Michael Kinnison was quoted in the April 2, 2011 edition of the New Scientist. The cover story was entitled “Evolution in the fast lane” by Michael LePage. Kinnison states, “Wherever people look for rapid evolution, it’s there. Very fast canges can occur in very short periods”. The story can be found in the “Evolution” topic guide on the NewScientist web page.

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Check out this video entitled “Evolution Island: Sustainable Solutions to Global Challenges” from the Applied Evolution Summit at Heron Island in Australia held January 4-8, 2010. This video discusses the topics of food, health, the environment and sustainability from an evolutionary perspective. Some of the participants are interviewed, including Michael Kinnison, with Australia’s Great Barrier Reef as a backdrop.

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Discover Magazine’s Jan/Feb 2010 issue lists the top 100 science stories of 2009. The #30 story was the research article: Darimont,C.T., S.M. Carlson, M.T. Kinnison, P.C. Paquet, T.E. Reimchen and C.C. Wilmers. 2009. Human predators outpace other agents of trait change in the wild. PNAS 106:952-954. In discussing the significance of the research, Discover states: “Humans are powerful agents of evolutionary change. Wild animals and plants that are hunted or harvested evolve three times as quickly as they would naturally…” [To read more in Discovery Magazine, see Full Story; For PDF of PNAS article, go to our Publications page.]

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A Globe article titled Cod in the act of evolution interviewed Dr. Michael Kinnison, who states: “The argument that genetic evolution has nothing to do with changes in the wild fish populations flies in the face of the theory of evolution … Consistently removing the largest individuals from a species should produce some effect.”

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New York Times 1/13/09 Research Ties Human Acts to Harmful Rates of Species Evolution. Hunting, commercial fishing and some conservation regulations, like minimum size limits on fish, may all work against species health. …Based on an analysis of earlier studies of 29 species — mostly fish, but also a few animals and plants like bighorn sheep and ginseng — researchers from several Canadian and American universities found that rates of evolutionary change were three times higher in species subject to “harvest selection” than in other species. Writing in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Darimont, Carlson, Kinnison, Paquet, Reimchen Wilmers. 2009. Human predators outpace other agents of trait change in the wild. PNAS 106:952-954), the researchers say the data they analyzed suggested that size at reproductive maturity in the species under pressure had shrunk in 30 years or so by 20 percent, and that organisms were reaching reproductive age about 25 percent sooner.

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BDN 8/2/08 Sturgeon Study Nears End of First Phase. Back in 2005, local angler Keith Bates gained a bit of local notice when he inadvertently hooked, landed and released a shortnose sturgeon while fishing for striped bass in the Penobscot River. … Before Bates caught his fish in 2005, the last documented sturgeon in the river — a shortnose — was in the late 1970s. … The researchers set up an array of buoys with radio receivers anchored at the bottom of the river. Each time a tagged sturgeon swam past, the fish was logged and recorded, along with the date and time. Some information on depth and water temperature can also be gained from the buoys. … During his time working on the project, Fernandes admits that he’ s become known for his association with one of the world’ s least attractive fish. “People call me the Sturgeon Hunter”.

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BDN 12/9/08 Secrets of the deep: New research finds Penobscot River sturgeon population burgeoning. …Now, thanks to modern technology and a dedicated crew of University of Maine researchers, the peculiar habits of the shortnose sturgeon finally are coming to light. The key, researchers have learned, is having a hunch about where to look for this secretive fish and then the time, patience and equipment to find them. … Dionne and his research colleagues were having few problems finding shortnoses one recent, frigid afternoon on the Penobscot south of Bangor. …Rather than gill nets, however, the team was using sonar to nose around the muddy river bottom. …dozens upon dozens of sturgeons — identifiable by the size of the white smudges on sonar — crowded together on the river bottom.

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In its July 2008 posting, ScienceWatch.com recognized Craig Stockwell of North Dakota State University, Andrew Hendry of McGill University and Michael Kinnison, for their paper on contemporary evolution and conservation biology (Stockwell, C.A., A.P. Hendry and M.T. Kinnison. 2003. Contemporary evolution meets conservation biology. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 18:94-101). This paper is the highest cited core paper from 2002-08 in the area of “rapid climate change”, the fastest moving front within the field of plant and animal sciences.

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Michael Kinnison was interviewed for an article in the March/April 2008 issue of UMaine Today. He and two colleagues have gathered more than 3,000 estimates of physical and behavioral changes in wild animals. The result is proof that humans not only affect animals’ evolutionary processes, but also cause their traits to change twice as fast.

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The January/February 2008 issue of UMaine Today features Dr. Kinnison and his research on Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata). Biologist Michael Kinnison studies contemporary evolution occurring at rates that would make Darwin dizzy.

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