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BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT MATTERS | March 22, 2019

Hi all,

Thank you to our Diversity and Inclusion group who have launched their 2019 program at morning tea over the last two weeks and also hosted Harmony Day activities on Thursday. After last week’s events we could all benefit from more kindness and harmony in the world, and tea & cakes are an excellent place to start.

Cheers,

Michelle

-click thumbnail for larger image-

Save the Date

This coming week 25th – 29th March

Tue 26th: MQ Work in Progress Seminar – Christopher Lean – Invasive species and naturalized function in ecology; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; W3A Blackshield.

Wed 27th: Department Morning Tea; 10.30am – 11am; 205B Culloden Rd.

Wed 27th: Department Seminar – Prof Michael Kasumovic, University of New South Wales; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; 14EAR(E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Thu 28th: Workshop on Regular Expressions in R; 3.30pm – 5.30pm; Continuum room (75 Talavera road, room 3114); snacks provided.

Thu 28th: Meet the Lord of the Cane Toads – Professor Rick Shine –  Mason Lecture; 6.00pm – 7.30pm; Conference Rooms C & D, Level 3, 18 Wally’s Walk (MUSE).

Following week 1st – 5th April

Tue 2nd: Department Meeting; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; 14EAR(E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Wed 3rd: Department Morning Tea; 10.30am – 11am; 14EAR(E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Wed 3rd: Department Seminar – Dr Alice Motion, USyd; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; 14EAR(E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Wed 4th: Biology Social Club; 5.00pm – 7.00pm; Biology Courtyard.

Weekly Events

Thu: Venture Cafe; 3–8pm; 58 Waterloo Road, Macquarie Park, NSW (map).

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.

Future Events

Apr 16th: Biology ECR Research Showcase; 9.00am – 1.00pm; 14EAR(E8A) – 280 (Biology Tea Room) – Save the date!

Apr 26th: Biology Graduation Ceremony; 6.00pm; 14SEO Graduation Hall. Register for the academic procession here

June 11th-13th: HDR Conference 2019, 9am-1pm, Panel Interviews: 2-5pm; venue TBD – Save the date!

General News and Announcements

Vale Walter Ivantsoff – The longer-term members of the department will remember Dr Walter Ivantsoff, who was a member of academic staff. Walter passed away last week, aged 80 years. Walter was a fish biologist, who joined the department in 1968. For many years he taught BIOL108 as well as a 300-level unit on the Biology of Fishes. He retired in 1999 as a Senior Lecturer and remained an Honorary Associate of the department until 2013.

Harmony Day Morning Tea – Thank you all for coming along to Harmony Day to enjoy a bit of a break and a slice of cake. Thank you also for your generosity – we raised $150 for the victims of the Christchurch shooting. A big hurray to Prasanth who organised the Harmony Day Morning Tea!

Givealittle Receipt

Agenda Items for WHS – The Dept WHS Committee is meeting next week. Please send along any items that you would like to raise for the Agenda to <simon.griffith@mq.edu.au> as soon as possible.

Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Evolutionary Genomics – The department is currently advertising a continuing academic position for a Lecturer in Evolutionary Genomics. We are keen to attract a diverse range of applicants so please pass the advert on to great people we would like to encourage to apply and more generally through your networks. Applications close Sunday 31st March 2019 at 11:55pm EST. http://jobs.mq.edu.au/cw/en/job/505380/lecturer-or-senior-lecturer-in-evolutionary-genomics

Seeking Work Experience Activities – Do you have any field or lab activities happening 8-12 April? Do you want some free labour? If yes please let Jenny Ghabache know!

The Department will be hosting 10 High School students for Work Experience from Monday 8th to Friday 12rd April 2019. Meaningful activities are sought for the high school students to do while they are with the Department. So if you are planning field work, field/lab work prep, or any lab activities and would like free help during this time please let Jenny know (a) what you want help with and your preferred day, and (b) how many students you can accommodate.

Activities will be scheduled on each day in blocks of 3 hours (9-12 and 1-4) to make scheduling easier. You can request a full day or more but please aim to start and end activities with the students at the above times (unless you will be out doing field work all day). Activities are needed to fill in the times from 10 am Monday 8 April up to 12 pm Friday 12 April.

Please also note that:

·         The students must be supervised so they cannot be left in a corner without a responsible person nearby.

·         It must be a safe environment so they cannot be asked to do anything that requires certification, and induction procedures apply. The hosts throughout the week must take on this responsibility as the overall responsible person (Jenny Ghabache) is not familiar with the workplace issues for each lab.

