Precocial juvenile lizards show adult level learning and behavioural flexibility
By: Szabo, Birgit, Daniel WA Noble, Richard W. Byrne, David S. Tait, and Martin J. Whiting. Animal Behaviour 154 (2019): 75-84. | Find with Google Scholar »
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Dear all
Not much news for this week – just the usual research, L&T and outreach activities happening across the department as always! The Faculty retreat is this Thursday & Friday, so Grant, myself and Drew will be at SIMS with the Faculty for discussions focused on industry engagement and enhancing the student experience.
Cheers
Michelle
Save the Date
This week 26th – 30th August
Wed 28th: Department morning tea; 10:30-11am, 205B Culloden Rd.
Wed 28th: Department Seminar – Professor Michal Kowalewski, University of Florida; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; 14EAR(E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Following week 2nd – 6th September
Tue 3rd: Department Meeting; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; 14EAR(E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Wed 4th: Department Morning Tea; 10.30-11am; (Biology Tea Room).
Wed 4th: Biology Diversity & Inclusion Potluck lunch; 11.30am-12.45pm; Biology Tearoom
Wed 4th: Department Seminar – Dr Ben Ashton, MQU; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; 14EAR(E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Thu 5th: Biology Social Club; 5.00pm – 7.00pm; Biology Courtyard.
Weekly Events
Wed: Shut up and Write sessions; 11.00am – 12.00pm; 6WW(E8C)-212 or 14EAR(E8A)-360A.
Thu: Venture Café; 3–8pm; (map). Find out what is on each week here – https://venturecafesydney.org/
Fri: Writing workshops with Prof Ken Cheng – to support HDRs and ECRs with scientific writing; 2–4pm; Ken’s office at 205b Culloden Road, G12.
Fri: Behaviour and Evolution Journal Club; Friday at 12:30pm (bring your lunch); 205B Culloden Rd Boardroom.
Weekly Biological Sciences seminar program is here
Future Events
September 19th: REP: Reviewing for Journals workshop; 3:00 – 5:00 pm; 14EAR(E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room) – Register here.
September 23rd: MQ graduation ceremony for Biological Sciences; 10.30am-12pm; register for the academic procession here.
September 29th: Managing data in R: a beginner’s guide; 3.30 PM – 5.30 PM; Continuum room (75 Talavera road, room 3114); snacks provided.
October 2nd: Developing your five-year plan workshop; 12:30 – 2:00 pm; 12 Wally’s Walk, 801 – Register here.
General News and Announcements
Citation Metrics and Impact – Congratulations Biology!
Love them or Loathe them, citation metrics are here to stay. There are acknowledged structural problems with the calculation of many commonly used metrics. These biases include different citation rates in different research areas, self-citations, the problem of sole author vs. large multi-author papers, and citation ‘farms’ of cross-citing networks of individuals.
A recent paper in PLoS Biology has generated algorithms to address these issues and generate ‘fairer’ comparisons between fields and individuals (Ioannidis, J.P., Baas, J., Klavans, R. and Boyack, K.W., 2019. A standardized citation metrics author database annotated for scientific field. PLoS biology, 17(8), p.e3000384.) They started with 6 million plus individuals that had published more than 5 papers, and using Scopus data, applied their algorithms to generate a database of the top 100,000 researchers.
Data for staff at Macquarie in this (enormous) Excel file are attached in rank order, with a key. To 2017, there were 64 Macquarie researchers on the list, and in 2018, this rose to 72. There are 16 Current or Emeritus Biology Staff in the list, including Mark Westoby at #1 and Dick Frankham at #2 or #3 (depending on year), for MQ researchers. The point is that Biology is punching far above its weight, accounting for a quarter to a fifth of Macquarie’s representation.
Here is what Sakkie said about this:
“What a fabulous achievement of the Department of Biological Sciences to have 16 out of the 64 Macquarie researchers on your list. That’s something worth celebrating! Congratulations to all those high-performing biologists.”
Ioannidis PLOS Macquarie 2018 data
Do YOU Have Termites? BIOL229 is looking for termites! They are required for examples of animal/protozoa interactions. With the dry weather in Sydney over the past few months, colonies are hard to find. If you know of a colony near MQU or your home, and could bring a sample of termites and the wood they are feeding on in to work (a sealed take away container works well), it would be a great help to teaching in BIOL229. Please contact Ray Duell <ray.duell@mq.edu.au> if you can help.
Peer Reviewer Review – This week’s issue of Nature includes Linda Beaumont’s call for a clear Code of Conduct for peer reviewers. She highlights the impact of toxic peer reviews on the mental health of researchers, and states that journals and editorial boards have responsibility to guide positive reviewer behaviour.
