Scientists communicate their new findings and ideas about evolution through the primary literature – peer-reviewed journal articles that allow other scientists to scrutinize the research and build upon it.  Reading and interpreting these articles can provide college students and others with a deeper understanding of key concepts in evolution, new directions in evolution research, and the nature and process of science.

Do you have an open access article you would like translated? Contact Rebecca Tarvin.

Students in the UC Berkeley Integrative Biology program have been translating papers in ecology and evolutionary biology through the Breaking Language Barriers in Ecology and Evolution Seminar (IB 84) taught by Professor Rebecca Tarvin to increase access to the primary literature. In this course, students read and discuss primary literature, translation studies, and their intersection from the perspective of multilingual STEM scholars.

In the spirit of breaking access barriers, this project uses open access articles or articles for which journals waive copyright fees, so the materials and their translations can be made freely available. You can learn more about incorporating the primary literature into the classroom and find more articles through our Journal Club Toolkit.

Available translations

• From genetics to biology: advancing mental health research in the Genomics ERA. Arguello et al. 2019.
• Biodiversity loss threatens human well-being. Diaz et al. 2006.
• Mechanisms and clinical importance of bacteriophage resistance. Egido et al. 2022.
• Launching a saliva-based SARS-CoV-2 surveillance testing program on a university campus. Ehrenberg et al. 2021.
• Post-hurricane shifts in the morphology of island lizards. Rabe et al. 2020.
• Teaching ichthyology online with a virtual specimen collection. Sidlauskas et al. 2021.
• The gut microbiome defines social group membership in honey bee colonies. Vernier et al. 2020.
• On-ranch adaptation to California’s historic 2012-2016 drought. Woodmansee et al. 2021.

Eleven students participated in these efforts in Spring 2022. Unless otherwise noted, all translators are associated with the University of California, Berkeley. New translations are expected to be added on an annual basis.

From genetics to biology: advancing mental health research in the Genomics ERA. Arguello, A.P., Addington, A., Borja, S., Brady, S., Dutka, T., Gitik, M., Koester, S., Meinecke, D., Merikangas, K., McMahon, F.J., Panchision, D., Senthil, G., & Lehner, T. (2019). Molecular Psychiatry, 24, 1576–1582. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-019-0445-x

• English (original)
• Spanish (abstract only). Translated in Spring 2022 by Jesus Reynosa (undergraduate student), Celio Batres (undergraduate student), Allison Mays (undergraduate student), and Ixchel Gonzalez Ramirez (graduate student).
• Tamil (abstract only). Translated in Spring 2022 by Kaitlyn Foulger (undergraduate student) and Srimathi Raghavan (postdoctoral scholar).
• English, Plain Language, for a high-school audience (abstract only). Translated in Spring 2022 by Britney Wu (undergraduate student) and David Tian (graduate student).
• Mandarin Chinese (abstract only). Translated in Spring 2022 by Ruoming Cui (undergraduate student) and Lawrence Wang (graduate student).

Biodiversity loss threatens human well-being. Diaz, S., Fargione, J., Chapin III, F. S., & Tilman, D. (2006). PLoS Biology, 4(8), e277.

• English (original)
• Spanish (full article). Translated by Monzerrath Martinez (undergraduate), Ilse Rojo (undergraduate), Betsabe Castro Escobar (graduate student), and Valeria Ramírez Castañeda (graduate student).
• Simplified Chinese. Translated by Xinyi Liu (undergraduate) and Hongru Wang (postdoctoral researcher).

Mechanisms and clinical importance of bacteriophage resistance. Egido, J.E., Costa, A.R., Aparicio-Maldonado, C., Haas, P., & Brouns, S.J.J. (2022). FEMS Microbiology Reviews, 46(1), fuab048. https://doi.org/10.1093/femsre/fuab048

• English (original)
• Visual art. Translated in Spring 2022 by Azeeta Bance (undergraduate student) and Ixchel Gonzalez Ramirez (graduate student).

