BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT MATTERS | January 29, 2016

Dear all,

I hope you enjoyed the Australia Day break! We are now all cranking back up to speed for the new year so come along to the first monthly department meeting of the year this coming Tuesday 2nd February at 1pm in the tearoom to catch up with colleagues and talk about what’s happening around the department and faculty.

cheerio

Michelle

General News and Announcements

Department Meeting

First of this year’s monthly department meetings – 1pm in the biology tearoom, all students and postdocs welcome as well as biology staff.

Conservation Cafe – February Film!

This February, Sydney-SCB welcomes Daniel Hunter, an ecology PhD candidate and award-winning filmmaker, who researches and communicates some of the most pressing conservation challenges facing our Earth and its biodiversity. Dan will show us one of his films (see description below) and will then discuss the issues raised in it with us.
About the film: Australia has an appalling rate of mammal extinction and the trend doesn’t look like it is slowing. Predation by foxes and cats is one of the primary drivers threatening the survival of our native mammal species. Set in the forests of NSW, this film explores the role of dingoes in forests and demonstrates that their removal is having negative repercussions throughout ecosystems. The film puts forward one possible solution to perhaps bring our ecosystems back into balance. How far must we go to save our mammal species?

February 13, 10:00am

Centennial Parklands
$5 donation requested to cover Dan’s film making expenses

Conservation Cafe February 2016

Statistics courses by Zuur @ UNSW

Statistician Dr Alain Zuur and ecologist Dr Elena Ieno (Highland Statistics; http://www.highstat.com) are coming to Sydney to teach two courses on statistics in July:

– Linear Mixed Effects Models and GLMM (frequentist and Bayesian approaches) in R – 18-22 July @ UNSW

– Zero Inflation models in R – 25-29 July @ UNSW

Please refer to the attached flyers for more information and to register.

Dr Zuur is an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, UK. Together with Dr Ieno, they have been teaching statistics to over 7,000 ecologists worldwide since 2004 and have co-authored a series of popular statistics books. Dr Zuur’s courses are highly sought after by researchers all around the world and we are therefore excited to have the opportunity to host these workshops.

Flyer2016_07Sydney_GLMM
Flyer2016_07Sydney_ZI

Plant of the Week, Crepe Myrtle, Lagerstroemia indica.

Introducing Charlie

Congratulations to Aaron Harmer and Anne Wignall (now at Massey University) on the birth of their son Charlie Thomas who arrived on January 21st, 2016. All participants are well!

Anyone need a four or five week retreat on the Central Coast in June/July?

Dan W. and Teresa I. are off to meetings and fieldwork from mid-June to mid-July, and we’re looking for someone to cat-sit for us if possible.  Our house is north of Sydney near Woy Woy, about an hour and fifteen minutes from MQ by train.  It’s near the top of the hill in Horsfield Bay, almost in a national park, absolutely crowded by dense trees and vegetation on all sides.  It’s amazing for bird watching, has decent internet, and we even have a Jacuzzi.  It would be a great retreat for a non-cat-allergic grad student or postdoc, or a couple looking to get away.  Preferably no kids though, as we don’t want to freak the kitties out too much.  Rent is free as long as you feed and pet the cats and tell them they are handsome (they are, see attached photographic evidence).  Please email dan.warren@mq.edu.au if you’re interested.

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