BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT MATTERS | October 14, 2016

Dear all,

A busy week of outreach this week with the Careers in Science event held in conjunction with our BIOL391 Capstone unit, and a visit from Cheltenham Girls High School.

Congratulations to our MRes students who submitted their thesis this week – 10 of the Faculty’s 14 MRes submissions were from Biology!

Next week there will be a fabulous department social event – come and celebrate Oktoberfest with wursts and other German delights and beers from 4pm in the Biology courtyard – all welcome!

cheerio

Michelle

Save the Date

This coming week 17th – 21st October

Wed 19th: Jenny Minard’s Farewell Morning Tea; 10:00am – 11:00am; Lakeside.

Wed 19th: Fauna Park new building office space information session; 10.30-12pm; W19F

Wed 19th: Weekly Seminar –  Dan Warren – Incorporating evolutionary history into niche and distribution models: learning to love terrible species distribution models; 1 – 2pm; E8A-280 (Tea room).

Thu 20th: Department social event – Oktoberfest BBQ and drinks; from 4pm; Biology courtyard

Following week 24h – 28th October

Tue 25th: R-Users Group – Dara Wrangling with dplyr; 3pm – 5pm; E8A-280 (Tea Room).

Wed 26th: Faculty Safety Day; E8 Courtyard.

Wed 26th: Advanced Biology Conference; 12 – 2pm; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Wed 26th: No more regular weekly seminars this year. 🙁

Coming up

Oct 31st: Applications for domestic (APA) PhD scholarships due.

Nov 1st: PhD completion seminars – Sarah Jacquet and Marissa Betts, followed by drinks. E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Nov 8th: Biology programs information session for students. 1 – 2pm; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Nov 14-15: Department research and L&T retreat at Victoria & Albert Hotel, Mt Victoria (academic staff – please put this in your diaries now!)

Dec 6th: Department Formal Exam Meeting for Semester 2 2016; 1pm; E8A-280 (Tea Room). Followed by…

Dec 6th: Department Christmas Party; from 2pm Biology courtyard

Dec 9th: Faculty of Science & Engineering Xmas BBQ

General News and Announcements

Award Success at SETAC Conference

Congratulations to Ingrid Errington who last week was awarded the Science Communication prize at the SETAC (Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry) conference in Hobart. Ingrid spoke about her PhD research on Macquarie Island in a presentation inspired by Dr Suess. Ingrid presented on the first day of the conference. Word quickly spread about her entertaining presentation and she was asked to give a repeat performance at the conference closing ceremony. Well done Ingrid!

At the same conference, Grant Hose was awarded the SETAC Australasia mid-career award for service and excellence in scientific work. He received his award at the star-studded gala conference dinner.

Wondering what the new Biology building in the Fauna Park will look like?

Come along to an information session about the office and common area spaces planned for the new building. The architects will be on hand to give a presentation in W19F from 10.30 on Wednesday.

Free Native Plants Looking for a New Home

BIOL347 plants are available from the Plant Growth Facility. Help yourself, but please return the pots to the courtyard once you’ve planted the trees as they are needed for teaching next year.

There are 10 species to choose from and over 200 plants, so take as many as you can.

Please note that these plants have been protected in the glasshouses, so need to be left outside for a while to harden up before being planted.

Species include: Acacia suaveolens, Acmena smithii, Angophora hispida, Banksia robur, Ceratopetalum apetalum, Dodonaea triquetra, Hakea dactyloides, Melaleuca quinquenervia, Myoporum boninense, Trema aspera

Exam Meeting for Session 2

Is being held on Tuesday 6th December at 1pm in the tearoom. Academics can you please put this in your diaries. We will go straight from the department meeting to the Biology Christmas Party in the courtyard afterwards!

Applications for Casual Teaching for Session 1 2017

Applications for casual teaching in S1 units will open on Monday 17th October, 2016 and close 14th November, 2016.

Email to follow on Monday.

Cheltenham Girls’ High School Visit a Success

On Wednesday the department was visited by 30 girls from Cheltenham Girls High School. The girls belong to either the Gardening Club (Year 7, 8 and 9) or the Green Team (Year 10 and 11). They engaged in a range of activities: including a tour of the glasshouses where they learned about the impacts of CO2, temperature and nutrient availability on plant growth in native and introduced species, and even got their hands dirty by measuring a few plant traits (as seen in the image). The girls were then challenged to locate and identify plants within the threatened vegetation remnants on campus learning about plant identification and the threats facing native vegetation communities. After lunch the students were given a tour of the arboretum and the bushtucker garden.