Drone & satellite data workshop
The Department of Physics and Astronomy at Macquarie University is pleased to announce a free 1-day workshop on using drones and satellite data for research, to be held on September 20th at MQ.
Our invited speakers are Professor Steven Longmore, head of the Astro-Ecology at Liverpool John Moores University (UK) and Dr Paul Butcher, senior research scientist in charge of shark management at the NSW Department of Primary Industries.
Registration is free and includes morning and afternoon tea. Come along if you are thinking about using satellite data in your research, or you are simply drone-curious. If you already use drones or satellites, please consider giving a short talk on your work.
For further details and to register please see the meeting website: http://cormacpurcell.net/public/drone_workshop
Plant of the Week – click the thumbnails for larger images-
This week, Magnolias!
Magnolias are amongst the most colourful of our late winter/early spring flowering garden plants. Modern techniques in molecular biology have enabled botanists to reconsider the relationships between flowering plants (angiosperms) so that flowering plants previously grouped together as dicotyledons have now been separated into two groups: the more primitive classified as Early Angiosperms; the more modern as Eudicots. Magnolia is now classified as an Early Angiosperm.
OPPORTUNITIES
Faculty Staff (Professional & Academic) Travel Grants – support for staff travel is now provided centrally by the Faculty. Funding is available for ECR travel, international collaboration, teaching and professional staff development. If you would like to apply, please discuss with your supervisor and A/Prof Andrew Barron (for research travel) or Dr Drew Allen (for teaching travel). Research Eligibility and application details can be found here.https://staff.mq.edu.au/intranet/science-and-engineering/faculty-awards,-schemes-and-procedures
One round remain for the rest of the year:
– Round 3 closes Friday 27 September 2019
Apply as soon as possible for any travel you intend on taking in 2019, that meets the criteria. Funds awarded must be spent in 2019 and will not be carried into 2020.
SEMINARS AND WORKSHOPS
Biological Sciences Seminar – Date/Time: Wednesday, 28th August, 2019; 1pm – 2pm. Speaker: Professor Michal Kowalewski, University of Florida. Title: Tales Told by Dead Shells: Paleobiological Approaches to Historical Ecology and Conservation. Venue: 14EAR-280 (Biology Tea Room). More information on this and all department seminars ON OUR WEBPAGE HERE.
Molecular Sciences Seminar – Date/Time: Tuesday, 3rd September, 2019; 1pm – 2pm. Speaker: Dr Rebeca Kawahara Sakuma, Department of Molecular Sciences, Macquarie University. Title: Mass spectrometry-based tools to uncover protein signatures and mechanisms of cancer. Venue: 4WW 322 seminar room. More information https://goto.mq/7n.
Managing Data in R: a Beginner’s Guide – The workshop is suitable for anyone who wants to manage data efficiently using R. If you attended our Introduction to R and R Studio workshop in April, this workshop will be a good next step. If you are new to R or would like to know about some handy packages that can help you organize your data and make your life easier, we encourage you to attend.
Presenters: Lachlan Phillips and Rodrigo Araujo e Castro. Lachlan is a PhD student with the Marine Predator Research Group investigating the influence of environmental variability on the foraging behaviour of marine predators. Rodrigo is a PhD student in Linguistics whose work on science texts simplification is related to Computational Linguistics, using mainly corpus, R and database for text analysis.
Date: Aug 29, 2019. Time: 3:30 PM to 5:30 PM. Venue: Continuum Room (75 Talavera Road, room 3114). Snacks provided, BYO mug.
Shut Up and Write Sessions, every Wednesday 11am. It’s pretty simple, we shut up… and we write. Using the pomodoro technique we’ll meet at 11am to write, stop 25 minutes in for a 10 min break, then settle down again for another 25 minutes of writing. You’ll be amazed how productive you can be. More details on the concept here: https://thesiswhisperer.com/shut-up-and-write/
Room will be either 6WW(E8C)-212 or 14EAR(E8A)-360A, email <lizzy.lowe@mq.edu.au> to confirm or with any questions.
All welcome!
Lunchtime Litter Collection – The days may be cooler, but they’re also clear and sunny. Lunchtime is a great time to go for a walk and get some vitamin D! It’s also a great time to join the Biology Litter Collection competition! The next event will be Tuesday 10th September, 1pm. Meet in the Biology courtyard, bring a bucket or bag if you can.
We’ll be holding events throughout the rest of the year, every few weeks. At each event you go out to collect litter, between 1 and 1:30pm. Collections will be assessed at the end of each collection and gold stars awarded accordingly. Event results are tallied at the end of the year with a prize for the best collector.
