Postgraduate Seminar Series

June- August 2016

Venue: Zoology Museum
Time: Thursdays 1pm

30th June

Becky Cliffe
Title:  Life in the slow lane: The sloth niche, divine or dangerous; a case study in Costa Rica
&
Marta Rodríguez-Rey
Title:  Disentangling the main factors for the spread of aquatic invasive species


 14^th July

Matteo Rolla
Title:  Biodiversity conservation in alpine aquatic ecosystems in Gran Paradiso National Park (Western Italian Alps)
&
Waldir M. Berbel-Filho
Title:  Sex and parasites in the mangrove: who is winning the arms race?


28^th July

Suzana G. Leles
Title:  Neither phytoplankton nor zooplankton: welcome to the mixotrophic world of marine plankton
&
Bethan Kultschar

Title:  Metabolite profiling of a robust cyanobacteria for industrial biotechnology
&
Dania Albini

Title: Morphological and chemical defences induced by Daphnia magna (cladocera) in two green algae, Scenedesmus quadricauda and Chlorella vulgaris. Modelling the strategy

11^th August

Chloe Robinson

Title: O ye of little plague? Linking genetic diversity of North American Signal Crayfish populations (Pacifastacus leniusculus) with prevalence of crayfish plague (Aphanomyces astaci)”

&

Andrew Lucas

Title: From Community to Individual: DNA Metabarcoding Reveals Pollen Transport by Hoverflies

&

Dan Sankey

Title: The importance of body orientation in collective herding behaviour

BioMaths Colloquium - 17/06/2016

BioMaths Colloquium Series - 2015/16

17 June 2016 - 3pm Maths Seminar Room

(room 224 Talbot Building 2nd floor)

Predator-prey biomass relationships: a role for predator density dependence?

Dr David Murrell

(University College London, UK)

from: ecol-evo.blogspot.com

Abstract

Recent empirical research has shown that increasing ecosystem productivity leads to an increase in the proportion of biomass at lower trophic levels. Thus as prey species increase in abundance/biomass their consumers also increase but at a much reduced rate. Indeed the general empirical results link predator biomass (P) to prey biomass (N) as P ~ N^k, where k<1 for most ecosystems studied. 

Surprisingly, ecological theory does not provide an immediate answer as to how this relationship may occur. I will consider the potential roles for density dependence operating at the level of the predator/consumer to generate these sub-linear increases in biomass at higher trophic levels. Through analyses of simple ecological models I will outline some criteria for generating the empirical pattern and compare these predictions to the rare cases where the models have been applied to data.

The discussions will continue over biscuits and tea/coffee after the seminar. 

Hope to see many of you!

BioMaths Colloquium - 27/05/2016

BioMaths Colloquium Series - 2015/16

27 May 2016 - 3pm Maths Seminar Room

(room 224 Talbot Building 2nd floor)

Mathematical Modelling of Plankton–Oxygen Dynamics Under the Climate Change

Prof Sergei V. Petrovskii

(University of Leicester, UK)

from: Sekerci & Petrovskii (2015) BUll. Math. Biol.

Abstract

Ocean dynamics is known to have a strong effect on the global climate change and on the composition of the atmosphere. In particular, it is estimated that about 70 % of the atmospheric oxygen is produced in the oceans due to the photosynthetic activity of phytoplankton. However, the rate of oxygen production depends on water temperature and hence can be affected by the global warming. 


In this paper, we address this issue theoretically by considering a model of a coupled plankton–oxygen dynamics where the rate of oxygen production slowly changes with time to account for the ocean warming. We show that a sustainable oxygen production is only possible in an intermediate range of the production rate. If, in the course of time, the oxygen production rate becomes too low or too high, the system’s dynamics changes abruptly, resulting in the oxygen depletion and plankton extinction. 

Our results indicate that the depletion of atmospheric oxygen on global scale (which, if happens, obviously can kill most of life on Earth) is another possible catastrophic consequence of the global warming, a global ecological disaster that has been overlooked.

The discussions will continue over biscuits and tea/coffee after the seminar. 

Hope to see many of you!