Clinal variation in avian body size is better explained by summer maximum temperatures during development than by cold winter temperatures
By: Andrew, Samuel C., Monica Awasthy, Amanda D. Griffith, Shinichi Nakagawa, and Simon C. Griffith. The Auk 135, no. 2 (2018): 206-217. | Find with Google Scholar »
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Dear all,
Congratulations to our newest Biology graduates whose degrees were conferred on Wednesday.
While Michelle is enjoying a well deserved break, Mariella and I are holding the reigns. A fairly quite week around the department, with many on leave or away teaching in exotic locations.
Have a nice weekend
Melanie
Save the Date
This coming week 23rd – 27th April
Wed 25th: ANZAC Day – Public Holiday
Thu 26th: Kyle Zawada on Easy Data Visualisation with ggplot - R Users Group; 3.00pm – 5.00pm; Biology Tearoom.
Following week 30th April – 4th May
Tue 1st: Department Meeting; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; Biology Tea Room.
Wed 2nd: Department Seminar – Lisa Schwanz, UNSW; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; Biology Tea Room.
Department Seminar Series
Wed May 16th: Department Seminar – Assoc. Prof. Michael Renton, School of Plant Biology, The University of Western Australia; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; Biology Tea Room.
Wed May 23rd: Department Seminar – Prof. Michael Bunce, School of Plant Biology, ARC Future Fellow Trace and Environmental DNA (TrEnD) laboratory, & Australian Wildlife Forensic Services (AWFS) Department of Environment and Agriculture, Curtin University; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; Biology Tea Room.
Wed June 6th: Department Seminar – Prof. Saul Cunningham, Fenner School, ANU; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; Biology Tea Room.
General News and Announcements
RESEARCH STORIES, OUTCOMES AND OPPORTUNITIES
PhD Scholarship: Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria in Australian Wildlife
Applications close 17th May 2018
This project will investigate the dissemination of antibiotic resistant bacteria to terrestrial wildlife species. The successful applicant will use molecular and microbiological methodologies to examine the epidemiology of antibiotic resistant bacteria in urban wildlife, specifically possums. Further detail in the attached file, or contact Dr Michelle Power <michelle.power@mq.edu.au> for more information. PhD opportunity
University of Tasmania – Seeking Project Proposals for National PhD Program in Horticulture
See attached documentation: Seeking Project Proposals for National PhD Program in Horticulture 2018….
National-PhD-Leadership-Program-Proposal-2018
Biology HDR Grants for Fieldwork and Conference Attendance NOW AVAILABLE!
The Department has two grants available for post-graduate students, with applications for both closing on 30 April 2018. These are amazing opportunities that enable post-grads to extend their research. The Rice Memorial Field Research Award is open to any PhD candidate who is undertaking fieldwork – irrespective of the field. Up to $2000 is available to help with the costs of fieldwork. The Milthorpe Memorial Award in Plant Biology is open to HDR students researching any aspect of plant biology, which can include plant-animal interactions, etc. Up to $2500 is available to help with research costs or conference attendance.
These Awards can greatly enhance the quality of your research, so be sure to submit your application by 30 April 2018. For further details, see the attached forms or email linda.beaumont@mq.edu.au. Rice Memorial Field Research Proposal Award_2018 Milthorpe Award Application_2018
Participate in the Falling Walls Lab Australia 2018
The Academy invites applications from Australian researchers, postdocs and students, entrepreneurs, engineers and innovators from all areas to attend the Falling Walls Lab Australia 2018. Deadline for applications is 5pm (AEST) Monday 28th May 2018. 20 contestants will be invited to participate in this challenge with each required to give a 3 minute presentation on their research work, business model, social idea or initiative based on the “Which walls will fall next” concept. Candidates should be research active in any field of the natural sciences, including technology, engineering and medicine as well as social sciences and humanities. Follow this link to view more information and to apply.
LEARNING AND TEACHING
Call Out for Industry Partners!