Event dates: Tues 10th September; Tues 8th October; Tues 12th November; Tues 10th December.
Venture Café – Want to know more about innovation, and how to achieve it? Come along to the Venture Cafe, Thursday, 3pm – 8pm, (map). Find out what is on each week here – https://venturecafesydney.org/
This week: 3.00pm: Innovate Hear Meetup.
Wildlife at the Watering Hole – 3rd Tuesday of each month, 6:30pm @ Botany View Hotel, King St Newtown!
HDR NEWS AND OPPORTUNITIES
Research Enrichment Program (REP) Workshop Series – The Department now has a fully fledged research enrichment program for 2019 – you can find out about upcoming workshops here (click on this PDF). All HDR students are encouraged to attend several of these workshops each year to develop their skills and track record for the post-PhD world. Supervisors please encourage your students!
Reviewing for Journals – Thursday 19 September, 3:00 – 5:00 pm; 14EaR(E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room); facilitated by Rachael Gallagher.
Would you like to review for journals, but are not too sure how the whole process works? Have you already reviewed, but would like to brush-up on your skills?
This short, two-hour course is designed to introduce young researchers to the ethics and skills required to become a good journal reviewer.
WHAT WILL BE COVERED:
– The ethics of reviewing – how to be fair and helpful to authors
– Examples of good and not-so-good reviews
– Worked examples of scenarios that may arise when reviewing
– The opinions of journal editors from within the Department
Suitable for: Early-mid career researchers.
To attend: REGISTER HERE
PhD Students: got a grant? Dept. will co-fund up to $1500 – The Department would like to encourage students to seek external sources of funding, and has a small budget with which to support successful candidates.New limits from 2019:PhD students ONLY: Dept. will match up to $1500 of external (non-MQ) funding ONCE during the student’s candidature.
If you have received a grant (student as chief investigator) and wish to request co-funding, please forward a copy of the award letter to <sharyon.odonnell@mq.edu.au> and <julian.may@mq.edu.au>.
Are you a HDR student? Need help with writing? HDR Mentors in collaboration with HDR Learning Skills is running another round of Peer Writing Assistance (PWA) for the rest of the year! This program is designed to support MRES and HDR candidates in managing thesis writing and research-related concerns. All peer writing assistants have undergone training for their role and are current PhD candidates at Macquarie.
The PWA program is based on the principle of collaborative learning in which a more experienced research student helps you develop stronger academic and research skills. Peer Writing Assistants are not teachers. Rather, they are trained to function as a ‘friendly audience’ or ‘fresh pair of eyes’ to help you gain new perspectives on your writing or research ideas.
Registrations are now open for individual consultation bookings. If you are interested, please go to book in for a 45-minute session with a PWA here.
And:
Writing workshops – Convened by Ken Cheng, running weekly for most of the year: Fridays 2-4pm in Ken’s office at 205b Culloden Road, G12.
These writing workshops are meant for HDR students and early-career researchers. In these face-to-face encounters, writing at any stage of any genre is welcome, from first draft to final polish, from empirical paper to literature review to popular news story. Ken envisages personal feedback linked perhaps with rounds of revisions on selected passages during the session. The aim is not just to get stuff written, but to write everything well.
Those interested in attending a session should email Ken Cheng <ken.cheng@mq.edu.au> by Wednesday 12:00-noon, preferably with a draft attached of what they are working on and some indication of what they especially need help with.
ADMIN THINGS
Need to Contact the Biology Admin Team via Email? Please send your email to <fse.bio-adm@mq.edu.au> or drop in and see us. The old google group (sci.bio-adm) email no longer works, if you have this email as a remembered address please delete.
Outreach Activities – Have You Participated in an Activity for Biology Recently? Don’t forget to fill in the super-quick form here – ACCESS OUTREACH FORM HERE
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.
THIS AND THAT
Plea to Sign Petition to Support Cystic Fibrosis Treatment: Symdeko is a Cystic Fibrosis (CF) drug made by US pharma company Vertex. It targets the root cause of CF as opposed to just treating symptoms. Cystic Fibrosis Australia has discovered that Vertex is not negotiating the Symdeko price for people 12+ with two copies of F508del gene mutation and those with one F508del & one residual mutation. This petition is a call to make this drug accessible to more Australians living with CF.
As part of project ‘Pay It Forward’, Prasanth Subramani is collecting signatures towards the above till the end of this week. Please sign, and return scanned forms to Prasanth <prasanth.subramani@mq.edu.au>.
Harvest Hub – great food that doesn’t cost the earth
Do you want:
- To eat with the seasons?