Please email <jenny.ghabache@mq.edu.au> with the details your proposed work experience activity.

For Unit Conveners Who Use the Ecology Reserve – Short notice: Hazard reduction burn due for Ecology Reserve and Land Cove National Park (not touching river or creek, focus on sandstone ridge top near sports field) before April, 2019.

Plant of the Week – click the images for larger versions – 

This week: Japanese Anemones, Anemone hupehensis.

Japanese Anemones, Anemone hupehensis, come from China, not from Japan! The specific name holds the secret, hupehensis, for Hubei Province in Central China. But to be fair, for hundreds of years it was cultivated in Japan where it became naturalised. The name Anemone comes from the Greek, ανεμώνη, meaning daughter of the wind, hence another common name, Wind Flower!

OPPORTUNITIES

The April Graduation Ceremony is on Friday 26th April at 6pm. All academic staff (including research fellows and postdocs) are welcome to participate in the procession – you can register here

myRDC – Researcher Development Events Calendar and Registration System at MQ – myRDC – a researcher development events calendar that allows you to search and register for researcher development events for all researchers, from Masters of Research candidates through to senior research staff.  As part of Macquarie’s plans for a more coordinated approach to the planning and delivery of researcher development myRDC:

  • Allows researchers to see the majority of researcher development events in the one place (rather than needing to search across several websites)
  • Enables researchers to manage their event registrations through the myRDC registration function
  • Provides researcher development providers with the ability to administer events, registrations, communications and surveys all through the one system.

Faculty Research Offices will be polled over the coming months so that all Faculty researcher development events can also be added to myRDC over time.

Help or more information – Find FAQs, Quick Reference Guides and other resources at goto.mq/myrdc or if you need assistance with myRDC contact the project team at <rdc@mq.edu.au>.

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
Two rounds remain for the rest of the year:
– Round 2 closes Friday 31 May 2019
– Round 3 closes Friday 27 September 2019
Apply as soon as possible for any travel you intend on taking in 2018, that meets the criteria. Funds awarded must be spent in 2019 and will not be carried into 2020.

Job Opportunity – Part-time Research Assistant  – Jonas Wolff is currently looking for a part-time (0.2 FTE) research assistant (HEW 5.1) to build up a trait dataset for spiders as part of an ARC funded Discovery Early Career Researcher Award project on the evolutionary consequences of building behaviour. The tasks will comprise the extraction of data from literature, video tracking analyses and morphometric measurements in ethanol specimens. The candidate should be keen to work into new topics and methods and have a basic understanding of invertebrate morphology and data analysis in biology. Experiences in data mining, video analysis and/or microscopy would be beneficial. Please contact Jonas, if you are interested: <jonas.wolff@mq.edu.au>.

The Sydney Institute of Marine Science Living Seawalls team is looking for a Research Assistant (6 month, full-time appointment) to conduct lab and field-based research. If interested in applying, please see the attached job advertisement. Living Seawalls RA_Job advert

Closes Tue 26th March.

AINSE Winter School – applications now open. The Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE Ltd.) offers scholarships to its Member Universities to enable a nominated student to attend the Winter School on applications of nuclear techniques. The School is held at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation’s (ANSTO’s) Lucas Heights campus, located approximately 30km south of Sydney. The 23rd AINSE Winter School will run over five days from Monday 8th to Friday 12th July 2019. The scholarship is open to all senior undergraduate students to whom a knowledge of nuclear analysis techniques would be of interest. See Winter School 2019 Poster for more.

The AINSE Councillor at each university is responsible for coordinating the selection of a scholarship student.  Please contact your University Councillor, or AINSE administration <ainse@ainse.edu.au>, to find out more about the AINSE Winter School. Applications close 15th May 2019.

SEMINARS AND WORKSHOPS

Biological Sciences Seminar – Date/Time: Wednesday, 27th March, 2019; 1pm – 2pm. Speaker: Prof Michael Kasumovic, University of New South Wales. Title: Real time science to engage students (and why video games are the future). Venue:  14EAR-280 (Biology Tea Room). More information on this and all department seminars ON OUR WEBPAGE HERE.

