Dominance and social information use in a lizard
By: Kar, Fonti, Martin J. Whiting, and Daniel WA Noble. Animal Cognition (2017): 1-8. | Find with Google Scholar »
|
Dear all,
I’ve been away on the Faculty retreat last week, focusing on how to maximise our research funding success. Lots of interesting opportunities were discussed and we can talk a bit more at next week’s monthly Department meeting and the Department retreat in November. Speaking of the retreat, we now have a venue – Mercure Kooindah Waters on the Central Coast, which I think will be great. And speaking of research successes – congratulations to Ian Wright and co-authors on their article in this week’s Science, which also made the front cover!
See you all at Tuesday’s department meeting,
Michelle
Save the Date
This coming week 4th – 8th September
Tue 5th: Department Meeting; 1pm – 2pm; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Wed 6th: Department Morning Tea; 10:30am – 11:30am; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Wed 6th: Department seminar – Dr Tanya Latty, USyd; 1pm – 2pm; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Thu 7th: Writing Workshop; 2:30-4:30pm, E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Fri 8th: Special Seminar – Dr. Jose Pietri, Apex Bait Technologies Inc. California, USA; 10.30-11.30am; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Following week 11th – 15th September
Wed 13th: Department Morning Tea; 10:30am – 11:30am; The Hill.
Wed 13th: Special seminar – Fleur Ponton MQU; 9.30-10.30am; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Wed 13th: Department seminar – Dr Caragh Threlfall, The University of Melbourne; 1pm – 2pm; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Thu 14th: Special seminar – Myles Menz, University of Bern; 2.00pm to 3.00pm; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Thu 14th: Writing Workshop; 2:30-4:30pm, E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Coming up
Every Thursday for the next few months: Writing Workshop; 2:30-4:00pm; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Sept 19th: ECR Showcase; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Fri Sept 19 – Biology Department MRes Information Session; 12-2pm, E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Sept 21st: Special Seminar – Hauke Koch, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 9.30am – 10.30am; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Sept 27th: MQ Graduation ceremony for Biological Sciences (Academic staff register here)
Oct 3rd: Special Seminar – A/Prof Maren Wellenreuther “Women in Science: Highlighting the changing face of evolutionary biology”; 1 – 2pm; C8A 310 Senate Room.
Nov 13-14: Department Retreat for Academic Staff; venue TBC.
Dec 5th: Formal Department meeting for grading, followed by the Christmas Party
Department seminar schedule
September 20th: Dr Kate Lynch, MQ Departmental ECR
October 4th: Dr Lesley Lancaster, University of Aberdeen
October 11th: Dr John Martin, Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney
October 18th: Associate Professor Matthew England, The University of NSW
October 25th: Associate Professor Carla Sgro, Monash University
November 1st: Dr Ajay Narendra, Macquarie University
November 8th: Associate Professor Bob Wong, Monash University
November 15th: Associate Professor Nathan Lo, The University of Sydney
General News and Announcements
Another Biology Baby!
It is with much excitement that Nicole Vella would like to announce the birth of her daughter Skye, who came into the world a little earlier than expected (17 August). All are doing well and, despite the sleep deprivation, they are enjoying their new life as parents.
This week’s Department seminar: Dr Tanya Latty, The University of Sydney
Title: Nature’s engineers: how ants and slime moulds solve their transportation problems
Like human societies, many biological systems rely on transportation networks to distribute resources, individuals and information. Examples include the mycelial networks of fungi, the foraging networks of giant amoebas, and the trail networks of ant colonies. In this talk I will provide an over view of biological transportation systems with particular emphasis on the trail networks of ants and the foraging networks of slime moulds. Despite their lack of centralised organization , ant colonies can build and manage complex, adaptable transportation networks that can balance competing design criteria, solve shortest path problem and adapt to changes in traffic demand. Some species even build physical ‘superhighways’ by clearing and smoothing the substrate beneath their trails. Slime mould amoebas build efficient transportation networks that solve shortest path problems and which can reshape themselves according to resource quality. I will end by discussing some of the implications of biological transportation networks on movement ecology and on the design of human infrastructure networks.
Special Seminar
Day/Date/Time/Place: Friday, 8th September, 9:30 – 10:30am, E8A-280 (Tea Room).
