BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT MATTERS | October 21, 2016

Dear all,

Planning is in full swing for the annual Department Retreat at Mt Victoria on 14-15 December, with one day of research and one day of L&T on the agenda, plus some socialising in between. All academic staff will receive a calendar invitation.

The department Oktoberfest event was a great success – special thanks to Sharyon and our social drinks team for their organisation!

Please find some time in your busy schedule next week to pop into the Faculty Safety Day in the biology courtyard from 10am and then from 12pm in the Biology tearoom to hear what our Advanced Biology students have been up to.

Finally – this year’s Christmas Party will be brought to you by the admin team (food, drinks and organisation) but we would love to have a group volunteer to organise any activities / games, etc for the party – just let me know if you are excited by this opportunity!

cheerio

Michelle

Save the Date

This coming week 24th – 28th October

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

Wed 26th: Faculty Safety Day; 10am – 2pm; E8 Courtyard.

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

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

Fri 28th: Special Seminar – Hugh Possingham – Success and failure in translating conservation research into policy; 12 – 1pm; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Following week 31st October – 4th November

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

Tue Nov 1st: Department Meeting; 1pm – 2pm; E8A-280 (Tea Room).

Wed 2nd: Morning Tea with HoD; 10:30am – 11am; The Hill.

Coming up

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!)

Nov 28th – Dec 2nd: HDR writing boot camp at Pearl Beach

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

Dec 6th: Department Formal Exam Meeting for Semester 2 2016; 11am; E8A-280 (Tea Room). Followed by…

Dec 6th: Department Christmas Party; from 12.30pm Biology courtyard

Dec 9th: Faculty of Science & Engineering Xmas BBQ

General News and Announcements

Faculty Safety Fun Day

Don’t forget to roll up to the Faculty Safety fun day on Wednesday.  There are loads of competitions to enter and prizes to win.

The Biology WHS committee has a stand so come on down and support them and show the rest of the Faculty just how much fun Biology can have with safety.

IT’S ALL FREE

Awards Success

Ravindra (PhD student) from the Ecological Neuroscience Group has won the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage/Ecological Society of Australia award for outstanding outreach – congratulations!

We Still Have Some Free Native Plants Looking for a New Home (in Pots in the Courtyard)

BIOL347 plants are still available in the Courtyard. 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 still quite a few 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 11am 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!

Special Seminar

Hugh Possingham (ARC Laureate and Chief Scientist of The Nature Conservancy, https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=lSYOB3cAAAAJ&hl=en) will be visiting Macquarie late next week, and will give a special seminar on Friday 28 October, at noon in the tearoom.

Title: Success and failure in translating conservation research into policy

He will tell some stories about said successes and failures. These may include: land clearing, offsetting, marine reserves and project prioritisation. To quote Hugh: “Warning: verifiable factual content could be dangerously low”.

Should you wish to meet with Hugh on the morning of the 28th, please let Linda Beaumont <linda.beaumont@mq.edu.au> know.

Reminder – admin inductions for all – now on THURSDAYS!

Forgotten or never knew how to access travel and claim forms, book rooms and find your way through university processes? Every second week on Thursday at 11am Lara runs an admin induction session for new staff and students and also staff who may need a refresher – next one is this coming Thursday 27th October. Meet in the Biology tearoom.

Media and Communication Training for academic staff

Scheduled: 9 Dec 2016 9:00 am to 11:00 am

Location: to be advised

Meet your audience – training session delivered by Niall Byrne

A 90-minute moderated discussion forum with two or three guests which gets participants starting to think about how they could talk with the media and other stakeholders about their work.

Please RSVP via email to Charlotte Hagan charlotte.hagan@mq.edu.au by 28 October.  2 venues are booked and the venue selection will be confirmed based on the numbers.

Please direct any questions regarding the training to your Head of Department.

Do you want Kath to teach you some iLearn stuff?
What: iLearn workshop
Where: E8C 212
When: 1-2pm on Friday November 11th
RSVP to: Kath (katherine.mcclellan@mq.edu.au) by Monday 7th November – we will provide lunch for those who RSVP!
Bring: Your laptop and questions / problems!
Proposed topics:
(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 do I get started when I know nothing?