MolSci Seminar – Date/Time: Tuesday, 2nd April, 2019; 1.00pm – 2.00pm. Speaker: Dr Biswanath Das, School of Chemistry, University of New South Wales. Title: Catalysts for water oxidation and CO2 reduction: from mechanistic (homogeneous) study to heterogeneous catalysis. Venue:  4WW 322 seminar room. For more, visit: https://goto.mq/6s

MQ Work in Progress Seminar – Date/Time: Tuesday, 26th March, 2019; 1pm – 2pm. Speaker: Dr Christopher Lean, School of Philosophy, ANU. Title: Invasive species and naturalized function in ecology. Venue: Blackshield Room, 23WW (W3A).

Upcoming Franklin Women Event – Entrepreneurship. 28th March 2019.

Flyer_Entrepreneurship_March 2019

Workshop on Ecological and Evolutionary Genomics – August 4th-9th 2019. Where: Katoomba, Blue Mountains, NSW
Website: https://www.weeg2019.com/
This workshop will provide training in a select suite of recent approaches using modern genomic sequencing data in the fields of ecology and evolution. Topics covered will include landscape genomics, detecting selection, genomic structural variants, and DNA metabarcoding. Each day of the workshop is dedicated to a particular topic, with international and national academic presenters who are experts in their fields. The content is aimed at PhD and Masters students, post-docs, including all levels of faculty. The workshop assumes a basic understanding and working knowledge of population and evolutionary genetics and modern sequencing technologies.
Keynote presenters: Ary Hoffman (University of Melbourne, VIC), Brenna Forester (Colorado State University, USA), Niko Balkenhol (University of Goettingen, Germany), Maren Wellenreuther (University of Auckland/ Plant and Food Research, New Zealand), and Michael Bunce (Curtin University, WA).
Places are limited, and registration is via application only. A statement of interest and a brief 1-page CV is required (details: www.weeg2019.com).  Applications are to be sent to weeg2019@mq.edu.au  by the CLOSING DATE APRIL 26th. Successful applicants will be invited to register within 1-2 weeks of the closing date.

Meet the Lord of the Cane Toads – Join the Faculty of Science and Engineering for the annual Mason Lecture presented this year by Professor Rick Shine. He will talk about his research on Australia’s Most Unpopular Animal – the Cane Toad. Find out about how how Rick and his team have discovered ways to control Toad numbers, and to help the native fauna coexist with these toxic invaders.
WHEN: Thursday, 28 March, 2019; 6.00 pm – 7.30 pm.
WHERE: Conference Rooms C & D, Level 3, 18 Wally’s Walk (MUSE), Macquarie University, New South Wales, 2109
RSVP: Thursday, 28 March, 2019. REGISTER HERE!

Workshop: Regular Expressions in R – Regular Expression (also called RE or regex) is “a pattern describing a certain amount of text”, describing a search pattern that can be used in several software programs (like AntConc, and Notepad++) and computer languages (R, Python etc). Based on regex, one can perform many queries and substitutions, as in tasks associated with Natural Language Programming (NLP), computational linguistics and bioinformatics (for instance, finding certain genes in the genome).

Presenter: Rodrigo Araújo e Castro. Date: March 28, 2019. Time: 3:30pm – 5:30pm. Venue: Continuum Room (Rm 3114, 75 Talavera Rd).

No registration is required and there will be snacks and beverages (please bring a mug, if you can).
Workshop: Spatio-Temporal Statistics with R (Sydney, 29-30 April 2019)
Instructors: Prof. Noel Cressie and Dr. Andrew Zammit-Mangion (University of Wollongong, Australia).
Where: UOW Sydney Business School, Gateway Building, Circular Quay, Sydney.
When: 29 April (full day) and 30 April (half day).
Details:  Prof. Noel Cressie and Dr Andrew Zammit-Mangion  are offering a workshop on spatio-temporal statistics with R at the UOW Sydney Business School, on 29/30 April. This 1.5-day workshop is based on their recent book “Spatio-Temporal Statistics with R” with Chris Wikle, which is freely available for download from https://spacetimewithr.org. The workshop considers a systematic approach to analysing spatio-temporal data, with a particular emphasis on hierarchical (empirical and Bayesian) statistical modelling. For more information and registration details visit https://niasra.uow.edu.au

Venture Café – ALL academics, staff, their families etc, are very welcome to attend each week.  It’s free and there is a bar which is also free to those who attend – more details about this week’s program and more at this link:

https://venturecafesydney.org/events/2019/2/28/the-power-of-story-telling

Venture Cafe

The Biology ECR Research Showcase is on Tuesday April 16, 2019 (Biology Tea Room, 14EAR (E8A) – 280, 9.00am – 1.00pm). The Showcase was moved to a new month during the semester break to allow as many Biology members as possible to come. We expect it to be a great half day with fascinating talks, conversations and networking. Please put it in your diaries.

