Biosciences Seminar Speaker 22 October 2015

Biosciences Seminar Series - Autumn 2015
22 October 2015 - 1pm - Zoology Museum (Wallace 129)

Using Species Conservation to Drive the 

Restoration of Ecosystems

Dr Cynthia Froyd

(Department of Biosciences, Swansea University)

This week's seminar will be by our won Cynthia Froyd. Cynthia is an ecologist interested in long-term dynamics, disturbance ecology and natural resource management, especially of forest systems. She uses paleoecological data to understand past ecological conditions, to inform present day management and conservation planning.

Abstract

Long-term ecology (palaeoecology) provides the temporal data that is crucial to many modern conservation planning issues. Palaeoecological research techniques allow the detailed examination of biodiversity and ecological change over hundreds to thousands of years. Aspects of many international environmental agreements (i.e. the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment) require a temporal perspective significantly longer than that which can be obtained using traditional ecological methodologies alone. 

www.ncdc.noaa.gov

A number of issues pertinent to modern conservation planning may be addressed through the examination of the long-term ecological record including: the stability and resilience of ecosystems over time, regime shifts or thresholds of nonlinear change, the range of natural ecosystem variability, the examination of baseline reference conditions on which to base measures of change, and natural disturbance regimes. These themes are examined for the Galapagos archipelago. 

Reconstructions of long-term plant community dynamics and environmental change are presented from sites throughout Galapagos, providing evidence of: the first human presence in the islands and resultant impacts on native vegetation, doubtfully native plant species’ provenance, changes in both terrestrial and aquatic communities over time, plant extinctions, the ecological consequences of reductions in large herbivore populations, and long-term changes in ecosystem function.

Hope to see many of you - everyone most welcome to attend!

Biosciences Seminar Speaker 14 October 2015

Biosciences Seminar Series - Autumn 2015
14 October 2015 - 1pm - Zoology Museum (Wallace 129)

Using Species Conservation to Drive the 

Restoration of Ecosystems

Prof Carl Jones

(Durrell Conservation Trust (UK) & Mauritian Wildlife Foundation)

Image from wikimedia.org

This week we will be hosting Prof Carl Jones, an eminent conservation biologist who succeeded to bring several species back from the brink of extinction. Carl's work has especially focussed on Mauritius, where Carl has been active since 1979 on the conservation of birds, plants, reptiles and the restoration of island ecosystems. 

A particularity of his approach is the application of captive breeding and horticultural techniques to wild populations, to increase productivity and survival of endangered animals and plants. This approach has been fantastically effective for a wide range of species and has allowed the restoration species of forest habitats and small islands.

Abstract

Carl will discuss the rebuilding of communities through multiple introductions of species, as well as ecological replacements for extinct species. He will focus on Mauritius and the reintroduction of plants, reptiles and birds to restore island ecosystems.

Hope to see many of you - everyone most welcome to attend!

Science Club Series 2015/16

The Science Club Series resumes

Science Club Series - 2015/16

Venue: Zoology Museum

Time: 1pm

Last week also our Science Club Series resumed, with 2 events! First, on Tuesday 06 October Prof Spencer J. Greenwood (University of Prince Edward Island, Canada) gave a great talk on The Secret Life of Lobster Vets: unravelling host-pathogen-environment interactions in our favourite crustacean. Spencer is a Professor at the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Prince Edward Island (Canada) and also Director-Research Scientist at the AVC Lobster Science Centre (Atlantic Veterinary College, also at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown, Canada). Spencer's research focusses on crustacean biology, using molecular methods to address questions about host-pathogen interactions and aquatic species and parasitology, and is closely linked to industrial applications of new research findings. At his seminar, Spencer focussed on his research on lobsters:

Abstract:
The American lobster (Homarus americanus) fishery forms the backbone of the coastal Maritime economy adds approximately $1 billion to the Atlantic Canadian economy annually. At the AVC Lobster Science Centre, we are applying current transcriptomic technologies (microarray and RNASeq) to explore a variety of basic questions in lobster biology. A summary of recent findings on the lobster’s immune response to different pathogens, biomarkers of larval life stage transitions, biomarkers of sexual maturity, and the impact of anthropogenic stressors (live holding/shipping and pesticides) will be presented.


Then on Thursday we started a cool series of workshops on Scientific Presentation, with a roundtable discussion about the peer review system (see here). These events are mainly targeted for graduate students, but staff members will be welcome, too. We will continue this week with a workshop on using Social Media for science communication, followed by workshops on poster presentations at conferences and on how to write scientific manuscripts for publication. And there will be more to come!

For the full list of Science Club Events, see our blog here 

Biosciences Seminar Series 2015/16

The Swan-Talks resume

Biosciences Seminar Series - 2015/16

Venue: Zoology Museum

Time: 1pm

Downloaded from BBC.co.uk

It is this time of the year - our Bioscience Seminar Series will resume after the summer break! The Autumn Series List of Speakers is complete (programme) and the Winter and Spring ones are filling up with great names (see here and here). 