We want to improve the employability of our Master of Conservation Biology graduates by giving them opportunities to work with partner organisations outside of Macquarie University, as part of their coursework degree. If you have already established a relationship with an someone within an organisation (e.g. OEH, Nature Conservancy, Australian Museum, etc…) please let us know! Fill in the database here, and please indicate if you think they might be interested in having internship students.
SEMINARS AND WORKSHOPS
MolSci Weekly Seminar
Date/Time/Venue: Tuesday, 24th April 2018, 1 – 2pm, 4WW (F7B) 422 APAF seminar room
Speaker: Dr Erin Shanahan, the Charles Perkins Centre, the University of Sydney
Title: A whole gut view: Microbiota-host interactions from oesophagus to colon. For more information visit – https://goto.mq.edu.au/6q
What Should Universities Be? Conference
USYD, 22nd – 23rd Nov, 2018. What should Universities be
Kyle Zawada on Easy Data Visualisation with ggplot - R Users Group, Thursday April 26th in Biology Tearoom (E8A 280), 3 – 5pm
Have you ever wanted to start exploring your data but spent all day trying to code one simple plot? Ever finally got that plot working after hours, only to realise you wanted a different sort of plot? Ever finally got the basic plot ready, only to realise it looks a bit, well… basic? This workshop will introduce you to ggplot2 – a powerful and elegant R package that allows you to go from importing data to saving a plot in less than 10 lines of code.
Research Enrichment Program – Outlook Conference
July 24-25, Incubator Building, Macquarie University – “The Future of the Human Landscape”
The Outlook Conference will bring together leading thinkers in diverse disciplines, spanning molecules to landscapes, and from scientific, historical and social viewpoints. The objective is to immerse participants in the frontiers of adjacent, and more distant disciplines. Speakers will present their vision for humanity’s future. These talks will not recount personal research findings, but will be future-scoping exercises. Our goal is to identify promising areas for high level trans-disciplinary collaboration, for novel applications, and to expose postgraduate students and early career researchers to different ways of thinking. To register, email <fse.rep-admin@mq.edu.au>. Research Enrichment Program Outlook Flyer
Morning Tea by Metrohm Australia
Time & Date: 9am – 12pm, Friday 27th April, 2018.
Location: 4WW(F7B) 422 – APAF Seminar Room Metrohm Australia – Morning Tea 27 Apr
ADMIN THINGS
Administration Staffing Updates
Minor changes to admin staff will result in reduced staff availability as of April, so please make an effort to plan your admin needs and avoid potential delays to your request.
Julian May – Unavailable/On Leave from Thursday 29 March until Friday 27 April, returning Monday 30 April
Adyen De Courcey – On Leave for 3 months, please direct your enquires to the <fse.bio-adm@mq.edu.au>.
For any administration enquiries please email them to <fse.bio-adm@mq.edu.au> as this is seen by all administrative staff. The most appropriate person will reply to your email.
PURE Training
The PURE system is used to manage researcher profiles, outputs including publications, funding applications, awards, projects and reports. Do you feel like you could use some more PURE training? Please register your interest via an email to <jenny.ghabache@mq.edu.au>.
Are you getting credit for your Outreach Activities? Have participated in an activity for Biology recently?
Don’t forget to fill in the super-quick form here – ACCESS OUTREACH FORM HERE
Photo Competition – April 2018 – Enter to win a $100 Gift Card this month!
This month’s theme is ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL
Your images could be used on our Department website, this newsletter, on our social media and in other biology publications. A lucky person’s name will be drawn each month, and they will receive a $100 Gift Card! Criteria: you must provide caption information including details of what/where/who(names of people)/date & you must have taken all photos & the image was taken in the last five years. Please follow the dropbox file request link to submit your images. Submission close: 30 APRIL 2018 You can enter as many photos as you like – one entry to the draw for each good photo, good luck!
Location-W (Fauna Park) Admin Support
Monday, Wednesday & Friday from 10am – 1pm in W19F
Deliveries
You will notice that we have placed a red “transfer Box” in W19F, put anything in this box that needs to be delivered to the E8 area location. We also have a red “Transfer Box” in E8B Level 2 location, which is for goods to betaken to the W location. These boxes will be emptied every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10am. Deliveries from the main “MQ” store will be delivered daily. Any questions please contact Sharyon O’Donnell.