All ECRs are invited (self-nominated of course) to present your work. Please get in touch with the ECR committee to confirm your availability to participate and present your work, preferably before March 15.

For those who are new, this is a half-day mini-conference that acts as a platform for ECRs in Biology to present their work to the entire Department. The aim being to facilitate networking, and to gain visibility, share new ideas, techniques and technology within the Department. It will be held at the Bio Tea Room from 9am to 1pm. It would be ideal if all ECRs presented, of course with a priority for those who have recently joined the Department.

Jonas Wolff, Bruno Buzatto and Stephan Leu will be organising this mini conference. Please get in touch with them.

MolSci Morning Tea – Capella Science – Date/Time: Wednesday, 27th March, 2019; 10.00am – 12.00pm. Venue: 4WW 322 seminar room.
Morning Tea flyer Macquarie Uni

FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES

Applications for the 2019 Ethel Mary Read (EMR) Research Grants are Now Open. EMR Grants are composed of small research grants.  They are intended for researchers who are just starting out in their respective fields of study and will cover minor costs. The maximum grant awarded is $AUD1500 per year and applicants are free to re-apply for funding regardless of whether they have been successful in previous years. The size of the grant means that the EMR Research Fund may bridge a gap in existing funding, may be used to instigate pilot studies, may be devoted to travel costs in the field or may be used to purchase equipment. There are no restrictions on how the grant may be used in contributing to the nominated research program.
Applications close midnight 30 April 2019 and are awarded in July and run for one financial year. Apply Now.

Max Day Environmental Science Fellowship Award – Australian Academy of Science. This assists PhD students and early-career researchers in the field of environmental science with costs related to travel, courses and research expenses. The award is worth up to AUD 20,000. Closing date 1st June. https://www.science.org.au/opportunities/research-funding/max-day-environmental-science-fellowship-award

Margaret Middleton Fund for Endangered Australian Native Vertebrate Animals – Australian Academy of Science, AU. This supports field-based ecological research and conservation-based research of Australian ecosystems leading to tangible outcomes for management. Grants are worth up to AUD 15,000 each over a period of 18 to 24 months. Maximum award: AUD 15,000. Closing date: 01 Jun 19 (recurring) https://www.science.org.au/opportunities/research-funding/margaret-middleton-fund

Graeme Caughley Travelling Fellowship – Ecology and Wildlife Management – Australian Academy of Science, AU. This enables ecologists resident in Australia or New Zealand to share their expertise in ecology and wildlife management by visiting scientific centres and giving lectures in countries other than Australia or New Zealand. The fellowship is worth up to AUD 7,000. Maximum award: AUD 7,000.  Closing date: 01 Jun 19 https://www.science.org.au/opportunities/travel/travelling-fellowships/graeme-caughley-travelling-fellowship

Boden Research Conferences – Australian Academy of Science, AU. This supports one conference to enable researchers to discuss current advances and problems in the biological sciences. The funded conference will receive up to AUD 10,000. Maximum award: AUD 10,000. Closing date: 01 Jun 19 (recurring) https://www.science.org.au/opportunities/conference-and-lecture-funding/boden-research-conferences

Thomas Davies Research Grant for Marine, Soil and Plant Biology – Australian Academy of Science, AU. This supports early- and mid-career researchers in the field of marine, soil and plant biology. Grants are worth up to AUD 25,000 each for up to two years. Maximum award: AUD 25,000. Closing date: 01 Jun 19 (recurring) https://www.science.org.au/opportunities/research-funding/thomas-davies-research-grant-marine-soil-and-plant-biology

Fenner Conferences on the Environment – Australian Academy of Science, AU. This funds one conference focused on environmental and conservation problems in Australia, thereby contributing to the formation of policies that can alleviate some of these problems. The funded conference will receive up to AUD 10,000. Maximum award: AUD 10,000. Closing date: 01 Jun 19 (recurring) https://www.science.org.au/opportunities/conference-and-lecture-funding/fenner-conferences-environment

France and Europe Early- and Mid-career Researcher Mobility Grants – Natural Sciences – Australian Academy of Science, AU. These support Australian researchers in travelling to France or Europe and work with leading researchers at major science and technology organisations. Grants are worth up to AUD 5,000 each for travel between 14 and 28 days. Maximum award: AUD 5,000. Closing date: 08 Apr 19. https://www.science.org.au/opportunities/travel/grants-and-exchange/france-and-europe-emcr-mobility-grants

Considering Study Leave or Research in Germany? Check out opportunities for funding from the German Academic Exchange Service: https://www.daad.de/deutschland/stipendium/datenbank/en/21148-scholarship-database/?status=&origin=&subjectGrps=&daad=&q=research%20stays&page=1&detail=50015456

Professional Staff Development Grants scheme opens on 11 March Grants of up to $4000 are available for professional staff to develop their knowledge, skills and experience through activities such as study tours, professional development programs and conferences.

