Biosciences Seminar Speaker 01 May 2015

Biosciences Seminar Series - Winter 2015
01 May 2015 - 1pm - Zoology Museum (Wallace 129)

(note change of day!)

How elephants grow old

Dr. Virpi Lummaa

(University of Sheffield, UK)

from: http://myanmar-timber-elephant.group.shef.ac.uk/

This week we will be hosting Dr Virpi Lummaa, an evolutionary biologist from the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield. Virpi's research is centred around two study systems of long-lived social mammalian species, humans and elephants. 

The human research is centred around the Human Life-History Project, and focuses on analysing especially data from pre-industrial finish populations obtained from church records. Research for example has highlighted the fitness consequences of aunts and uncles on survival in historic Finnish populations (see here), effects of parental personality on the relationship between family size and offspring education (see here), or a trade-off between having many sons and shorter maternal post-reproductive survival in preindustrial Finland (see here).

The elephant research is based on the Myanmar Timber Elephant Project. This is also an individual-based long-term study, aiming at understanding the ecological causes of senescence and its hormonal associates. This research will be presented during the seminar:

Abstract

Ageing involves reduced fertility, mobility and ability to combat disease, but some individuals cope with growing old better than others. Such between-individual differences in ageing pattern and their underlying causes are rarely studied in long-lived species. 

One of the longest-lived terrestrial mammals with detailed life-long records available to them are Asian elephants employed in logging industry in Myanmar during the last 100 years. This population constitutes the largest (~5,000) remaining population of captive elephants in the world. The elephants are used during the day as riding, transport and draught animals. At night they forage in their family groups unsupervised and encounter tame and wild conspecifics in forests; breeding rates are natural with most calves thought to be sired by wild bulls. 

Using detailed records maintained by the Myanmar Timber Industry for 5 generations of such working elephants, I will investigate (1) How long do females live and reproduce for? (2) Does reproduction cost in the short and long-term? (3) Do the costs depend on age? (4) What are the proximate causes? 

The persistence of wild elephants in Myanmar is tightly linked to the success of the captive population, since the current mortality and birth rates do not meet the needs of the timber industry and elephants must be captured from the wild to augment the workforce. Our research aims to determine factors affecting health, fertility and mortality rates in the captive population and devising strategies to improve them.

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

BioMaths Colloquia - 24/04/2015

BioMaths Colloquium Series - 2014/15

24 April 2015 - 3pm Maths Seminar Room 

(room 224 Talbot Building 2nd floor)

Swimming Patterns of Zoospores

Dr. Fordyce Davidson

(University of Dundee, UK)

A key aim of our BioMaths Colloquia is to foster interactions and collaborations among mathematicians and biologists which are of mutual interest to both groups of researchers. This week's seminar speakers, Dr. Fordyce Davidson, Head of the Division of Mathematics at the University of Dundee, is an ideal speaker for this intent, as his research spans both research divisions. Specifically, Fordyce's lab aims to develop and analyse mathematical tools with which to better understand biological processes, and research covers two broad, complementary areas, the quantitative study of biological systems and the analysis of differential equations models arising from biology. Similarly, Fordyce is on the Editorial Board of a journal like 'Fungal Ecology', as well as on the IMA Journal of Applied Mathematics.

Abstract

Oomycetes are a group of  pathogens that cause many destructive diseases in animals and plants. One species in particular, Phytophthora infestans, is perhaps the most well known and is responsible for the potato late blight disease. It  was the  cause of the infamous Irish potato famine in the 1880s and remains  a  significant global problem with associated costs estimated at $3 billion  annually. Key to the success of this  pathogen  is the dispersal of  free-swimming cells called zoospores. 

A poorly understood aspect of zoospore behaviour is  auto-aggregation -  the spontaneous formation of large-scale patterns in cell density. Current competing hypotheses suggest that these patterns are formed by one of two distinct mechanisms: chemotaxis and bioconvection. In this talk  we present mathematical and experimental results that together  provide strong evidence that auto-aggregation can only result from a combination of these mechanisms, each having a distinct, time-separated  role.

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

Hope to see many of you!

