BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT MATTERS | September 15, 2017

Dear all,

Thank you to those who came along to our admin pain and pinchpoint discussion – we heard of lots of examples and some good suggested solutions. Mariella, Sharyon & I will work on translating the suggestions into actions to try to make our lives admin-pain free!

Next Tuesday is our annual ECR Showcase – everyone should come along to hear about the exciting research our ECRs are doing, and the following week is the MRes students’ turn – put that in your diaries too!

cheerio,

Michelle

Save the Date

This coming week 18th – 22nd September

Tue 19th: ECR Showcase; from 9:20am – all day; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Wed 20th: Department Morning Tea – with an info session on the building construction about to commence; 10:30am – 11:30am; The Hill.

Wed 20th: No seminar due to ECR showcase on day before.

Thu 21st: Special Seminar – Hauke Koch, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 9.00am – 10.00am; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Thu 21st: Writing Workshop; 2:30-4:30pm, E8c-212 (Biology Tea Room).

Thu 21st: HDR Completion Seminar – Samuel Andrew; 4:00pm – 4:30pm; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Following week 25th – 29th September

Mon 25th: MRes S2 Seminars; 9am – 4pm; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Wed 27th: Department Morning Tea; 10:30am – 11:30am; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).

Wed 27th: No seminar due to break.

Wed 27th: MQ Graduation ceremony for Biological Sciences (Academic staff register here)

Thu 28th: 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).

Oct 3rd: Special Seminar – A/Prof Maren Wellenreuther “Women in Science: Highlighting the changing face of evolutionary biology”; 1 – 2pm; C5C Forum Room (note: this is a new venue).

Nov 13-14: Department Retreat for Academic Staff; venue Kooindah Waters Central Coast.

Dec 5th: Formal Department Meeting for Grading, followed by the Christmas Party.

Department seminar schedule
October 4th: Dr Lesley Lancaster, University of Aberdeen
October 11th: Dr John Martin, Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney
October 18th: Ayesha Tulloch
October 25th: Associate Professor Carla Sgro, Monash University
November 1st: Dr Marc Seid, University of Scranton, USA
November 8th: Associate Professor Bob Wong, Monash University
November 15th: Professor Dan Blumstein, UCLA
November 22nd: Associate Professor Nathan Lo, The University of Sydney

General News and Announcements

Biological Sciences Says YES to Equality

The Department of Biological Sciences at Macquarie University supports marriage equality. It is the right of any adult and their consenting adult partner to have their relationship recognised under Australian law, regardless of gender. 

The department is proud to join leaders in government, industry and business across Australia to say YES to marriage equality (http://www.australianmarriageequality.org/organisations-that-support-marriage-equality/). Macquarie University Senate also endorsed marriage equality this week and we hope that Departments and Faculties across the university will join us.

Posters to show your support can be picked up from the HoD office.

Biology Equality

Lab Profiles

We plan on pushing our department Facebook page and by extension, our departmental profile. We hope to do this by profiling one lab/research group every week. There is also the option of using these profiles on the department web page in the future. We will make this as painless as possible and keep things short. We can liaise with students and postdocs that may have more time than P.I.s. Nothing will be posted without first checking with P.I.s. Please send Jenny an e-mail (jenny.ghabache@mq.edu.au) if you are happy for your lab to be profiled in the coming weeks and let her know who she could liaise with.

Special Seminar

Day/Date/Time/Place: Thursday, 21st September, 9:00 – 10:00pm, E8A-280 (Tea Room).

Speaker: Hauke Koch, Royal Botanic Gardens.

Title: A better understanding of pollinator health by studying the interactions between the bee microbiome, parasites, and dietary plant metabolites

Abstract: Bees provide essential pollination services for a large part of the world’s plant biodiversity, including many agricultural crops. However, their populations are under threat by anthropogenic stressors such as agricultural intensification and emerging parasites spread by global trade. A better understanding of factors contributing to pollinator health is thus urgently needed. The dynamics and interactions of both parasitic and beneficial microorganisms associated with bees are central to understanding bee health. I will provide an overview of my research on the bacterial bee microbiome, and its importance for parasite resistance. Another important, but poorly explored, dimension for bee health are the effects of plant metabolites in pollen and nectar on bees. Some plants may confer medicinal benefits to bees through secondary metabolites. My findings furthermore suggest that the gut microbiome plays an important role in processing plant metabolites in the bee gut, potentially altering the susceptibility of bees to parasites. Integrating the study of the bee microbiome with metabolomics of the bee diet will therefore lead to a better understanding of pollinator health.