HDR FUNDING

The Tony Price Award is Now Open. Greville Anthony (Tony) Price was a student in the 1980s, and this bequest supports any aspect of ecological research that involves plants (directly or indirectly) by providing up to $2500 for research or conference attendance. The application is short, and due by 5pm, 29th March. Please see the application form for additional information. If you are unsure whether your research qualifies for the award, please contact Linda Beaumont <linda.beaumont@mq.edu.au>. Tony Price Award Application_2019

HDR Students Applying for External Grants – IMPORTANT New Process

There is a new(ish) process for HDR students to apply for external grants through the University, detailed in External Research Funding – HDR Candidates Processes
Queries: <julian.may@mq.edu.au>

    • Get “Letter of support” from HDRO at least 1 month before grant application deadline

        • Send the above form + a copy of your grant application to Department admin for HoD signature <fse.bio-adm@mq.edu.au> – note the application deadline in your email.

  • Wait until you receive HDRO letter of support

  • Submit your grant application + letter of support : directly to the grant-funding body.

Admin realises that sometimes opportunities come up, and you will not have enough time to wait for the response from HDRO; please start the process above anyway, and submit the application without a letter if you run out of time. Admin also realises that this may be more onerous than how you have applied for grants in the past, and that some grant-funding bodies will only accept applications through the University’s grant-coordinating office; Admin are following up these questions with MQ Research Services (aka Research Pre-award/post-award).

Research Services have advised that applications will NOT be accepted through Pure RMS from students.

IF a grant application is successful, Research Services will determine if HERDC reporting is necessary (depends on grant value): if YES, the candidate’s supervisor will need to submit a Pure application record on behalf of the candidate; if NO, then HDRO will liaise with the candidate and the grant will be managed at the Faculty/Department level – speak with Julian May if it is the latter. The above forms can be found at Scholarship Information > External Scholarship and Research Grant Funding.

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>.

Applications for STEP’s John Martyn Research Grant for the Conservation of Bushland in Sydney are welcomed from Honours, Masters and PhD students. The value of the grant is $2,500. To apply, complete the attached application form electronically, save it and email it to <secretary@step.org.au> by 31 March 2019. We will announce the winner by 7 April 2019. For more information go to http://step.org.au/index.php/grants and if you have any queries, please email <secretary@step.org.au>.

Australian Wildlife Society University Research Grants are scholarships offered to honours or postgraduate students at Australian universities. Each year, ten $1,500 grants are awarded. Applicants wishing to become a member of the Society can do so at www.aws.org.au

Grants are available for research projects of direct relevance to the conservation of Australian wildlife – plant or animal. Grants may be used for the purchase of equipment and consumables, travel expenses related to field research, or attendance at conferences at which you are presenting your work. The grant is paid directly to the student. Closing date: applications are due by the 31st May 2019.

If you are, or supervise, a female PhD candidate who is an Aust citizen or permanent resident, please take a look at these Fellowships:

The 2019 Barbara Hale Fellowships and the 2019 Georgina Sweet Fellowship will close to applications on the 30th April 2019.

The 2019 AFGW Barbara Hale Fellowships are offered to women graduates who are Australian citizens or permanent residents of Australia and are enrolled for a PhD degree by research in any discipline at an Australian university. Only citizens of Australia or Australian permanent residents may apply. In 2019, two (2) AFGW Barbara Hale Fellowships will be offered at $7500 each. Submissions due 30th April 2019.

The 2019 AFGW Georgina Sweet Fellowship is offered to women graduates who are Australian citizens or permanent residents of Australia and are enrolled for a PhD degree by research in any discipline at an Australian university. Only citizens of Australia or Australian permanent residents may apply. Submissions due 30th April 2019.