HDR writing bootcamp

As previously, this boot–camp will create an opportunity in which you can work hard and effectively towards a manuscript and also get some feedback and advice on your writing (from Simon and your peers). This is open to HDR students at any stage of their enrolment. 

To take part you need:

Want an update on the MQ web transformation project?

The latest update on the staff and student portal transformation can be found here. All info on the web transformation project can be found here.

Plant of the Week

For next week – Grevillea ‘Superb’ – a ‘man-made’ hybrid between a white form of Grevillea banksii from coastal districts of north Queensland, and Grevillea bipinnatifida, a shrub from the south-west of Western Australia.

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 PhD Student – Rajib Majumder

Rajib is a new PhD student in the department, originally hailing from Bangladesh but coming to us from recently completing his MSc (Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology) in Korea.  Rajib will work with Fleur Ponton at Macquarie, but also will spend much of his time offsite working with his adjunct supervisors Dr Toni Chapman and Dr Ania Deutscher at New South Wales Department of Primary Industries (at Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute, Menangle). Rajib’s project aims focuses on Queensland fruit fly gut ecology, and especially how it changes and influences the performance of flies produced and released in sterile insect technique (SIT) pest management programs.  Gut ecology is increasingly understood as a potent influence on animal health through, for example, nutrition and immune function.  Rajib will investigate how the gut microbiome changes as Queensland fruit fly populations transition from a native environment to the laboratory or mass-rearing environment (the domestication process), and then changes again following release of domesticated sterile flies back into the field.  The gut microbiome composition will be followed through life stages, and the functions of identified components of the gut microbiome will be investigated.  This is important for understanding the health and performance of sterile flies used in SIT programs, and is also important for understanding the relationships between the insect, its gut microbiome, and its broader ecology.

New PhD Student – Angel David Popa

Angel is a new PhD student supervised by Phil Taylor at Macquarie and  Drs John Oakeshott and Ronald Lee of CSIRO. He is based primarily at the CSIRO Black Mountain Laboratories in Canberra.  Angel is from the Dominican Republic and has recently completed his MSc in crop protection at the University of Goettingen, Germany.   His MSc thesis was on insecticide resistance in the Pollen Beetle (Meligethes aeneus, Fabricius). Now his PhD research will be part of the “SITplus” collaboration that aims to create a detailed understanding of Queensland fruit fly (Q-fly) biology and the development of a more efficient Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) program for environmentally benign management. The SIT program entails releasing tens of millions of sterile Q-flies that disrupt reproduction in wild populations. For the program to succeed, especially in more extreme conditions, the released Q-flies require high levels of abiotic stress tolerance e.g. tolerance to heat, cold, and desiccation.  However, the domestication process that is required for high factory production of flies for SIT releases is known to severely diminish abiotic stress tolerance in these flies.

Angel’s PhD research will explore the domestication process in the Q-fly at the phenotypic and molecular levels. He will first document natural variation in tolerance to cold, heat, and desiccation in diverse Q-fly populations from Australia.  Based on the results of the geographical survey, he will then track changes in abiotic stress tolerance in selected populations through the domestication process. He will use modern genomics tools such as population resequencing, genome-wide association analysis, and gene expression profiling to understand the genetic consequences of domestication as well as the molecular basis of tolerance to key abiotic stresses.

Open: PhD scholarship with $7K top up in Antarctic palaeoceanography

See MQ Scholarship website for additional details: http://www.mq.edu.au/research/phd-and-research-degrees/scholarships/scholarships-for-domestic-candidates

Scholarship no: 2015247

Australian citizens only.

Closing Date: 25 November 2016.