Speaker: Dr. Jose Pietri, Apex Bait Technologies Inc. California, USA.
Title: Leveraging Insect-Microbe Interactions Towards the Control of Public Health Pests: Mechanistic Insight and Unexplored Avenues
Abstract: The relationships between insects and microbes are of great importance to human and animal health. For instance, blood-feeding arthropods serve as hosts for a number of deadly pathogens that can be transmitted between humans, livestock, and wildlife via bite, while urban pests such as bed bugs and cockroaches contribute to psychological disturbances, asthma, and other allergic conditions. The above insects, along with many others, are not only in contact with microbes that can infect humans, but also rely on their own symbiotic bacteria to regulate key aspects of their physiology. Further, most insect species are susceptible to infection with entomopathogens. This seminar will highlight how molecular and organismal studies of insect interactions with these microorganisms can provide leads towards the development of novel biological and chemical interventions to reduce the burden of insects on global health.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Jose Pietri is an entomologist, microbiologist, and principal scientist at Apex Bait Technologies, Inc., in Santa Clara, California, USA, where his work is focused on the development of novel insect control methods. Prior to this, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the department of Molecular, Cell, & Developmental Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz and he obtained his PhD at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine. His research career spans nearly 10 years investigating a variety of outstanding questions in the broad field of medical entomology using a multi-disciplinary approach that employs behavioral, genetic, biochemical, and cell biological tools.
New paper by Ian Wright and colleagues published in this week’s Science
Wright, I.J., Dong, N., Maire, V., Prentice, I.C., Westoby, M., Díaz, S., Gallagher, R.V., Jacobs, B.F., Kooyman, R., Law, E.A., Leishman, M.R., Niinemets, U., Reich, P.B., Sack, L., Villar, R., Wang, H., Wilf, P. Global climatic drivers of leaf size. Science 357 no. 6354 917-92. Read it here.
Diversity & Inclusion says yes
The Department’s Diversity & Inclusion Group says YES to marriage equality. If you would like to display their poster to show your support, please drop in to the Head of Department office and pick one up, or print one for yourself – attached here.
Taronga Zoo – University Partnership
Last month the department submitted an Expression of Interest for a unique Taronga-University partnership and we have now been invited to submit a full tender. This is being led by Michelle Power and a small team for Biological Sciences, in collaboration with the Department of Educational Studies. It is an exciting opportunity for us but a very short timeline! If you’d like to be involved, or have any great ideas to contribute, contact Michelle Power or Michelle Leishman.
Master of Research Information Session
We will be holding a Biology MRes information session (15 Sept, 12-2pm) for third year students who maybe interested in entering the MRes program in 2018. In this session we will discuss course requirements, provide an overview of units, introduce potential candidates to the diverse research opportunities in biology, and cover application dates/process. If you would like to showcase your lab or possible projects please send a single slide to Michelle Power by Sept 7.
This is a great opportunity to expose our undergrads to research areas and also potentially attract new students to your lab. Even if you prefer to find students by other pathways it is still useful to showcase what we do as a department.
Share the Dignity
The Share the Dignity campaign, organised by Leigh Staas to collect donations of sanitary items for women in the community who are unable to meet this financial burden due to homelessness or poverty, has now finished. Leigh is pleased to announce that we collected 113 packets of tampons and 222 packets of pads, making a very loving total of 335 items. She says “I love working at MQ and I am very proud of you all.”
Did You Participate in an Outreach Activity Recently for the Department? (and we know you did during Science Week!)
Don’t forget to fill in the super-quick form here – – ACCESS OUTREACH FORM HERE
Volunteers List
For the latest list of volunteers to help out with lab and field work please contact Ray Duell / Jenny Ghabache.
Campus Travel and Virgin Australia Partner to Launch New Travel Grant for Women in STEM
Female academics and university employees working in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are being recognised as part of a new travel grant initiative.
Staff Wellbeing Week – 7 to 14 September
What is it about?
Staff Wellbeing Week presents a number of opportunities for you to focus on and learn more about ways to improve your health and wellbeing.
