Decadal changes in habitat characteristics influence population trajectories of southern elephant seals
By: Hindell, Mark A., Michael Sumner, Sophie Bestley, Simon Wotherspoon, Robert G. Harcourt, Mary‐Anne Lea, Rachael Alderman, and Clive R. McMahon. Global Change Biology (2017). | Find with Google Scholar »
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Dear all,
Congratulations to all our winners at the Faculty’s End of Year Function – all are well-deserved! There will be more prizes and celebration at our own Department End of Year Function – send me your nominations for those deserving students and colleagues.
cheers,
Michelle
Save the Date
This coming week 27th – 1st December
Wed 29th: Department Morning Tea; 10.30am – 11.30am; E8A-280 (Tea Room).
Next week 4th – 8th December
Tue 5th: MRes Year 2 Poster Presentation; 9am – 11am; E8A 280 (Tea room).
Tue 5th: 11am Formal Department Meeting for Grading in E8A 280, followed by the Christmas Party in the Biology Courtyard at 1pm. Register here
Wed 6th: Department Morning Tea; 10.30am – 11.30am; The Hill.
Coming up
Every Thursday for the next few months: Writing Workshop; 2.30-4.00pm; E8C-212
General News and Announcements
Faculty End of Year Function
The department was well-represented again at the end of year function – congratulations to all! The long list is:
Excellence in Research – Smart Green Cities
Excellence in Early Career Research – Jemma Geoghegan
Excellence in Research Leadership – Andy Barron
Excellence in Research Leadership – Ian Wright
Excellence in Innovative Research Partnership – Phil Taylor
Excellence in Teaching – Michelle Power
Excellence in Teaching – Matt Bulbert
and a special award for Outstanding Contribution to Teaching to Jenny Donald.
Success at the National Business Higher Education Round Table (BHERT) Awards
At a gala dinner in Melbourne, the Biodiversity Node, led by Lesley Hughes and with a large team of MQ biologists and environmental scientists in collaboration with NSW Office of Environment & Heritage, was announced as the winner of the 2017 BHERT Award for Outstanding Collaboration for National (Non-Economic) Benefit. Congratulations! The media release is here
ESA Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment Grant Success
Congratulations to our HDR students who were awarded ESA Holsworth grants!
- PhD student Sonu Yadav (Dudaniec Lab), for her work on the landscape genomics of grasshoppers
- MRES student Kaytlyn Davis (Stow Lab), for her work on the conservation genetics of Ibis
Apologies if anyone has been missed.
Highly Cited
Ian Wright made it into the 2017 Web of Science list of Highly Cited Researchers (https://clarivate.com/hcr/). This is a field-normalised compilation of the most highly cited researchers across science and the social sciences, across the last decade. Ian was Highly Cited in both the Environment/Ecology and Plant & Animal Science categories. The MQ media release is here:
It is that time of year again!
Admin Office Hours
Effective Date: Monday 27 November 2016
End of year financial workload is high for the admin staff, so office hours are changing.
Admin Offices Open: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
Admin Offices Closed: Tuesday and Thursday
Offices Affected:
- Sharyon O’Donnell – E8B203 ( Project Accounts ending in 2017
- Julian May, Harriet O’Sullivan and Ayden De Courcey – E8B 204 ( Financial processing team)
- Kate Barry, Caitlin Kordis – E8B 207 (Exam processing team)
If your matter is urgent, please see Ayden De Courcey or Jenny Ghabache – E8B206 who will arrange an appointment with the appropriate person.
Alternatively, please pick up the phone & call, to avoid increasing the email load.
We need your co-operation with this, to ensure the admin staff survives this stressful time.
Cultural Safety Training
Do you feel comfortable and confident talking about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, their history and cultural knowledge? Do you want to engage more with Indigenous cultures and embed Indigenous knowledge into your teaching and research but are worried about causing offense? If so, this is the workshop for you! Phil Duncan, from the Indigenous Strategy unit will provide Cultural Safety Training for Biology staff. There are only 25 places available, so be quick – sign up now: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cultural-safety-training-biological-sciences-staff-tickets-39633526946
When: Thursday 7th December, 9am-12:30pm (includes morning tea and lunch)
Where: E8A280 (Biology Tea Room),
Who: Biology staff
Dietary restrictions? Please email Jenny Ghabache with your needs after registering.