The feedback from the school was very positive and I believe there were students proclaiming their desire to come to Macquarie to study plants! On behalf of the Outreach Committee I would like to thank Sam Newton, Anthony Manea, Katherine Berthon and Samiya Tabassum for inspiring the next generation of plant biologists. This is also a reminder to all that if you have an outreach activity please liaise with the Outreach committee as we now need to report on activities to the Faculty as we would also like to create a portfolio of activities that best meet with the capacity of the department.

Last Weekly Seminar for the YEAR!

Day / Date / Time / Place: Wednesday, 19th October, 1- 2pm, E8A-280 (Tea room).

Speaker: Dan Warren

Title: Incorporating evolutionary history into niche and distribution models: learning to love terrible species distribution models

Abstract: Species distribution models are used across evolution, ecology, and conservation biology as estimates of species ecological tolerances and potential spatial distributions.  However, we know that the data used to construct them is often uninformative or misleading about biological phenomena, and yet have relatively little information on how this affects the predictions that they make.  New methods currently in development may significantly improve the biological realism of models by incorporating information about historical biogeography and relatedness between species, but in order to do so the field will have to fundamentally change the way we construct, and think about, species distribution models.

Macquarie Minds Showcase – 13-14 December

Register here 

Biological Sciences Early Career Researchers Please Note

If you haven’t had a chance to fill-in the ‘ECR experience at Macquarie’ survey – please do! This survey will guide strategic decision making and ECR support and we need as many responses as possible to make it effective.

Please follow the link (below) to find out more, and to take the survey. The survey is likely to take around 20-30 mins to complete, and is completely voluntary.

https://mqedu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_ekuFRanHW53477T

If you have any questions or queries, please contact <erica.crome@mq.edu.au>.

Do you want Kath to teach you some iLearn stuff?

Kath has set up a Doodle Poll to figure out a date that on which to run an iLearn workshop. If you are interested please follow this link and indicate which dates work for you: http://doodle.com/poll/p6ck6id5nrqs88ew

Remember that Kath would like this workshop to focus on things that YOU want help with, so, if you have specific things you want help with let her know (katherine.mcclellan@mq.edu.au).

Ideas so far include:
(1) How to set up and share quickmarks in Turnitin to provide faster, consistent and comprehensive feedback from markers
(2) How to set up marking rubrics in Turnitin
(3) How to bulk import quiz questions, and have quizzes pull random questions from question banks for weekly quizzes etc…
(4) How to get started in iLearn when you know nothing!

Plant of the Week – Turpentine

For this week – Turpentine – Syncarpia glomulifera – the ugly duckling of the Myrtaceae family.

New Volunteers’ List

Looking for a Volunteer to help you with your research?  Then please contact Ray Duell <ray.duell@mq.edu.au> for a copy of the latest volunteers’ list (we can’t attach it here as it puts the volunteers’ details at risk).

Attention Terrestrial fieldworkers

Sarah (terrestrial fieldwork manager) will be on leave from 18th November until 3rd January so there will be no terrestrial fieldwork inductions at this time. If you or your students expect to need an induction at this time please organise as soon as possible before this date. In her absence approvals will be done by Amanda Sordes via Field Friendly as usual. Please allow at least 5 working days for approvals as Amanda will be responsible for all terrestrial and marine (non-boating) approvals during this busy period.  In cases of accidents or emergencies or to collect or return equipment please see Amanda or Tarun Rajan.

Acting Vehicle Manager

Sarah Collison will be the acting vehicle manager from the 4th October till the 31st October 2016 as Tarun will be away on a course. Sarah will be able to provide vehicle inductions, but may not be able to conduct one on short notice. Please endeavour to provide her with sufficient notice to schedule any inductions.

Sorry about the inconvenience and we appreciate your co-operation.

Boating Officer

Josh Aldridge will provide interim support for boating in the department until a replacement for Andrew Irvine has been appointed. Josh will do boating activity risk assessments and inductions when required. Please contact Josh if you plan any boating activities.

New Honorary Visiting Associate

Dr. Francisco Devescovi is a new Honorary Visiting Associate from Argentina (with an Endeavour Research Fellowship). He is working with Phil Taylor until 24 March, 2017.  If you see him please make him feel welcome.

About Dr. Devescovi:

Francisco works with a fruit fly parasitoid intended to be used as a biological control agent against the two economically important pest species from Argentina. He focuses on behaviour, electrophysiology, and chemical ecology. On the other hand, he worked for IAEA studying pre- and post-zygotic mechanisms of the speciation process of the South American fruit fly in order to improve the Sterile Insect Technique. He also participated in a project related to the Incompatible Insect Technique, assessing the effects of Wolbachia sp. on the reproduction of this fly species. He currently joined Maquarie University with an Endeavour Research Fellowship to undertake activities related to the control of the Queensland fruit fly at Phil Taylor’s research group.