Project title: Antarctic Palaeoceanography with a focus on diatom records from the Totten Glacier region through multiple glacial cycles

Project Description:

PhD position with $7K top-up in Antarctic Palaeoceanography

The Totten Glacier is a large outlet glacier in East Antarctica that is thinning rapidly. It drains a very deep subglacial basin, which has the thickest ice covering the Antarctic landmass. Rapid thinning could cause accelerated melting of the Antarctic ice sheet and accelerated sea level rise. We seek a PhD candidate to contribute to the aims of the international collaborative project “Interactions of the Totten Glacier with the Southern Ocean through multiple glacial cycles” in studying how the Totten Glacier behaved during past times of warming climate by examining the sediment it delivered to the continental slope. We will study how the biology, water masses and sea ice evolved around the Totten Glacier during these warm episodes to better understand the mechanisms causing the present melting. This will help understand the role of ocean warming in melting the Antarctic ice sheet and reduce uncertainties in sea level predictions.

The PhD project will principally focus on the fossil diatom records recorded from deep seafloor cores and will be expanded to suit a student’s background and interest in either genomics (e.g. ancient DNA, rna), geochemistry (e.g. isoprenoids) or palaeo climate modelling/sea-ice estimation (i.e. GAM statistics/modelling), with co-supervision from experts at MQ in these specific disciplines.

A candidate with an outstanding background and an enthusiasm for marine biology, geoosciences, or palaeontology is sought to fill this candidacy.

Other Important Information

The candidate may be included in the January-March 2017 voyage on the RV Investigator, if the candidate is suitable, able to commence before Dec 2017 and a required remote activity medical is passed. The PhD project will still be offered regardless of participation on this voyage.

Contact

Dr Leanne Armand
Leanne.armand@mg.edu.au
02 9850 8351

Arachtober!

Happy Arachtober everyone! Here some pics to celebrate with:

Next R Users Group Meeting Upcoming!

After having an (unwanted) break in September we are back, covering a nice Hadley Wickham package to manipulate your data in R. James Lawson will introduce dplyr, a package of Wickham’s tidyverse (see: https://blog.rstudio.org/2016/09/15/tidyverse-1-0-0/). The five verbs of dplyr: select, mutate, filter, arrange and summarise, provide a straightforward way to get your data wrangled into the form you want it to be.

25.10.2016    Data-Wrangling with dplyr    Dr. James Lawson

Biology Tearoom   15.00pm-17.00pm (14.30 for Beginner)

And here is an additional treat: In 2017 we will have the chance to let our R Users Group grow. We are going to have a spectator visiting to check out how we run our meetings. Hopefully, many of you will be there to have an inspiring discussion.

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.

Manager of Conservation Science position available at Taronga Zoo

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

ZEISS Photography Award 2017

Pushing the limits of creativity.
The ZEISS Photography Award is a highly prestigious international photo competition run jointly by ZEISS and the World Photography Organisation (WPO). “Our lenses enable photographers to achieve superior imaging quality, and the ZEISS Photography Award is an expression of our dedication to premium-quality photography,” says Dr. Winfried Scherle, Executive Vice President and Head of the Consumer Optics business group at ZEISS.

The motto “Seeing beyond – meaningful places” will also be used for the 2017 competition and accorded greater artistic significance. Photographers therefore have the chance to use their creative flair to lend unique places a special meaning and express this through their medium. The goal is to push the limits of creativity and grow as photographers. They could be places with a particular historical or future value, or perhaps places that exude adventure, the wonders of nature or depict a journey to a faraway place.

Submissions
All those who wish to take part in the ZEISS Photography Award 2017 are invited to submit a series of 5 to 10 photos complete with descriptions. Entries can be submitted between 11 October 2016 and 7 February 2017. The jury is looking for photos that reflect different perspectives as well as free interpretations of the terms “meaning” and “place.”

Further information on the submissions for 2017 can be found here.

Student Looking for Work

Suead Zumit is looking for Full Time or Part Time, contract or casual work in the Department.

If you would like to view her resume, please contact <ray.duell@mq.edu.au> and it will be sent out to you.

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.

Cat-sitter needed, November 15 – December 20.  Central Coast retreat!

Dan W. and Teresa I. are off to Europe from mid-November to mid-December, 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 or hiking, and we even have crazy fast NBN internet.  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.

New Publications

In the Media

Recent Completions

Monique Ladds submitted her PhD Thesis entitled “Modelling energetics of fur seals and sea lions.”

Supervised by Robert Harcourt

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