News

McClain Lab Gets 3/4 Million Dollar Grant!

So in the roller coaster that is 2016, I am very happy to announce that I have a NSF funded grant.  Seth Newsome (U. of New Mexico) and I are continuing my work with deep-sea wood falls.  The official title is “The energetic assembly of biological communities: a test with deep-sea wood falls.”  In brief, wood falls allows to precisely control the amount of energy that the biological community receives because the species are completely nutritionally Read more…

By Craig McClain, ago

Third Wood-Fall Manuscript Now In Press

Very excited to see the third paper from the multi-year, wood-fall research project now in press.  The paper focuses on a well-known macroecological pattern, the abundance-occupancy relationship.  Simply, we find that species that are on average more abundant at any given location or more likely to be found at more sites.  To restate, species that are rare in abundance are also not geographically widespread.  In the paper, we explore how this relationship develops on deep-sea Read more…

By Craig McClain, ago

New LUMCON Executive Director Selected

The Louisiana Board of Regents in conjunction with the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON) Executive Board is pleased to announce the selection of Dr. Craig McClain as the new Executive Director of LUMCON. McClain serves as the Deputy Director of the Triangle Center for Evolution Medicine and formerly the Assistant Director of Science at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center both at Duke University where he oversaw the center’s science programs. “I am honored and humbled Read more…

By Craig McClain, ago

Toward a Conceptual Understanding of β-Diversity in the Deep-Sea Benthos

I along with my former Ph.D. advisor, Michael Rex, have recently published a comprehensive review of species turnover and diversity in the deep-sea benthos. We review patterns and causes of β-diversity in the deep-sea benthos at different spatial scales and for different body sizes. Changes in species composition occurring with depth are generally gradual, the rate of change being a function of the rate of descent. This gradual change can be interrupted by abrupt environmental shifts, such Read more…

By Craig McClain, ago

The Unknown Five Scientists Who Saved Science Education in Alabama

My latest at Science of the South.  Probably one of the best and most important things I’ve ever written. The Unknown Five Scientists Who Saved Science Education in Alabama  http://www.scienceofthesouth.com/the-unknown-five-scientists-who-saved-science-education-in-alabama/ On Thursday, December 14th 1989, five Alabama scientists joined together, forming a small line of defense in a battle most of us weren’t even aware was happening. This clash was one of the most important, yet unknown, battles in a war to keep science in Read more…

By Craig McClain, ago

Second wood-fall paper in press

The second paper from the wood-fall experiments is now in press!  You can read my public outreach post on the paper and the major finding at Deep-Sea News. McClain, C., Barry, J., Eernisse, D., Horton, T., Judge, J., Kakui, K., Mah, C., & Warén, A. (2015). Multiple Processes Generate Productivity-Diversity Relationships in Experimental Wood-Fall Communities Ecology DOI: 10.1890/15-1669.1

By Craig McClain, ago

12 Whirling Facts About Tornadoes

My latest piece of public writing, “12 Whirling Facts About Tornadoes,”  is now up at Mental Floss.  Very excited to be contributing to the great science communication at one of my favorite outlets.  The artilce is my first published piece to emerge out of my research for my upcoming book Science of the South. Often spinning at speeds over 100 miles per hour (and in extreme cases over 300 miles per hour), a tornado is a violently rotating Read more…

By Craig McClain, ago

A Great Year for Sizing Ocean Giants

This paper continues to be a social media giant.  My coauthors and I cracked the Top 100 Altmetric scores for 2015.  Sizing Ocean Giants with a current score of 954 is ranked 72 in the list.  I could not be happier about this and true testament to hard work of my coauthors and my intrepid undergraduates. Duke Research Blog also features the paper, along with 4 other Duke papers, that made it on the top 100 Read more…

By Craig McClain, ago

Sizing Ocean Giants

My 70 page, 40 figure, 200+ reference tome on body of all the largest marine megafauna is out. McClain, C.R., M.A. Balk, M.C. Benfield, T.A. Branch, C. Chen, J. Cosgrove, A. Dove, L.C. Gaskins, R.R. Helm, F.G.E. Hochberg,, F.B. Lee, S.E. McMurray, C. Schanche, S.N. Stone, and A.D. Thaler (2015) Sizing ocean giants: patterns of intraspecific size variation in marine megafauna. PeerJ 2:e715; DOI 10.7717/peerj.715 A little background on the project and publication can be Read more…

By Craig McClain, ago

Sizing Ocean Giants in the Toronto Star

Craig McClain, Deep Sea News blogger and marine biologist, asked his students to collect size data on ocean giants and tweet at the same time. Here’s why… McClain, a Duke University professor and founder of the blog Deep Sea News, designed a class this past fall that asked his undergraduate students to marshal all the available evidence on body size for a variety of marine megafauna. There was a twist: the students were also required to engage in Read more…

By Craig McClain, ago