Prof Carl G Jones (Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, UK), a world expert in bringing back endangered species from the brink of extinction (e.g. only four kestrel were left on Mauritius Island some years ago), will be our first speaker, followed by our own Dr Cynthia Froyd (Swansea University, UK), presenting her research on long term ecology and quaternary environmental change. This will be followed by a visit from Dr Tetsu Kudoh (University of Exeter, UK), whose research focusses on the role of genetic mutations and environmental changes in the development of embryos and larvae. From a lab scientist we will get back to a field ecologist, Dr Hanna Nuuttila of the SEACAMS group (Swansea University, UK), an expert in bioacoustics and monitoring of marine mammals, concluded by a talk by a deep sea marine biologist, Dr Kerry Howell (Plymouth University, UK), right before the Christmas break.

So, after last year, where we had decided to counter-balance the still all-too-common male-only list of speakers with the world's first female-only list of speakers (see here), we are aiming for a balanced ratio from now onwards. Most importantly, however, come and listen to the talks! And watch our blog here for the abstracts and more information about the forthcoming seminars. 

Everyone is most welcome, students included. As last year the autumn seminars will be followed by our MRes students, who will produce a video abstract and a blog post about each (e.g. see here).

Looking forward to it!

Postgraduate Seminar Series 20th August 2015

Talk 1:

Inferring the Behaviour of a Wild Social Primate: What can tri-axial accelerometers tell us?

Jack O’Sullivan

Our first speaker this week is Jack O’Sullivan. Jack completed his BSc in Zoology at Aberystwyth University before coming to Swansea to undertake an Mres in the Bioscience department. He has recently been accepted onto a PhD at Newcastle University within the Institute of Neuroscience.

 

Abstract:

There has been relatively little investigation into the applicability of tri-axial accelerometers in the detection of primate behaviour. Applying such techniques to the chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa could provide insight into the lives of primates previously unobtainable under the constraints of direct observation.

 

 

Talk 2:

Playing Magic: The Gathering^® on networks of competitive interactions

Danis Kiziridis

 

Our second speaker, Danis Kiziridis initially obtained a diploma in biology, with specialization in ecology, from the School of Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He then moved to Palma de Mallorca, Spain, for the Master in Physics of Complex Systems, organized and taught by IFISC, at the Universitat de les Illes Balears. Currently, he is a BioMaths first year PhD candidate at the Mathematics Department, Swansea University, studying growth and interactions in saprotrophic fungal communities, with the supervision and collaboration of Dr. Chenggui Yuan (Mathematics, Swansea University), Dr. Mike Fowler and Prof. Dan Eastwood (Biosciences, Swansea University), and Prof. Lynne Boddy and Dr. Jennifer Hiscox (Biosciences, Cardiff University).

Abstract:

Competition by direct means is widespread in biological, technological, and socioeconomic systems, e.g.: territoriality in fishes, birds and ants, but also in firms and mafias; biological predation/parasitism, but also software/malware infection attempts; tournaments among stags for mating, but also sports tournaments like in boxing and fencing; and dominance interactions leading to hierarchies in animal groups, including human organizations like companies and collectives. Inspired by the fierce territorial fights between saprotrophic fungi, but of general applicability, a method was developed by adopting the simple but realistic scoring/combat system of the card game Magic: The Gathering®, to model satisfactorily all kinds of interaction outcomes, and to quantify offensive/defensive abilities, proposing thus testable hypotheses, and offering quantitative insight into the (co)evolution of the ubiquitous phenomenon of direct competition.

 

Talk 3:

 

Individual variability in dispersal and invasion speed

 

Aled Morris

 

 

Our third speaker today is Aled Morris. Aled undertook his undergrad degree in Mathematics and his Masters degree in Computer Modelling here at Swansea University. He is currently doing a PhD, investigating population spread of species.

Abstract:

The spreading speed of a population is fundamental in ecology because it characterises the rate at which a species invades new habitats or adapts to rapid environmental change. We use a system of reaction-diffusion partial differential equations to model the spread of two competing phenotypes in a domain. Using this system we look at the existence of steady states, and attempt to find explicit expressions for the spreading speed and the ratio of phenotypes at the leading edge.

 

 

Postgraduate Seminar Series 6th August 2015

Decay in the canopy: investigating saprotrophic communities in attached angiosperm branches

 

Anna Rawlings

 

 

 

Our speaker today is Anna Rawlings. Anna completed her master’s degree in Environmental Biology here at Swansea University and is now currently in the first year of her PhD, looking at fungal community ecology.

 

Abstract:

Assemblages of wood rotting fungi often begin to develop in the canopy yet efforts to describe decay communities have focused almost exclusively on the later stages of decay on the woodland floor.  Although generally successional in nature, it has been hypothesised that various community development pathways may arise depending upon the degrees of abiotic and biotic stress present within the substrate with abiotic conditions ameliorating and competitive stress increasing as decay advances.  I plan to use traditional culturing methods alongside modern molecular techniques and 3D modelling to map communities of wood-rotting fungi in attached branches and to investigate the role that abiotic and competitive stressors play in shaping them.

Postgraduate Seminar Series 30th July 2015

Mediating Attention for Second Screen Companion Content 

Timothy Neate 

 

 

 

This week, one of our speakers is Timothy Neate. Tim previously studied at the University of York where he gained a BSc (Hons) and MSc (by research) degrees. His PhD, working with Prof. Matt Jones and Dr. Michael Evans (BBC R&D), focusses on the design of dual screen television and investigating interfaces that compensate for splitting user attention across multiple foci.  

 

Abstract: 

In this talk, Tim will discuss his work into investigating methods to mediate a user's attention between multiple devices in a dual screen TV scenario and the implications for broadcasters and application designers alike.