ACAD Guest speaker: Johannes Krause – Podcast now available

Download a podcast of Associate Professor Johannes Krause presentation titled, ‘The Genome of the Black Death’ presented by the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD).

Assoc. Professor Johannes Krause

Assoc. Professor Johannes Krause from the Institute for Archaeological Sciences University of Tübingen, Germany gave a special presentation on Thursday 17th May 2012.

The talk focused on Assoc. Professor Krause’s findings obtained by using high throughput DNA sequencing in combination with targeted DNA enrichment to reconstruct the ancient genome of Yersinia pestis from skeletons securely dated to the Black Death pandemic from the East Smithfield cemetery in London, England, 1348 – 1350.

Download a copy of the PowerPoint presentation.

Find out more and download the podcast.

Research Tuesdays: Life strikes back – Video now available

Environment Institute member Professor Andrew Lowe presented the latest Research Tuesdays seminar held by the University of Adelaide on Tuesday 8th May.

The seminar was titled ‘Life strikes back – How the explosion of knowledge in genomics is enhancing our ability to conserve species’ and explored the positive story unfolding in the field of biodiversity genomics.

Video footage of the presentation is now available to view on the University of Adelaide’s Research Tuesdays website.

 

 

Is pro-nuclear the best option for our make-or-break century?

Environment Institute members Barry Brook and Corey Bradshaw are taking part in an event held by the Town of Walkerville on Saturday 9th June 2012.

Mayor Heather Wright (Town of Walkerville) invites you to take part in a public conversation on the pro-nuclear power debate. Four scientific professionals and commentators offer four perspectives on a subject that still divides public opinion. The speakers are Professor Barry Brook, Professor Corey Bradshaw, Ben Heard and Geoff Russell.

Whether you are ‘for’ ‘against’ or ‘undecided’, this is your chance to hear why all these experts agree that nuclear power is not only the safest energy source but also the one with the lowest environmental footprint.

When: Saturday 9th June 2012
Time:2pm-4pm
Where: Walkerville Town Hall, 66 Walkerville Terrace, Gilberton SA

Tickets to this event are free, however registration by Monday 4th June are essential as seating is limited.

To register go to: http://walkerville5081.eventbrite.com

To submit questions before the event, please email Sonia DeNicola, sdenicola@walkerville.sa.gov.au

Presented as part of World Environment Day 2012

 

 

ACEBB Guest Speaker: Peter Banks – Podcast now available

Download a podcast of Associate Professor Peter Banks presentation titled, ‘New directions in ecologically based pest management: using behavioural ecology to reduce black rat impacts’ presented by the Australian Centre for Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity (ACEBB).

Assoc. Professor Peter Banks, Conservation Biologist at the School of Biological Sciences, the University of Sydney gave a special presentation on Monday 23rd April.

The talk focused on Assoc. Professor Banks research on alien rodents and how he is using manipulative experiments to reveal the nature of rodent impacts on native species, and the functional role of rodents in ecosystem processes. Assoc. Professor Banks also discussed how he is developing a new understanding about the exploitation of social signals by both predator and prey and aiming to generate a new theory on the reactive foraging behaviour of predators and use this theory to solve conservation problems.

Find out more and download the podcast.

New Paper: Accuracy of species identification by fisheries observers in a north Australian shark fishery

A new paper involving Environment Institute member Corey Bradshaw, as well as Bree Tillett (Charles Darwin University & Australian Institute of Marine Science), Iain Field (Charles Darwin University, Australian Institute of Marine Science and Macquarie University), Grant Johnson (Northern Territory Fisheries), Rik Buckworth (Northern Territory Fisheries & CSIRO), Mark Meekan (Australian Institute of Marine Science) and Jennifer Ovenden (Queensland Government) has recently been published in the journal Fisheries Research.

Corey Bradshaw, one of the authors involved in the paper

The paper titled, ‘Accuracy of species identification by fisheries observers in a north Australian shark fishery’ provides the first estimates of the ability of scientific observers to identify five species of morphologically-similar carcharhinid sharks in a fishery in northern Australia.  Results provide the first benchmark of identification accuracy of observers for carcharhinid sharks in northern Australia and show that estimates of error in species identifications need to be incorporated into management strategies to ensure successful recovery of the many recently over-fished shark populations.

Read the paper online to find out more about this research.

New Paper: Why are birds’ eggs colourful? Eggshell pigments co-vary with life-history and nesting ecology among British breeding non-passerine birds

A new paper involving Environment Institute member Phill Cassey, as well as Gavin Thomas (Bristol University, Steven Portugal (University of Birmingham & the Royal Veterinatry College, Hertfordshire), Golo Maurer (University of Adelaide & University of Birmingham), Mark Hauber (City University of New York), Tomas Grim (Palacky University), George Lovell (University of St Andrews) and Ivan Miksik (Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic) has recently been published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.

Phil Cassey, one of the authors on this paper

The paper titled, ‘Why are birds’ eggs colourful? Eggshell pigments co-vary with life-history and nesting ecology among British breeding non-passerine birds’  investigates how the concentrations of avian eggshell pigments vary among related species, and whether this variability is associated with either eggshell appearance and/or species life-history traits. Suprisingly, this element remains poorly understood as biologists have tended to focus on the structure and biochemistry of the avian eggshell instead.

Download the paper to find out more about this research.

Australasian Society for Phycology and Aquatic Botany Annual Conference

The 2012 Australasian Society of Phycology and Aquatic Botany (ASPAB) Conference will be held at the University of Adelaide, from 12-15 November 2012.

Established in 1980, ASPAB is a professional scientific society that aims to promote, develop and assist the study of  phycology (the study of macro- and micro-algae such as seaweeds and phytoplankton) and aquatic botany (the study of aquatic plants) within Australasia.

The themes for this years conference are:

• Phytoplankton & Oceanography
• Progress in algal biodiversity
• Submerged angiosperms
• Interactions with the environment

Registrations open 30 June.
Abstracts due 30th August.

Download the Conference poster

More information can be found on the ASPAB website.