Launching a saliva-based SARS-CoV-2 surveillance testing program on a university campus. Ehrenberg, A.J., Moehle, E.A., Brook, C.E., Doudna Cate, A.H., Witkowsky, L.B., Sachdeva, R., Hirsh, A., Barry, K., Hamilton, J.R., Lin-Shiao, E., McDevitt, S., Valentin-Alvarado, L., Letourneau, K.N. [ … ], on behalf of the IGI SARS-CoV-2 Testing Consortium. (2021). PLoS ONE, 16(5), e0251296. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251296

• English (original)
• Spanish (abstract only). Translated in Spring 2022 by Jesus Reynosa (undergraduate student), Celio Batres (undergraduate student), Allison Mays (undergraduate student), and Ixchel Gonzalez Ramirez (graduate student).
• Tamil (abstract only). Translated in Spring 2022 by Kaitlyn Foulger (undergraduate student) and Srimathi Raghavan (postdoctoral scholar).
• English, Plain Language, for a high-school audience (abstract only). Translated in Spring 2022 by Britney Wu (undergraduate student) and David Tian (graduate student).
• Mandarin Chinese (abstract only). Translated in Spring 2022 by Ruoming Cui (undergraduate student) and Lawrence Wang (graduate student).
• Mandarin Chinese (full article). Translated in Spring 2022 by Peter Chen (undergraduate student) and Li Lei (Project Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory).

Post-hurricane shifts in the morphology of island lizards. Rabe, A.M., Herrmann, N.C., Culbertson, K.A., Donihue, C.M., & Prado-Irwin, S.R. (2020). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 130(1), 156–165. https://doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/blaa022

• English (original)
• Spanish (full article). Translated in Spring 2022 by Alma A. Sanchez Garcia (undergraduate student), Mayeli Vega Vega (undergraduate student), Vanessa Navarro (undergraduate student), and Anaid Cárdenas Navarrete (graduate student). Email rdtarvin@berkeley.edu for access.
• Spanish (abstract only). Translated in Spring 2022 by Jesus Reynosa (undergraduate student), Celio Batres (undergraduate student), Allison Mays (undergraduate student), and Ixchel Gonzalez Ramirez (graduate student).
• Tamil (abstract only). Translated in Spring 2022 by Kaitlyn Foulger (undergraduate student) and Srimathi Raghavan (postdoctoral scholar).
• English, Plain Language, for a high-school audience (abstract only). Translated in Spring 2022 by Britney Wu (undergraduate student) and David Tian (graduate student).
• Mandarin Chinese (abstract only). Translated in Spring 2022 by Ruoming Cui (undergraduate student) and Lawrence Wang (graduate student).

Teaching ichthyology online with a virtual specimen collection. Sidlauskas, B.L., Burns, M.D., Buser, T.J., Harper, N., & Kindred, M. (2021). Ichthyology & Herpetology, 109(2), 407-423. https://doi.org/10.1643/t2020031

• English (original)
• Mandarin Chinese (full article). Translated in Spring 2022 by Zehua Zhou (undergraduate student) and Andy Lee (Research Associate, RESOLVE).

The gut microbiome defines social group membership in honey bee colonies. Vernier, C.L., Chin, I.M., Adu-Oppong, B., Krupp, J.J., Levine, J., Dantas, G., & Ben-Shahar, Y. (2020). Science Advances, 6, eabd3431. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abd3431

• English (original)
• Spanish (abstract only). Translated in Spring 2022 by Jesus Reynosa (undergraduate student), Celio Batres (undergraduate student), Allison Mays (undergraduate student), and Ixchel Gonzalez Ramirez (graduate student).
• Tamil (abstract only). Translated in Spring 2022 by Kaitlyn Foulger (undergraduate student) and Srimathi Raghavan (postdoctoral scholar).
• English, Plain Language, for a high-school audience (abstract only). Translated in Spring 2022 by Britney Wu (undergraduate student) and David Tian (graduate student).
• Mandarin Chinese (abstract only). Translated in Spring 2022 by Ruoming Cui (undergraduate student) and Lawrence Wang (graduate student).

On-ranch adaptation to California’s historic 2012-2016 drought. Woodmansee, G., Macon, D., Schohr, T., & Roche, L.M. (2021). Rangelands, 43(6), 222-230. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rala.2021.10.003

• English (original)
• Spanish (abstract only). Translated in Spring 2022 by Jesus Reynosa (undergraduate student), Celio Batres (undergraduate student), Allison Mays (undergraduate student), and Ixchel Gonzalez Ramirez (graduate student).
• Tamil (abstract only). Translated in Spring 2022 by Kaitlyn Foulger (undergraduate student) and Srimathi Raghavan (postdoctoral scholar).
• English, Plain Language, for a high-school audience (abstract only). Translated in Spring 2022 by Britney Wu (undergraduate student) and David Tian (graduate student).
• Mandarin Chinese (abstract only). Translated in Spring 2022 by Ruoming Cui (undergraduate student) and Lawrence Wang (graduate student).