Building Name Changes – Cheat Sheet – If you are trying to identify buildings on campus with new names or old names, please use this link to convert them from old to new or vice versa.
Correct Method for Submitting to Department Matters
Department Matters submissions now have their own email address. Please send all future submissions to the newsletter to <fse.bionewsletter@mq.edu.au>!
Also, please see the following to correctly format your additions, and keep them rolling in!
You may have noticed that we try to keep all the articles to the same format for the Department Matters, however, rest assured, they do NOT all turn up in this format! To help keep your Department Matters looking as good as possible, when sending in additions to the Newsletter, please try to keep these formatting guidelines in mind.
- Please write in third person. The information is coming from the Newsletter, not directly from you.
- Do not use fancy text formatting. Bold heading, normal text, and only italics or bold to highlight. No font size changes will make it through, sorry.
- If sending via email, set your email output to basic. HTML output will add all sort of formatting that will have to be removed before your article can go into the newsletter.
Keeping to these guidelines will streamline your article’s addition to the newsletter. Thank you.
Follow us on Social Media
SUSTAINABILITY
University BioQuest – Macquarie in 3rd place with less than 2 weeks to go!
There’s still time to join our top spotters and identifiers in the BioQuest. A big thanks to everyone who has joined so far. Macquarie Uni is currently placed third for spotting, and 4th for identifying critters. We need your help to find, or identify, the rare and the interesting. More information is on the event page: goo.gl/X38JPG
BLOGS AND OTHER THINGS OF INTEREST
Plant of the Week!
In South-east Asia, Dragon fruit is so popular that many believe it comes from Vietnam. Nope, this climbing cactus actually comes from central America. And it has different names depending on whether it is flowering – Moonflower, or Lady of the night – or fruiting – Dragon fruit. This week it’s brought to you by Gina Hammond, Department of Psychology, and Rod Seppelt, Biological Sciences.
2018 Nikon Small World Competition
Entries for both Small World competitions can be uploaded directly to the MicroscopyU servers at the following URL:
https://nikonsmallworld.magnet.fsu.edu/
https://nikonsmallworld.magnet.fsu.edu/
New Publications
Filters of floristic exchange: How traits and climate shape the rain forest invasion of Sahul from Sunda
By: Yap, Jia‐Yee S., Maurizio Rossetto, Craig Costion, Darren Crayn, Robert M. Kooyman, James Richardson, and Robert Henry. Journal of Biogeography. | Find with Google Scholar »In the Media
Ravindra Palavalli-Nettimi contributed to The Conversation
Ravindra Palavalli-Nettimi from the Department of Biological Sciences contributed the article ‘In an ant’s world, the smaller you are the harder it is to see obstacles’ toThe Conversation.
Culum Brown was interviewed on Radio National’s RN Drive program
Associate Professor Culum Brown from the Department of Biological Sciences was interviewed on Radio National’s RN Drive program on the effects of waste from over-the-counter drugs in water, which can have adverse and unexpected effects on marine life.
Elizabeth Madin contributed to The Conversation
Dr Elizabeth Madin from the Department of Biological Sciences contributed the article ‘I’m an expat US scientist – and I’m returning to Trump’s America’ to The Conversation.
Lesley Hughes was interviewed on ABC Radio Canberra’s Nightlife
Professor Lesley Hughes from the Department of Biological Sciences was interviewed on ABC Radio Canberra’s Nightlife program on climate change and the rate of animal extinction.
Nathan Hart featured in The Australian, the Sunday Mail Adelaide, ABC online, Triple J’s Hack,3AW, 2GB and 6PR
Associate Professor Nathan Hart from the Department of Biological Sciences featured in The Australian, the Sunday Mail Adelaide, ABC online, Triple J’s Hack,3AW, 2GB and 6PR on his research that uses a system of putting led lights to the bottom of a surfboard to lure away sharks.