Sedges and such

Achimenes cupreata (current name: Episcia cupreata). Curtis' Botanical Magazine, 1847. Courtesy Ronald Myhr, The Gesneriad Reference Web.

Want to dig deeper into the world of researcher Eric Roalson and his friendly plant companions?  Then take a virtual tour of his laboratory, where you can meet his grad students, learn about his current projects, and view his course syllabi.

Or if you love gesneriads--the family of plants that includes African violets, the focus of much of Roalson's research--you'll love this page and the dozens of gorgeous images it offers of gesneriads in all their variety. You'll also find a few tips here for raising them. Poke around the page long enough, and you'll eventually encounter a link called "home," which will lead you to a site called "The Gesneriad Reference Web." There's plenty to explore here, including additional photo galleries and one of the site's more unusual delights, a collection of antique prints of the plants of this family.

While not as flashy as gesneriads, sedges also have their charms, as their inclusion in the list of Roalson's current projects attests.   An article on the subject in Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia written and edited by  users, will give you a good idea of the variety and breadth of the sedge family--although it's a bit spotty, offering info on only a third of the genera listed. Depending on your level of expertise, you can visit the site as a learner, or take an active part in its development.

Beetles and evo-devo

If you have an inordinate desire to learn more about beetles--or even a mild curiosity--you'll find everything you need to know about the little critters at a Website titled, appropriately enough, An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles. The site offers a tantalizing glimpse into the contents of a book of the same name, providing just enough in the way of narrative and image to leave you panting for more. While it's intended in part to encourage sales of the book, it offers enough additional material to teachers, students, and casual readers to make it well worth a visit. For example,a fascinating selection of links takes you to places like the Russian Academy of Sciences, where you'll find some really eye-popping imagery. And a "beetle art"  link takes you to the digital edition of the long-out-of-print Biologia Centrali-Americana, a 58-volume, copiously illustrated  compendium of meso-American fauna and flora. The BCA  includes far more than beetle lore, of course, and you'll have loads of fun uncovering its treasures. Click here, and enjoy.

Evo-devo fans and novices alike will find a wealth of information on the subject--evolutionary developmental biology--in Wikipedia. Just click here.

The birds and the bees

If you're as intrigued by the reproductive behavior of birds as researcher Michael Webster is, you might be interested in tracking down some of his publications on the subject. He lists a dozen of them on his Website--titles like "Cuckoldry as a cost of polyandry in the sex-role reversed wattled jacana,"  "Courtship disruptions and male mating strategies: examples from female-defense mating systems," and "The effectiveness of mate guarding by male Black-throated Blue Warblers."

For a general discussion of  Charles Darwin's theory of sexual selection, check this article from—of course—Wikipedia.

Or you might be interested in learning more about fairy-wrens, those feisty little birds that have captured Webster's interest and imagination. If so, you'll find an informal discussion of fairy-wrens and their grass-wren cousins here.  The page is part of a Website by Don Roberson on birding worldwide, and quite appropriately links to information on a whole world of birds.  To listen to sound clips of the variety of songs in the repertoire of the superb fairy-wren, click here.  And while our old standby, Wikipedia, isn't much more informative about this species of fairy-wren than the previous two references, it does offer some dandy high-resolution photographs of male, female, and juvenile  specimens.  An external link leads to some brief videos of the birds in action.

Evolution's revolutions

Evo-devo, gesneriads, and fairy-wrens are all very well, but what about plain old evolution, you ask. Our thought exactly. Here's a site on understanding evolution from University of California/Berkeley, which can serve as a primer, a teaching tool. and a guide for exploring the many ramifications of the subject.  And here's another one from the Public Broadcasting Service--actually the Website for PBS's seven-show series, Evolution. More than just a promo for the series, it's loaded with information and tools for students and teachers--and just plain folks--as well as interactive exercises on a variety of topics. An evolution library, for example, contains 786 items distributed across 10 topics. In one of these topics--evolution of diversity--you can interactively explore species development and the ways in which all living things are related, watch a segment from the Evolution series, and access  a host of other resources on classification and speciation. Why it's enough to keep you busy for ages.

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