and tropical Asia by offering capacity-building and networking opportunities to individuals whose decisions and actions influence the management of forests in working landscapes. A key mission of the Environmental Leadership & Training Initiative (ELTI) is to help environmental leaders and practitioners learn about and engage in reforestation of degraded tropical lands. Unlike the industrial scale use of exotic tree species for reforestation, restoration of tree species native to a given region can promote greater biodiversity and ecosystem services. Individuals engaging in and researching native species reforestation are highly spread out around the world and work in many different capacities. The objective of the Tropical Native Species Reforestation Information Clearinghouse (TRIC) is to combine the information gleaned from different sectors throughout Latin America and tropical Asia into a single searchable database. These entries provide information about literature and projects for use by environmental practitioners, scientists, and leaders worldwide.

The gourd family, Cucurbitaceae, is among the economically most important families of plants, with many crop species that form the basis of multi-million dollar industries. Knowledge of these species’ geographic origin and their closest wild relatives is fundamental to breeding efforts, genetic improvement, and conservation. Surprisingly, these aspects have been unknown or misunderstood for many widely cultivated species, even though plant material that could have been used for broad phylogenetic studies has long been available in herbaria. For the thesis presented here, I focused on the phylogenetic relationships within two clades of Cucurbitaceae that comprise cultivated species: the genus Cucumis, to which cucumber (Cucumis sativus) and melon (Cucumis melo) belong, and the New World Sicyoeae, which contain vegetable pear or chayote (Sicyos (Sechium) edulis) and tacaco (Frantzia tacaco), locally important in Mexico and Costa Rica, and the former also cultivated worldwide. I used a combination of DNA sequence data from up to 175-year old herbarium specimens and molecular phylogenetic methods as well as traditional morphological and ecological data from my own fieldwork in Asia and Australia to infer the phylogenetic relationships among these clades. I also discovered and described several new species, and reconstructed plausible scenarios for the two clades’ geographical unfolding over time. Until recently, only two species of Cucumis, namely cucumber and its closest relative C. hystrix, were thought to be of Asian origin, and melon was thought to have originated in Africa, from where 30 species were known. Using DNA sequences from plastid and nuclear markers for some 100 Cucumis accessions from Africa, Australia, and Asia, I have shown that cucumber and melon both are of Asian (probably Indian) origin and form a clade with 23 previously overlooked species-level relatives in Asia, Australia, and around the Indian Ocean, at least nine of them new to science and some described as part of this thesis. Fieldwork I carried out in Thailand and Australia contributed new knowledge about the life forms and habitats of some of these species and resulted in fertile material essential for the descriptions. My study furthermore revealed that the sister species of melon is the re-discovered C. picrocarpus from Australia. Future breeding efforts and investigations of wild species related to melon and cucumber should therefore concentrate on Asia and Australia, instead of Africa. In my second study group, the Sicyoeae, my aim was to test long-problematic generic boundaries and to reconstruct the history of the tribe’s name-giving genus, Sicyos, which has an exceptional geographical distribution. Using a densely sampled molecular phylogeny that included type species of 23 currently or formerly accepted genera of Sicyoeae, I showed that morphology-based concepts did not result in monophyletic genera, and that species from numerous smaller genera, including chayote, need to be part of Sicyos if monophyly is to be established. Sicyos, in its new circumscription, has a center of distribution in the Neotropics, where c. 50 species occur, but long-distance dispersal has resulted in the group’s presence on Hawaii (where it radiated into 14 species), at least two arrivals on the Galápagos archipelago (but no radiations), and one arrival in Australia and New Zealand, now with three species, two of them new to science. Using molecular clock models, I dated these four trans-Pacific dispersal events, all from the American mainland, to the last 4.5 to 1 million years. The mode of dispersal may have been adherence of the small, spiny fruits to birds, which would fit with the documented occurrence of Sicyos plants near seabird nesting colonies. The rapid diversification on Hawaii may have followed the loss of the fruit spines in the ancestor of the 14 Hawaiian species, leading to lower dispersal ability and faster allopatric speciation in the diverse habitats of the archipelago.