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. Registrations are now open for individual consultation bookings. If you are interested, please go to book in for a 30-minute session with a PWA. If you have questions about the PWA program please email hdrmentors@mq.edu.au>

ADMIN THINGS

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 HER

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

Alan Finkel, Chief Scientist, on Bibliometrics https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00613-z

“Institutions must heed growing calls to abandon paper counting and similar metrics for evaluating researchers”

“Reviewers should be admonished for Googling individuals h-indices and citation lists”

Are You Part of a HDR Dynamic Duo? You may have seen the HDR Dynamic Duo section in the HDR Support & Development team newsletters. They feature dynamic duos from across the faculty, be it HDR candidate & supervisor, HDR Mentor & HDR Mentee, HDR Candidate and Industry placement supervisor. If you are interested in being featured, the HDR Support & Development team are seeking contributions. Please head to the HDR Support and Development website for more information and to download the questionnaire.

Visiting Student Looking for Accommodation – Silvia Ruiz is visiting Rachael Gallagher’s lab from Wageningen University (Nederlands) April 1 – June 30. If you’ve a spare room to rent or a house that needs minding during this period please contact Rachael <rachael.gallagher@mq.edu.au> directly for more details.

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.

  1. Please write in third person. The information is coming from the Newsletter, not directly from you.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.

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New Publications

Animal cultures matter for conservation

By: Philippa Brakes, Sasha R. X. Dall, Lucy M. Aplin, Stuart Bearhop, Emma L. Carroll, Paolo Ciucci, Vicki Fishlock, John K. B. Ford, Ellen C. Garland, Sally A. Keith, Peter K. McGregor, Sarah L. Mesnick, Michael J. Noad, Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara, Martha M. Robbins, Mark P. Simmonds, Fernando Spina, Alex Thornton, Paul R. Wade, Martin J. Whiting, James Williams, Luke Rendell, Hal Whitehead, Andrew Whiten, Christian Rutz (2019). Science 08 Mar 2019: Vol. 363, Issue 6431, pp. 1032-1034. | Find with Google Scholar »

The impact of urbanisation on community structure, gene abundance and transcription rates of microbes in upland swamps of Eastern Australia

By: Christiansen, Nicole A., Kirstie A. Fryirs, Timothy J. Green, and Grant C. Hose. PloS one 14, no. 3 (2019): e0213275. | Find with Google Scholar »

High air temperatures induce temporal, spatial and social changes in the foraging behaviour of wild zebra finches

By: Funghi, Caterina, Luke SC McCowan, Wiebke Schuett, and Simon C. Griffith. Animal Behaviour 149 (2019): 33-43. | Find with Google Scholar »

Evidence from the proteome for local adaptation to extreme heat in a widespread tree species

By: Maher, Timothy, Mehdi Mirzaei, Dana Pascovici, Ian J. Wright, Paul A. Haynes, and Rachael V. Gallagher. Functional Ecology. | Find with Google Scholar »

Genetic Variation and Post-Translational Modifications of Cytochrome C Oxidase-1 (COX1) in different Strains of Sordaria fimicola

By: Arif, Rabia, Syeda Hina Bukhari, Muhammad Ishfaq, Memuna Ghafoor Shahid, Siu Fai Lee, and Muhammad Saleem. researchgate.net | Find with Google Scholar »

Reintroducing rewilding to restoration – Rejecting the search for novelty

By: Hayward, M., Scanlon, R., Callen, A., Howell, L., Klop-toker, K., Di Blanco, Y., Balkenhol, N., Bugir, C., Campbell, L., Caravaggi, A., Chalmers, A., Clulow, J., Clulow, S., Cross, P., Gould, J., Griffin, A., Heurich, M., Howe, B., Jachowski, D., Ramesh, K., Jhala, Y., Kowalczyk, R., Lenga, D., Linnell, J., Marnewick, K., Moehrenschlager, A., Montgomery, R., Osipova, L., Peneaux, C., Rodger, J., Sales, L., Seeto, R., Shuttleworth, C., Somers, M., Tamessar, C., Upton, R. & Weise, F. (2019). Biological Conservation, 233: 255-259. | Find with Google Scholar »

In the Media

Rick Shine provided comment to National Geographic

Professor Rick Shine from the Department of Biological Sciences provided comment to National Geographic regarding frogs changing sex.

Lizzy Lowe was featured on Triple J Breakfast

Dr Lizzy Lowe from the Department of Biological Sciences was featured on Triple J Breakfast regarding common questions about spiders.

Matthew Bulbert was interviewed on ABC Radio Sydney Drive and featured in Essential Kids

Dr Matthew Bulbert from the Department of Biological Sciences was interviewed on ABC Radio Sydney Drive and featured in Essential Kids regarding ways to prevent insects going extinct. This article was first published on The Lighthouse.

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