This event forms part of the University’s continuing commitment to supporting your health and wellbeing. Featuring informative lunchtime sessions, campus walks, exercise classes, healthy cooking demonstrations, art classes and FREE access at the Sports and Aquatic Centre for staff all week.
Useful links
- Wellbeing Week Launch & Welcome on Thursday, 7 September – http://www.cvent.com/events/staff-wellbeing-week/custom-18-426820fa621342a3b3fc6d90fee15459.aspx
- Staff Wellbeing Week further information – https://staff.mq.edu.au/work/wellbeing/wellbeing-week-2017
- Program and Events information – http://www.cvent.com/events/staff-wellbeing-week/agenda-426820fa621342a3b3fc6d90fee15459.aspx
- Register now link – https://www.cvent.com/events/staff-wellbeing-week/registration-426820fa621342a3b3fc6d90fee15459.aspx?fqp=true
If you would like further information about the wellbeing programs offered, please speak to Wendy Brotha on ext. 1037 or if you require general assistance please contact <diane.abinoja@mq.edu.au>.
HRE3309_Wellbeing Week A3 Schedule Poster_V07
HRE3309_Wellbeing Week A3 Poster_V10-1
Threatened Species Day
September 7th is Threatened Species Day. Please spread the word! For interested parties, there is a photographic exhibition next week on photos of threatened species. Please see the attachment for more details.
Celebrate MQU’s Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Community
This year’s annual Patyegarang Oration will be held 12-2pm on 6 September and coincides with Indigenous Literacy Day – a celebration of culture, stories, language and literacy. To attend register here.
Plant of the Week
This week – Clematis glycinoides
Most Clematis species are climbing plants from temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, but there are about 8 – 10 species that are native to Australia. Clematis glycinoides is in full flower right now. Curiously, the brilliant white petals are not petals at all; they are actually sepals.
New PhD Student
Sajida Saqira has recently arrived in Australia to start a PhD in Biology. She will be studying freshwater ecosystems under the supervision of Grant Hose. Sajida will be located in E8C142. Please make her feel welcome!
Recycle Your Old Mobile Phones and Tablets on Campus from 3 October to 4 November
To reduce e-waste and the need to extract new minerals, the Jane Goodall Institute Australia (JGIA) recycles mobile phones and tablets in any condition as well as their chargers.
Drop off your device at the Department front desk.
All phones are data-wiped and factory reset before reuse. Before donating, use the factory reset option to delete all of your data (it is device specific but the product webpage will have instructions) and remove the devices from their iCloud accounts (in the case of iPhones). (Ipad: http://support.apple.com/en-us/ht5661; Iphone: http://support.apple.com/en-us/ts4515).
Want to learn more about conservation projects with JGIA? Then visit the Roots and Shoots website to see how you can become involved. http://rootsandshoots.org.au/
If you have any questions about JGIA or Roots and Shoots, please contact Dr K-lynn Smith at <NSW@janegoodall.org.au> or <klynn.smith@mq.edu.au>.
Sustainability Talks and Q&A: Green and Public Spaces
When: Wednesday 13 September
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Where: 12 Wally’s Walk Building E7A – Level 8, Macquarie University
Bookings essential!
FEATURING PRESENTATIONS BY:
DR PETER DAVIES, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Planning, Macquarie University
ADRIAN MCGREGOR, Founder and CEO of McGregor Coxall
KYLIE LEGGE, Founding Director of Place Partners
BEN PEACOCK, Founder of Republic of Everyone
For more information on the speakers, other ‘Sustainability Talks’ events and to register, visit www.ryde.nsw.gov.au/sustainabilitytalks
2017-09-13 Green and Public Spaces Poster
REP Masterclass: Developmental Plasticity and Evolution
Wednesday 20th September (9:00 – 13:00 with short breaks).
Organised by David Wells, this offering will include substantial opportunity for discussion. Everyone very welcome to attend.