Speaker Bio: Dr. Hauke Koch studied Biology at the University of Rostock (Germany) and obtained an MSc at Imperial College London (UK) in Taxonomy and Biodiversity in 2007. He completed a PhD in the Experimental Ecology group of Prof. Paul Schmid-Hempel at ETH Zurich (Switzerland) on the bumble bee microbiome in 2012. He expanded his research on the bee microbiome during a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the lab of Prof. Nancy Moran at UT Austin and Yale University (USA). Currently he is the Ann Sowerby Fellow in Pollinator Health at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (UK), working on the role of plant metabolites in pollen and nectar for bee health with Prof. Phil Stevenson (Kew) and Prof. Mark Brown (Royal Holloway University of London).

ECR Biology Research Showcase – September 19th, Biology Tearoom, Starts 9.20am.

Come and celebrate the research of our department’s ECRs by attending this year’s Biology ECR Research Showcase on Tuesday 19th September. This year we have nearly a full day of 13 speakers from diverse laboratories in the department, with plenty of time to network and catch up at morning tea, lunch and final drinks – all provided by our supportive department.

See the attached timetable and bios of our speakers that volunteered to take part in the day. We look forward to seeing you there  – everyone is invited so please encourage your HDR students to attend, as well as yourselves!

Your hosts: Rachael D and Ajay

Plant of the Week

This week – Coast Rosemary – Westringia fruticosa – a sturdy shrub flowering now on sandstone headlands along the NSW coast. Coast Rosemary isn’t a true Rosemary, but it is closely related.

Welcome to Our Newest Research Fellow

Dr. Alessandro Ossola is an ecologist and environmental scientist. His overarching research interests focus in unravelling the functional links between habitat, biodiversity, humans and eco-hydrological processes at multiple spatial and temporal scales.

Alessandro is a former US National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine NRC Associate within the National Risk Management Research Laboratory of the US Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA) in Cincinnati, Ohio. His work highlighted how climate and people affect vegetation structure across US residential macrosystems.

Alessandro now serves as Research Coordinator of the Which Plant Where project in association with the Centre for Smart Green Cities. His work will provide critical insights on how urban plantings can fail, survive or thrive in different climatic and edaphic conditions across Australian cities.

Visiting Honorary Postdoctoral Fellow

We’re delighted to be welcoming Dr Juliane Schaer to the Department in November. Dr Schaer will be visiting us as an Honorary Postdoctoral Fellow, and a description of her research project is below:

The study of non-human malaria parasites is essential for better understanding the evolutionary history of this important and diverse parasite group (order Haemosporida). Recent opportunistic investigations of several mammalian taxa led to the discovery and rediscovery of numerous parasite lineages and revealed unexpected phylogenetic relationships that will require a taxonomic revision of Plasmodium and related taxa. Of significance was the discovery of several parasite lineages in bats, which point to an important role of these hosts in the evolutionary history of malaria parasites. Despite the recent findings, molecular information for the majority of taxa is still missing. We aim to begin addressing one of these substantial information gaps and will collect and analyse molecular data of malaria parasites of Australian flying foxes. Molecular data for Australian bat malaria parasites will add important information on the phylogeny of parasite genera that are closely related to mammalian Plasmodium species and currently only molecularly characterised by data of parasites from Asian and African hosts.

Brush Turkey Ecology in Action

Visitors to the Biology garden (annexe) on Friday were privileged to view the construction of a new Bush Turkey mound. He’s a very busy turkey – it will be interesting to see how big the mound gets.

You tube video: https://youtu.be/znIrzEHtiOY

Did You Participate in an Outreach Activity Recently for the Department?

Don’t forget to fill in the super-quick form here – – ACCESS OUTREACH FORM HERE

Women in the Environment Event

The Environmental Institute of Australia and New Zealand (EIANZ) is pleased to present three of our leading women in the environmental profession who have made their mark in their respective industries.  Justice Nicola Pain in the Land and Environment Court, Jenny MacMahon, Director of Environment at WSP and Erica van den Honert Director, Assessment Practice at the NSW Department of Planning and Environment. Come along to hear these three leading women all at the forefront of their chosen industries talk about where they have come from; how they made it to where they are through the opportunities they have made for themselves or taken; their achievements; and the key differentiators that have allowed them to get to where they are in their careers. From these presentations and discussion we hope you will walk away with inspiration. We are aiming to promote inspiring women within the environment industry and in doing so, inspire and support all environmental professionals.

Where: WSP, Level 27 – 680 George St, Sydney NSW 2000

When: Thursday, 21 September 2017

Time: Registration 5.30pm

Cost: EIANZ Members $20 / Student Members $10 / Non-members $40

Contact: Event queries to nsw@eianz.org.  Enquiries regarding registration, contact office@eianz.org

Click to register

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.

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.

Keeping to these guidelines will streamline your article’s addition to the newsletter.  Thank you.

New Publications

In the Media

Recent Completions

Anuradhi Jayaweera had submitted her PhD thesis entitled “Pre- and post-copulatory sexual selection in a sexually cannibalistic praying mantid.”

Supervised by Kate Barry and Mariella Herberstein

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