Environmental success story, ABC news:

BP has just announced withdrawal from Great Australian Bight drilling. The decision was made on 11 October 2016. BP was awaiting environmental approval to begin exploration drilling for two wells off South Australia’s west coast. BP’s previous environmental plan was rejected twice by the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environment Management Authority (NOPSEMA).

Kerstin Bilgmann contributed to this with her research ‘Occurrence, distribution and abundance of cetaceans in the eastern Great Australian Bight’ (Bilgmann et al. 2016), a collaboration with the Cetacean Ecology, Behaviour and Evolution Lab at Flinders University of Adelaide (G. Parra; L. Moller). The project was funded as part of the Great Australian Bight Research Program, a collaboration between BP, CSIRO, SARDI, the University of Adelaide, and Flinders University. The Program aimed to provide a whole-of-system understanding of the environmental, economic and social values of the region.

For more information, click on the links below

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-11/bp-withdraws-from-great-australian-bight-drilling/7921956

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/oct/11/bp-ditches-plans-to-drill-for-oil-in-the-great-australian-bight

http://www.offshoreenergytoday.com/bp-calls-it-quits-on-great-australian-bight-drilling-project/

http://www.afr.com/business/energy/oil/bp-abandons-drilling-program-in-great-australian-bight-20161011-grzk7o

New Dept of Biological Sciences baby!

Dr Andrés Rigual-Hernandés, a recent post-doc in Dr Leanne Armand’s lab, now living back in Spain, is now the proud father of Yago, born last week. Yago, Andrés and his partner Mieke are all doing well.

andres-and-yago

Senior Scientific Officer (Marine Fieldwork) Position Available – Closing Date 2/11/2016

This role of Senior Scientific Officer (Marine Fieldwork) is now live from this week and end date is 2 November 2016.

Macquarie jobs link – http://jobs.mq.edu.au/cw/en/job/499769/senior-scientific-officer-marine-fieldwork

Please feel free to forward the email if you know anyone who might be interested in applying for this position.

Position Vacant: Manager of Conservation Science – Taronga Zoo

https://taronga.org.au/content/manager-conservation-science

More Positions Vacant!

NSW Office of Environment & Heritage are recruiting for a database support officer (5 year position) and a community engagement/communications officer (3 year position) for the Saving our Species Greater Sydney Region Hub. These are both new positions to join an expanding team and work on an exciting program. See links below for more details.

http://iworkfor.nsw.gov.au/job/project-officer-database-support-sos-47864

http://iworkfor.nsw.gov.au/job/community-engagement-communication-officer-sos-47884

Providing Content for Department Matters

While we encourage anyone who has information relevant to the Department to send in articles for Department Matters, it would really help if you could please adhere to the following submission guidelines:

1. Please write any submissions in 3rd person.  Personal references that work in emails don’t work in the context of the Newsletter.
2. Forwarding emails with masses of text is unhelpful.  Please edit long information circulars down to the key points, and again remove any personal references (make 3rd person).  The editor doesn’t necessarily understand the content like you do, so if you don’t do this, you may not get the message you want across.
3. CoB on Thursday of the week in question is the deadline for guaranteed inclusion in that Friday’s newsletter.  Anything later than that may not make it in until the following week.

Thank you very much for your understanding.

“Innovators Re:volutionising Energy” event at Parliament House

On behalf of the NSW Renewable Energy Advocate, NSW Department of Industry and NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer are inviting students interested in exploring careers in innovation and research within the renewable energy and clean technology sectors to join us for an event at Parliament House on 26 October. At “Innovators Re:volutionising Energy”, students will have the opportunity to hear from leading experts who have successfully seen an idea through to commercialisation.

NSW offers support and infrastructure for students and entrepreneurs looking to pursue research or launch start-ups. Following a frank moderated discussion, students are invited for refreshments and networking to discuss this booming industry with experts in the field.

Speakers include:

• The Hon Adam Marshall MP, Parliamentary Secretary for Renewable Energy
• Renate Egan, Co-Founder and Chair, Solar Analytics Pty Ltd
• Mark Twidell, Managing Director, Tesla Australia
• Dr Thomas Maschmeyer, Professor of Chemistry, University of Sydney
• Paul Dastoor, Professor of Physics, University of Newcastle

Attendees can register for the event by following this link: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/innovators-revolutionising-energy-tickets-27920365565

Short Summer School Course

Coming up is a short summer school course early next year at the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney. The topics are: Formal tools for the analysis of causation, Formal methods for assessing bias in research, Statistical and probabilistic approaches to scientific reasoning. For more information, follow the link below.

Link: http://sydney.edu.au/perkins/education/short-course/philosophy-of-science.shtml

Want to Learn the Latest Techniques Available in PRIMER v7 and PERMANOVA+?

A PRIMER-e WORKSHOP on
Multivariate Analysis in Ecology (& other Sciences)
will be held in Auckland, New Zealand.