The Modern Synthesis has been the dominant paradigm in evolutionary biology since the 1930s and 1940s, but proposals to modify it, typically by extending it in various ways, have recently become more insistent. This workshop will examine the proposed Extended Evolutionary Synthesis by examining the work of one specific proponent, Mary Jane West-Eberhard, whose book, Developmental Plasticity and Evolution, arguably represents the most comprehensive attempt at synthesis. The work of others will be discussed as appropriate. Evolution by natural selection has three pre-requisites: variation, selection and inheritance. WestEberhard does not disagree with this, but argues that it needs to be seen in the context of development understood as all phenotypic change during the lifetimes of individual organisms or higher units of organization. For example, she argues that some of what appears to be evolution by natural selection is actually the rearrangement of pre-existing developmental modules, with little or no genetic change. Where there is genetic change, it is genetic accommodation to the changes occurring in the phenotype. In general, West-Eberhard treats genes as ‘followers rather than leaders’ in evolution. How strong is the empirical evidence for this view, and does her synthesis hang together? WestEberhard’s focus is on the arrangement of components in a system, not on the action of any one component, specifically the gene. Particular attention will be paid to her liberal use of the concept of ‘emergence’, understood as a macro-level phenomenon such as evolutionary novelty arising from micro-level phenomena, while nevertheless having autonomy from the micro-level base on which it depends. There will be substantial opportunity for discussion.
Click here to register for ‘Developmental Plasticity and Evolution.’
REP masterclass: ‘On the Origins of Art’
Friday 20 October 2017 (12-noon – 4:30pm)
Engagement with and appreciation of art could be described as defining of all human cultures. Why? Can we ask or answer the question of where human art came from and why we are an artistic species. Elizabeth Pearce is the chief curator of an exhibition at the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart which is exploring these issues. Her exhibition and thinking draw on contributions from philosophy, neuroscience and psychology to explore these issues. In this transdisciplinary workshop, we will explore where human artistic endeavour might have come from.
Click here to register for ‘On the Origins of Art.’
REP Masterclass: Making Your Science Matter: Linking Science with Action to Improve the World
Two-hour workshop running on Tuesday, October 24th (2-4 pm)
Instructors:
Dr. Elizabeth Madin, Macquarie University
Dr. Emily Darling, Wildlife Conservation Society
Dr. Marah Hardt, Future of Fish
Prof. Lesley Hughes, Macquarie University
Co-badged with MQU Marine Research Centre
We all want to feel like our research matters…but it is sometimes hard to know how to make it relevant to people and institutions beyond academia. How can we best make our science understood, appreciated, and perhaps even acted upon by policy-makers? These are the kinds of questions we will delve into. Inspired by the book “Escape from the Ivory Tower” by Nancy Baron, this short course will help you improve your ability to design and communicate your science to benefit the world at large.
Participant numbers will be capped (first-in secures a place).
Click here to register for ‘Making your science matter: Linking science with action to improve the world.’
Additions to the Department Matters
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.
New Publications
Colour polymorphic lures exploit innate preferences for spectral versus luminance cues in dipteran prey
By: White, Thomas E., and Darrell J. Kemp. BMC evolutionary biology 17, no. 1 (2017): 191. | Find with Google Scholar »Effects of Storage at Suboptimal Temperatures on the In Vitro-Reared Parasitoid Exorista larvarum (Diptera: Tachinidae)
By: Benelli, M., E. Marchetti, and M. L. Dindo. Journal of Economic Entomology 110, no. 4 (2017): 1476-1482. | Find with Google Scholar »Transpiration of Eucalyptus woodlands across a natural gradient of depth-to-groundwater
By: Zolfaghar, Sepideh, Randol Villalobos-Vega, Melanie Zeppel, James Cleverly, Rizwana Rumman, Matthew Hingee, Nicolas Boulain, Zheng Li, and Derek Eamus. Tree Physiology (2017): 1-15. | Find with Google Scholar »Potential role of microbial pathogens in control of red palm weevil (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus) – A Review
By: Muhammad YASIN WaqasWAKIL, Hamadttu A.F. EL-SHAFIE, Geoffrey O. BEDFORD and Thomas A. MILLER. 2017. Entomological Research 47 (2017) 219–234 | Find with Google Scholar »In the Media
Ian Wright authored a piece for The Conversation, also covered on ABC Radio Canberra Breakfast and BBC News.
Associate Professor Ian Wright from the Department of Biological Sciences authored The Conversation piece “New research unlocks the mystery of leaf size”, which also received coverage on ABC Radio Canberra Breakfast and BBC News.