Biosciences Seminar Speaker 23 April 2015

Biosciences Seminar Series - Winter 2015
23 April 2015 - 1pm - Zoology Museum (Wallace 129)

Biodiversity offsetting: challenges in theory and practice

Prof E.J. Milner-Gulland

(Imperial College London, UK)

from: www.biodiversityoffsets.net

After the Easter break our seminar series resumes with a talk by Prof EJ Milner-Gulland, Professor in Conservation Science at Imperial College London, Department of Life Sciences at the Silwood Park campus. E.J. leads the Imperial College Conservation Science group and is the Director of the multidisciplinary Grand Challenges in Ecosystems and the Environment group.

E.J. is broadly interested into how people interact with the environment, especially the incentives and attitudes of natural resource users; social-ecological system dynamics; and management of natural resources. A key interest concerns also how to reach robust decisions for managing socio-ecological systems, in the face of uncertainty determined by our lack of full knowledge and understanding of the underlying processes. E.J.'s research is hence highly interdisciplinary, covering the full range from ecology to social psychology, economics, and anthropology, using a combination of modelling and field work approaches.

Specific example of research include the 20-year research programme on the conservation ecology of the saiga antelope (see here), bushmeat exploitation in Africa (see here) or the development of a decision-theoretic framework for the allocation of limited resources for conservation actions (see here). The seminar, specifically, will focus on the very topical yet also highly controversial topic of biodiversity offsetting (e.g. see here, here, here).

from: ICCS.org.uk

Abstract

Biodiversity offsetting is expanding rapidly, both as a tool of corporate social responsibility and in government policy-making around the world (including in the UK). Offsets are used as the last stage of a "mitigation hierarchy" to compensate for the residual damage caused by developments. The aim is for the development overall to cause "no net loss" of biodiversity. 

Offsetting has attracted huge controversy and concern from some, while others see it as a way of rebalancing the development-conservation trade-off in favour of nature. In this seminar I will highlight and explore both the theoretical and conceptual issues that need to be addressed in order to reach no net loss of biodiversity from development. 

Using a case study of the Ustyurt plateau in Uzbekistan, I look at how offsetting could work in practice. I then touch on some work I'm about to start on using offsetting in a marine context, to think about bycatch mitigation. I sum up by suggesting some ways in which scientists could engage with the offsetting debate.

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

Biosciences Seminar Speaker 26 March 2015

Biosciences Seminar Series - Winter 2015
26 March 2015 - 1pm - Zoology Museum (Wallace 129)

Cold-blooded Cognition: The Missing Class

Dr Anna Wilkinson

(University of Lincoln, UK)

Image: Juergen Hasenkopf/Rex Features

Who is smarter, a quick, warm-blooded mammals or bird or a sluggish, cold-blooded tortoise? The former two? You might be surprised to hear from Dr Anna Wilkinson, that this is not always the case! Anna is a senior lecturer at Lincoln University and is broadly interested in animal cognition. One specific interest regards Perception and Categorisation - how do animals process the vast amount of information that they perceive daily? Why do animals pay attention to certain elements of their environment and how flexibly can they use this information? The other main interest, which will present us in her seminar, is about cold-blooded cognition (for example see here) -- how do reptiles and amphibians perceive the world? How do they learn about their environment and how do they use and retain this information? 

Abstract

Very little is known about the cognitive abilities of reptiles. They have traditionally been considered to be “sluggish and unintelligent creatures” (Yerkes 1901, p 520) and have largely been ignored in the study of animal cognition. However, to gain an understanding of the evolution of cognition in amniotes, it is necessary to carry out direct experimental investigations of the learning and memory abilities of reptiles that parallel the extensive work already available in mammals and birds. Therefore, examination of the cognitive mechanisms underlying the behaviour of these animals can provide crucial information about the evolution of the brain. This talk will present some recent research on the learning and memory abilities of reptiles and compare them to what is known about these processes in other animals. 