- Have fresh fruit and veg delivered weekly?
- Buy from local growers and support local farmer more directly?
- Access weekly specials and a flexible, easy to use ordering system?
- Have produce delivered to you at work?
- Buy grains and cereals too?
Then try Harvest Hub www.harvesthub.com.au
Hub name: MACQUARIE04 F: @harvesthubau
More information?
- Check out the website
- Talk to Samantha Newton <samantha.newton@mq.edu.au>.
- Orders are delivered weekly, on Tuesdays
Correct Method for Submitting to Department Matters
Department Matters submissions now have their own email address. Please send all your news items for 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.
- Keep your submission short and direct (two paragraphs) and if possible provide a document, email or link where readers can get more information. Any long submissions will be cropped.
Keeping to these guidelines will streamline your article’s addition to the newsletter. Thank you.
Have You Missed Out on an Issue of Department Matters? Back issues can be found at this newsletter archive link for your reading pleasure.
New Publications
Deep Learning Resolves Representative Movement Patterns in a Marine Predator Species
By: Peng, C., Duarte, C.M., Costa, D.P., Guinet, C., Harcourt, R.G., Hindell, M.A., McMahon, C.R., Muelbert, M., Thums, M., Wong, K.C. and Zhang, X., 2019. Applied Sciences, 9(14), p.2935. | Find with Google Scholar »At the invasion front, male cane toads (Rhinella marina) have smaller testes
By: Friesen, Christopher R., and Richard Shine. Biology letters 15, no. 7 (2019): 20190339. | Find with Google Scholar »Spider silk colour covaries with thermal properties but not protein structure
By: Blamires, Sean J., Georgia Cerexhe, Thomas E. White, Marie E. Herberstein, and Michael M. Kasumovic. Journal of the Royal Society Interface 16, no. 156 (2019): 20190199. | Find with Google Scholar »A genome-wide approach for uncovering evolutionary relationships of Australian Bactrocera species complexes (Diptera: Tephritidae)
By: Catullo, R.A., Yeap, H.L., Lee, S.F., Bragg, J.G., Cheesman, J., De Faveri, S., Edwards, O., Hee, A.K., Popa, A.D., Schiffer, M. and Oakeshott, J.G., 2019. Invertebrate Systematics, 33(4), pp.618-627. | Find with Google Scholar »Recent Anthropogenic Plant Extinctions Differ in Biodiversity Hotspots and Coldspots
By: J.J. Le Roux, C. Hui, M.L. Castillo, J.M. Iriondo, J-H Keet, A.A. Khapugin, F. Médail, M. Rejmánek, G. Theron, F.A. Yannelli, H. Hirsch. Current Biology (2019) DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.07.063 | Find with Google Scholar »In the Media
Robert Kooyman was interviewed on ABC Mid North Coast Drive and ABC North Coast Breakfast
Dr Robert Kooyman from the Department of Biological Sciences was interviewed on ABC Mid North Coast Drive and ABC North Coast Breakfast about the fires in the Amazon rainforest.
Jaco Le Roux was interviewed on 2SER The Wire
Associate Professor Jaco Le Roux from the Department of Biological Sciences was interviewed on 2SER The Wire about a new study which shows the rate of plant extinctions is hundreds of times higher than historical averages.
Lesley Hughes was featured in the Parramatta Advertiser
Distinguished Professor Lesley Hughes, Pro Vice-Chancellor Research Integrity and Development was featured in the Parramatta Advertiser regarding being awarded the 2019 Australian Museum Research Institute Lifetime Achievement Award for her contribution to climate change communication as well as researching the impact on Australian plants and animals.
Robert Perryman was featured in Cosmos
Robert Perryman from the Department of Biological Sciences was featured in Cosmos regarding how tourists can disturb manta rays’ social connections.
Jaco Le Roux contributed an article to The Conversation
Associate Professor Jaco Le Roux from the Department of Biological Sciences contributed the article ‘Plants are going extinct up to 350 times faster than the historical norm’ to The Conversation.
Phil Taylor was featured on ABC Landline
Professor Phil Taylor from the Department of Biological Sciences was featured on ABC Landline regarding breeding sterile flies to help combat Queensland fruit flies.
Vanessa Pirotta was featured on ABC North Queensland News
Dr Vanessa Pirotta from the Department of Biological Sciences was featured on ABC North Queensland News regarding whales off the coast of Queensland migrating to warmer waters.
Andrew Barron contributed an article to New Scientist
Associate Professor Andrew Barron from the Department of Biological Sciences contributed an article about the complexity of human sexual orientation to New Scientist.