It’s Friday and that means that it’s time for our Friday link dump, where we highlight some recent papers (and other stuff) that we found interesting but didn’t have the time to write an entire post about. If you think there’s something we missed, or have something to say, please share in the comments section!

Nature  just published two pieces that will certainly interest  all conservation biologists out there. The first paper is an evaluation of the performance and potential of protected areas, and the second one  is a “to-do list” for protected areas.

Last week, Nature published a list with the 100 most cited papers of all times in the Thomson Reuters database.  There is no “pure” ecology or evolution papers in the list,  except for papers that propose new methods (or softwares)  for building phylogenetic trees. Among these methodological papers, the article written by N. Saitou  & M. Nei, on the neighbor-joining method, is the most cited one (occupying the 20th position in the rank, with 30,176).

A large group of scientists, led by Bernhard Misof, just published a paper trying to resolve the phylogeny of insects. Using phylogenomic analysis of protein-coding genes combined with fossil analysis, the authors estimated date the origin of insects to the Early Ordovician (~479 Ma). They also estimated  that the origin of flight in this group took place the Early Devonian (~406 Ma). – Vinicius Bastazini.

An article was published last week in PLOS ONE on the reintroduction of giant tortoises in the Galapagos that presents a great example of the differences between population recovery and ecosystem function restoration. While we’re on the topic of reptiles, a paper in Science details phenotypic divergence between two closely related lizard species within only about 20 generations, presenting an intriguing case where evolution, influenced by strong selective pressures, can be seen observed on such a short time scale.

A study presented at a recent meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene claims that deforestation in Malaysia may be to blame for an increase in malaria cases. Researchers suggest that the increased contact between humans and local macaque populations, caused by habitat loss via deforestation, has led to more people in the area being infected with malaria. On a more positive note, Palau has decided to use crowdfunding as part of their plan to turn their waters into a no-take marine reserve.

Finally, the great minds over at Deep Sea News have put out a series of posts detailing the amazing diversity of marine species, from the torpedo ray to carnivorous sponges. Check them out here. – Nate Johnson

November 6, 2014