Appropriate Behaviour
The issue of sexual harassment, especially by those in a position of power has been brought to the fore recently by popular media. Several articles in Nature point to the fact that the University system is not immune to this type of abuse. Please find links to a few of these articles and the attached 2017 Human Rights Commission Report on sexual harassment to help us remain vigilant to inappropriate behavior.
http://www.nature.com/news/sexual-harassment-must-not-be-kept-under-wraps-1.19196.
https://www.nature.com/news/more-universities-must-confront-sexual-harassment-1.22362
AHRC_2017_ChangeTheCourse_UniversityReport
Plant of the Week
For this week – Nasturtium (Tropaeolum).
We tend to look down on Nasturtium (Tropaeolum) as an old-fashioned garden plant. However, nowadays, not only have the flowers become a trendy and colourful addition to meals, but the nanoscopic leaf architecture that gives the leaves self-cleaning properties (lotus effect), is now being duplicated in paint, roof tiles and fabrics that stay dry and clean.
Visiting Researcher
Emily Burdfield-Steel is a visiting researcher here on an Endeavour Fellowship to study the genetic basis of colour variation in the Hibiscus Harlequin Bug. She previously worked with Johanna Mappes on chemical variation in the Wood Tiger moth at the University of Jyväskylä. Her interests include variation in aposematic signals, and reproductive interference between species. She will be at Macquarie until the end of February 2018. If you see any bugs like the one below in your garden or around campus please let her know! <emily.r.burdfield-steel@jyu.fi>
Session 1 2018 Biology Tutor Applications are Now Open
If you’re interested, you can apply here.
More information about the application process, including selection criteria, can be found on the BIOL899 or BIOL990 iLearn webpages.
Please contact Caitlin Kordis if you have any questions.
Applications close 30 November 2017.
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
This month’s theme is FIELDWORK!
Please follow the drop box file request link to submit your images.
Submission close: 30 November 2017
The top photos each month will be shared on our Department website and this newsletter. The top winning photo for the month will be featured on our Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. The best image from the preceding 12 months will be announced at the annual Biology Department Christmas party and the lucky winner will receive a $100 Gift Card! You can enter as many photos as you like.
Criteria
- Shows what’s unique about the work being done
- Taken in the last five years
Please provide the following details to <jenny.ghabache@mq.edu.au>:
-
- Details of where/what/who/ is featured in the photo
- Who took the photo
Date/Year image was taken
Christmas Charity Collection
Collecting Food and gifts for:
North Ryde Community Aid
(for frail and elderly residents of North Ryde)
Please donate by Monday 11 December
Place labelled presents under the Christmas tree (or food in the adjacent box)
Food hampers will be packed on Friday 15 December and delivered Monday 18 December. If you can help with either of these please email Samantha Newton (Biology)samantha.newton@mq.edu.au and/or Laura Hamilton (Sustainability) laura.hamilton@mq.edu.au
See poster (attached) for suggestions.
Library News
The Library is unveiling a new look interface for MultiSearch on Monday December 4, 2017. You can preview the new look now and give feedback.
Why are they doing this?
The new interface is easier to navigate, offers new features and is mobile device friendly. The core functionality of MultiSearch will not change.
What’s new?
- Full details for each item in your results list is now displayed on one page
- Options for saving and exporting are more easily visible
- MyLibrary now allows you to sort your loans by due date and provides an overview page
- e-Shelf has been renamed “My Favourites” and is located under the pin icon. Sign-in to save items to My Favourites by clicking the pin icon
- It is now possible to select multiple filters to include or exclude items from your search results and lock filters so they stay active for all searches until you leave MultiSearch
- Resource Recommender which suggests databases, relevant Subject and Research Guides or other relevant resources, now appears at the top of your search results
Do you need to do anything?
Update any bookmarks to point to the new MultiSearch interface after December 4, 2017.
Saved searches and alerts will not be transferred across to the new interface. You will need to re-create these and save them as a saved query in My Favourites. Instructions will be available on December 4, 2017.
Where can you get help or find out more?
