8th One-day Postgrad Course on Current Ecology and Evolution

Sunday Dec 5th 2010, at Australian National University in Canberra

http://www.bio.mq.edu.au/ecology/ESA2010/

PROVISIONAL PROGRAM

Last updated 30th November 2010

 

0900 Mark Westoby (Macquarie U): Introduction   

 

0910 Dr Brian Walker (Resilience Alliance): Human-ecological systems and managing for resilience  

 

0945 Focus groups 1: What do you think is the best way to choose a PhD topic? From fondness for a particular organism or habitat? To work with a particular lab or supervisor? For the intellectual ideas involved? For the application to management? For particular career skills? As a first step in discussion, survey your focus group about their own projects and what was important to them in choosing them. For reporting back, summarize this information and also describe 2-3 of the most interesting arguments that came up.  

 

1035 Tea break and discussion 

 

1105 Focus groups reporting back.     

 

1120 Dr Tara Martin (CSIRO and U Queensland): A recent advance in conservation ecology  

 

1140 Dr Susanna Venn (NSW Dept of Climate Change and Environment): A recent advance in alpine ecology  

 

1200 Prof Andrew Cockburn (ANU): A recent advance in evolution   

 

1220 Alan Kwok (UNSW) on Shachak et al (2008) “Woody species as landscape modulators and their effect on biodiversity patterns” Bioscience 58: 209-221

 

1232 Louis Elliott (NT Dept of Natural Resources, Environment, the Arts and Sport) on Lonsdale (1994) “Inviting trouble: Introduced pasture species in northern Australia” Aust J Ecol 19:345-354

 

1245 Lunch (as a group, provided)  

 

1345 Dr Emma Johnston (UNSW): Temporal change in the diversity-invasibility relationship  

 

1405 Dr Heloise Gibb (La Trobe U): A recent advance in insect ecology  

 

1425 Dr David Keith (NSW Dept Climate Change and Environment): A recent advance in vegetation ecology.  

 

1445 Focus groups 2: Suppose you were setting up an ecology or evolution research project to last a lifetime (say, one week every year). What would it be like? What question would you tackle that would still be interesting 50 years later? What sites or organisms would you choose, and why?  

 

1525 Tea break and discussion   

 

1550 Focus groups to report back  

 

1610 Dr Charlie Zammit (Commonwealth Department of Environment, Water, Heritage & the Arts): Economics and politics meeting ecology: markets for biodiversity conservation  

 

1640 Panel discussion (all speakers)

 

1700 On to registration and mixer at ESA2010