Presenters: Dr Paul J. Somerfield and Prof Marti J. Anderson
Venue:  Massey University, Albany Campus, Auckland, New Zealand
Dates:
Week 1: 5-9 December 2016 – PRIMER v7 (Paul J. Somerfield)
Week 2: 12-16 December 2016 – PERMANOVA+ (Marti J. Anderson)

The workshop runs over two weeks (5 days per week, Monday – Friday, 09:00 to 18:00 each day). Participants may register for week 1 only, week 2 only, or both weeks. Each week mixes lectures and computer lab sessions on literature data sets, and ends with a day in which participants can discuss and analyse their own data sets in consultation with the lecturer. Participants are expected to bring their own laptop. Software either may be purchased (at a discounted price) or a free fully functional but time-limited version may be used during the workshop.

To receive more information, including a registration form and programme details, please send a message with your expression of interest to Ms Lyn Shave by email on: primer@primer-e.com.

Model-Based Multivariate Analysis of Abundance Data Using R

UNSW, November 22-26

Presenter: Prof David Warton

Multivariate analysis in ecology has been changing rapidly in recent years, with a focus now on formulating a statistical model to capture key properties of the observed data, rather than transformation of data using a dissimilarity-based framework.  In recent years, model-based techniques have been developed for hypothesis testing, identifying indicator species, ordination, clustering, predictive modelling, and use of species traits as predictors to explain interspecific variation in environmental response. These techniques are more interpretable than alternatives, have better statistical properties, and can be used to address new problems, such as the prediction of a species’ spatial distribution from its traits alone.

This course will provide an introduction to modern multivariate techniques, with a special focus on the analysis of abundance or presence/absence data, starting from a revision of fundamental tools in regression analysis, and extending these techniques to the case where there are multiple response variables.  It is targeted at ecologists and applied statisticians who work extensively in ecology.

Registration: $1000 (4.5 day course, including lunch and refreshments)

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/model-based-multivariate-analysis-of-abundance-data-using-r-tickets-28446215396

Palaeo Advancements on the East Coast Seminar Series

Palaeo Advancements on the East Coast is a new initiative that draws together colleagues from institutions in the wider Sydney area (UNSW, USydney, UTS, Macquarie, UoW, ANSTO and Newcastle) to exchange ideas and learn about new and exciting palaeoresearch. It is informal and entirely open, so please come along if you are interested and would like to take part. TUES 10 NOV 3-6 PM ALL WELCOME ROOM 433 MADSEN BUILDING FO9 SCHOOL OF GEOSCIENCES THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY NSW 2006 See attached flyer for more details

flyer_usyd_paec

Seminar: Do Fish Feel Pain and Why Does it Matter?

7 November 2016
Professor Victoria Braithwaite, Fisheries and Biology at Penn State University
Co-presented with the Human Animal Research Network and the Sydney Environment Institute

Fish, with their lack of facial expressions or recognisable communication, are often overlooked when it comes to welfare. Annually, millions of fish are caught on barbed hooks, or left to die by suffocation on the decks of fishing boats – should we be concerned about this?

Victoria Braithwaite explores the question of fish pain and suffering, and explains what we now understand about fish neurobiology and behavior that helps us appreciate how fish perceive and experience their world. Her work has helped her to interact and work with both fishing related industries and with the angling world to discuss and debate the implications of the scientific evidence. She argues that the science indicates fish should be offered similar kinds of protection currently given to birds and mammals.

http://whatson.sydney.edu.au/events/published/sydney-ideas-professor-victoria-braithwaite

Sydney Chapter for Society for Conservation Biology: Upcoming events

Saturday October 29th: Creative Conservation Under the sea

The Sydney Society for Conservation Biology run an exciting workshop series called “Creative Conservation”. We bring together the arts and sciences by choosing a group of plants or animals to draw every few months. Professional artist Peter Wale teaches us basic drawing techniques and Sydney SCB provide some inspiration in the form of specimens and photos.

Our theme for October is sea life!

And our main inspiration will come from the gorgeous and weird sea-horses, we will have a range of photos and books for you to work from. But please bring your own inspiration (from shells you have collected, for example), or current works in progress. This way if sea-horses don’t take your fancy, we can still get your creative juices flowing with Peter’s help.

We will go through basic pencil drawing techniques and illustrative drawing. Then for those who are interested Peter will help demonstrate the use of colour with pencils or water-colour paints (please bring your own materials).

This workshop will be suitable for both beginners and more advanced students who would like to try their hand at new subject matter.

Snacks, tea and coffee will be provided, but we recommend you bring your own lunch.

There is a maximum class size of 12, so get in quick to secure a spot!

Price: Students $50, Non-students $70, Get your tickets on Eventbrite (https://creativeunderthesea16.eventbrite.com.au)

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