More details are available here or you can contact your Research Librarian.
11 December, 2017 – MQMarine Collaboration Workshop & End-of-Year Function
This workshop will be a follow-up on our first, and very successful, ‘MQMarine Collaboration Workshop 2015’. As with our previous workshop, which connected MQ researchers at various career stages and from multiple disciplines, the focus is on initiating and/or strengthening collaborations!
Program outline:
We will begin the workshop with a presentation by Prof. Michael Gillings, who will talk about existing collaborations at MQ, and how to initiate and maintain productive collaborations.
The afternoon will be filled with short (5 min) presentations by MQ Early Career Researchers on their research – all research students (Masters and PhD’s), postdocs and other ECR’s are welcome to present. All participating Academics are encouraged to focus on the bigger picture and identify potential links that might connect the ECR projects to initiate avenues of collaboration.
We will end the workshop with a summary of MQMarine’s achievements in 2017 by the Director Prof. Simon George and an end-of-year function starting at 4pm to which everyone is warmly invited!
If you have any questions please email marinescience@mq.edu.au.
To register for this workshop follow this link and use the password = Collaboration2017.
Test Out the Scoop a Poop kit!
Do you have brushtail or ringtail possums in your yard?
The Scoop a Poop project needs more possum poop. The team would also appreciate feedback on the usability of the collection kit they use for their citizen science project.
If you can collect poop and return the kit by 8th December, please contact Koa Webster (<koa.webster@mq.edu.au>; ext. 6289) for a kit.
NOTE: both BRUSHTAIL and RINGTAIL possum poop now accepted!
Commonwealth Rutherford Fellowship to Work in UK – Due Dec 11
http://cscuk.dfid.gov.uk/apply/rutherford-fellowships/
A New 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.
Biological Sciences Administrative Requests
Please email any admin requests you have to <sci.bio-adm@mq.edu.au>. The email is monitored by the whole Admin Team, so your request won’t sit unanswered in a single person’s inbox should they be away or on leave. If you need to contact the individual admin staff member directly, you will find their contact details in this document.
And if you need HoD signoff on any applications, forms, etc please send to <fse.bio-hod@mq.edu.au>
A Dirty Truth Pervades Academic Publishing…
The latest plea in the pages of Nature to stem the flow of publications and to increase quality, not quantity:
https://www.nature.com/news/give-researchers-a-lifetime-word-limit-1.22835
Second Scientists Warning to the World Now Published
Around 16,000 scientists have signed this letter, now published in BioScience
https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/bix125
Stuff You Might Want to Know
New research shows explaining things to ‘normal’ people can help scientists be better at their jobs
The study found that writing about their work for a non-academic audience helped science students to discover and discuss different ideas within their thesis.
At Least 400 Science Articles Cite Nonexistent ‘Phantom’ Study
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/11/at-least-400-science-articles-cite-nonexistent-phantom-study/
The article, with fake authors in a fake journal, was a made-up citation from the science publisher Elsevier to show authors how to cite works.
5 interview questions that will help you hire better people
https://ideas.ted.com/5-interview-questions-that-will-help-you-hire-better-people/
A TED writer suggests new questions to ask candidates (and yourself), to help you know more about a prospective employee’s character and how they respond to pressure.
KeePass – a password manager that’s cloud-less (but complex)
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2017/11/17/keepass-a-password-manager-thats-cloud-less-but-complex/
Sophos writes about a password manager that stores your passwords in its program, and can be transported on a USB flash drive.
Reminder: don’t re-use passwords!
Australian bird of the year 2017: vote for your favourite
STEM Speakers in Schools
What is it?
The Speakers in Schools program places Macquarie University academics in schools to connect students and teachers with researchers who inspire, inform and challenge students to question their thinking. Presentations discuss hot topics, global issues affecting society, have inspirational and significant impact for students.
How does it work?
We request that interested schools give us 4 weeks’ notice with some suggested dates, Alison Willard (FSE Future Students) will then liaise with you to see if any of those dates suit your schedule. The FSE Future Students Team provides transport for you (either someone will accompanying and drive you, or you can get a cab charge voucher).
Are you interested?