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

Science Club Series - 24/03/2015

Biosciences Science Club Series - Lent term 2015

Joint College of Medicine - College of Science/Bioscience Seminar
24 March 2015 - 3pm - Zoology Museum (Wallace 129)

(note change of time)

Circadian Genes, Juvenile Hormone & Insect Diapause

Dr. David Dolezel

(Institute of Entomology, Czech Republic)

This week Dr. David Dolezel, head of the Laboratory of Chronobiology of the Institute of Entomology in the Czech Republic, will be visiting our University and has kindly agreed to give a talk on the work of his lab. Given the broad common interest, this will be a joint talk, organized by the College of Medicine and the College of Science. Refreshments will be provided after the seminar, so there will be ample time to chat with the speaker, but if any would like to meet for more time, please do get in touch with Dr Miranda Whiten (College of Medicine).

Abstract
TBA  

Hope to see many of you - tea/coffee/refreshments will be provided!

BioMaths Colloquia - 20/03/2015

BioMaths Colloquium Series - 2014/15

20 March 2015 - 3pm Maths Seminar Room 

(room 224 Talbot Building 2nd floor)

Estimation and control of cell populations

Prof John Lygeros

(Automatic Control Laboratory, ETH Zurich, CH)

from Ruess et al (2013) DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2013.0588

Our BioMaths Colloquium series continues this week with a talk by Prof John Lygeros, head of the Automatic Control Laboratory at ETH Zurich. John has broad interests in modelling, analysis, and control of hierarchical, hybrid, and stochastic systems, with applications to biochemical networks, automated highway systems, air traffic management, power grids and camera networks. John started his education with a B.Eng. degree in electrical engineering and an M.Sc. degree in Systems Control, both at Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine, London, U.K., followed by a Ph.D. degree from the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department, University of California, Berkeley in 1996. 

After a series of research appointments in the US, incl. the National Automated Highway Systems Consortium, Berkeley, the Laboratory for Computer Science, M.I.T., and the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department at U.C. Berkeley, John moved back to the UK in 2000 as  University Lecturer at the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Churchill College. In 2003 he moved to Greece as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Patras, and in 2006 he joined the Automatic Control Laboratory at ETH Zurich,as an Associate Professor, Full Professor since 2010.

Abstract

Feedback mechanisms are at the heart of many cell functions, including genetic regulation. Engineering such mechanisms in living cells synthetically has proved to be a challenging task, however. This is partly due to the difficulties associated with making the process robust against cell-to-cell variability. 

We discuss how stochastic analysis and control methods can be used to shed light into the uncertainty affecting these systems. We first investigate how modelling and analysis methods can be extended to account for stochasticity not only at the level of individual cells, but also at the level of cell to cell variability. We then use the resulting models for system identification, optimal experiment design for strain characterization, and ultimately regulation of gene expression. 

We demonstrate the methodological contributions by experimental results on a yeast strain, using a light-sensitive transcription factor as the input and flow cytometry measurements of the resulting fluorescent protein as the output.

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

Hope to see many of you!

from: http://control.ee.ethz.ch/~atc/research.php#model

Biosciences Seminar Speaker 12 March 2015

Biosciences Seminar Series - Winter 2015
12 March 2015 - 1pm - Zoology Museum (Wallace 129)

Life history correlates of consistency, plasticity and variability in behaviour

Dr Samantha Patrick

(University of Liverpool, UK)

Image from: https://sites.google.com/site/samanthacpatrick/

Recent resarch is increasingly showing that individual animals within populations often show strong and consistent differences in behaviour, leading to the existence of different personality types. Understanding the causes and consequences of these differences is one of the main aims of the research group of our next seminar speaker, Dr Samantha Patrick. Samantha is a behavioural ecologist with a keen interest in bird ecology and evolution, especially of mating and foraging strategies. Sam is a lecturer at the Department of Earth, Ocean and Ecological Sciences at the University of Liverpool, where she has recently started to build her own research group.

Abstract

Increasingly, studies are revealing that individuals within the same population differ from one another in their behaviour.  Through my research, I examine what are the causes and consequences of these differences and their stability over time.  Specifically I use seabirds as a model organism to look at personality differences and behavioural specialisation and the links to fitness in the short and long term.  Furthermore, I look at how individuals are able to change their behaviour, demonstrating plastic responses to the environment. My seminar will discuss all aspects of this research, examining the behavioural, ecological and evolutionary implications.

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