Please express your interest here:
Worm Farm and Tea Bags
Our worms are healthy and enjoying the lovely coffee, banana and salad scraps you’ve been providing. The worm farm is about to be refreshed, with lovely worm castings available for the home veggie garden.
A quick inspection reveals a layer of tea bags and tags.
Further investigation, via google, has revealed some interesting information about tea bags:
- Most teabags (including the Dilmah tea supplied by the department) is 70-80% biodegradable
- T2 tea bags are made of Nylon (not biodegradable)
- Loose leaf tea is fully biodegradable and tastes better
Therefore, for the sake of our worms, our gardens and or planet, please switch to loose-leaf tea, or non-T2 teabags where possible. If you absolutely must use a T2 tea bag, or a bag sealed with a staple, please throw the used bag into the general waste, not the worm container.
If you would like to take home some worm castings for your garden, please email Samantha Newton, <samantha.newton@mq.edu.au>
MU Species Spectrum Research Centre — call for expressions of interest for 2018 working group funding
The MUSSRC Executive Committee is calling for expressions of interest to fund MUSSRC working groups in 2018.
The MQ Species Spectrum Research Centre (MUSSRC) was established in 2017 and funds working group activity around the application of the trait-based approach to a broad range of questions and organisms (http://www.mq.edu.au/research/research-centres-groups-and-facilities/secure-planet/centres/species-spectrum-research-centre). The unifying element across the working groups is the compilation of trait data for a broad set of organisms, materials and behaviours to understand their function at the continental and global scale: ie to characterise “species spectra”.
EOI’s for 2018 working group funding should be no more than 250 words. Each EOI should outline the question being addressed, how it will be addressed, a budget (with the amount of funding requested), the researchers involved, and the proposed outputs. EOI’s should be sent to fse.species-spectrum-admin@mq.edu.au no later than 5pm on the 30th Nov.
Selected EOI’s will be invited to present a short pitch to the MUSSRC Executive Committee in December. Successful pitches will be notified later in December. Funds will be made available in early 2018 and would need to be used by the end of 2018.
New Publications
Colour patch size and measurement error using reflectance spectrophotometry
By: Badiane, Arnaud, Guillem Pérez i de Lanuza, M. Carmen García‐Custodio, Pau Carazo, and Enrique Font. Methods in Ecology and Evolution. | Find with Google Scholar »(2558) Proposal to conserve Murraya, nom. cons., against the additional name Chalcas (Rutaceae)
Mabberley, David J. Taxon 66, no. 5 (2017): 1229-1230. | Find with Google Scholar »Conditions at autumn stopover sites affect survival of a migratory passerine
By: Halupka, Lucyna, Kaja Wierucka, Hanna Sztwiertnia, and Ewelina Klimczuk. Journal of Ornithology 158, no. 4 (2017): 979-988. | Find with Google Scholar »Contemporary topics in fish cognition and behaviour
By: Vila Pouca, Catarina, and Culum Brown. (2017). | Find with Google Scholar »The frontiers of insect cognition
/by: Perry, Clint J., Andrew B. Barron, and Lars Chittka. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences 16 (2017): 111-118. | Find with Google Scholar »Diversity and taxonomic identification of Shionodiscus spp. in the Australian sector of the Subantarctic Zone
By: Wilks, Jessica V., and Leanne K. Armand. Diatom Research (2017): 1-13. | Find with Google Scholar »Paleoclimatology, Paleogeography, and the Evolution and Distribution of Sea Kraits (Serpentes; Elapidae; Laticauda)
By: Heatwole, Harold, Alana Grech, and Helene Marsh. Herpetological Monographs 31, no. 1 (2017): 1-17. | Find with Google Scholar »In the Media
Rob Harcourt spoke to ABC Radio Sydney’s Weekends program
Professor Rob Harcourt from the Department of Biological Sciences spoke to ABC Radio Sydney’s Weekends program about studying shark behaviour and tracking sharks. See page 9 of the report.
Ian Wright was interviewed on the Radio National program Blueprint for Living
Associate Professor Ian Wright from the Department of Biological Sciences was interviewed on the Radio National program Blueprint for Living about global patterns in leaf size:
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/blueprintforliving/the-mystery-of-leaf-size/9087330