Ecological and evolutionary consequences of anticancer adaptations.

See the paper at iScience.

A field and video annotation guide for baited remote underwater stereo‐video surveys of demersal fish assemblages.

See the paper at METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION.

Darwin, the devil, and the management of transmissible cancers.

See the paper at Conservation Biology.

 – Help us in exploring our options to save frogs –

Do you have Bibron’s toadlet on your property?

If not – please help us by sharing this with your friends/family/peers

Dear CIE HDR students,

An important part of the annual CIE conference is to seek out and acknowledge your fantastic research efforts. So If you have a recent research output, please send it through for consideration in one of our Best CIE HDR Research Award categories.

In 2020, we have four research award categories:

1. Best reviewed research paper (a manuscript that has undergone part, or all of the external peer review process).

2. Best unreviewed research paper (a pre-submitted, or submitted manuscript, lacking any input from peer-review feedback)

Award Rules:

• Entries are open to all CIE HDR students;
• Published papers must have been published after October 2019;
• Papers should reflect research undertaken as part of your current CIE HDR candidature;
• Papers will be judged, scored, and ranked by a panel of CIE academics;
• Please email papers (stating category) or submissions to Tim Jessop (t.Jessop@deakin.edu.au) before September 20th to be in the running;
• Winners will be contacted by email at the end of September.

3. Best CIE HDR award for science outreach:

Here we are looking for great examples of how you are translating and communicating your science for the benefit of the broader community and ideally having an impact beyond the ivory towers of academia! I am leaving this vague in its interpretation to allow for the broadest consideration of your research outreach efforts (e.g. an account of how your science helped Nuns in Mexico sustainably harvest endangered salamanders to make cough syrup, or it could be a blog or some other form of popular science communication ).

If you would like to enter, please send me a brief email, using no more than 200 words to describe your science outreach efforts.

• Again please email submissions to Tim Jessop (t.Jessop@deakin.edu.au) before September 20th.
• The winner will be contacted by email at the end of September.

If these do not appeal, and because many of you will be presenting at the upcoming CIE conference then you automatically qualify for the:

4. Best Presentation Awards:

The CIE will also be giving out awards the for best female and best male HDR candidate presentations at the conference.

The winner of each category:

Will be awarded a voucher and certificate.

We look forward to receiving many entries and learning about your great research!

In a first for Deakin University, Professor John Endler has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, the world’s oldest and arguably most prestigious science ­academy.

For more information:

• The Royal Society: Professor Endler is interested in the commonalities among the fields of Evolution, Ecology, Behavioural Ecology and Sensory Ecology.
• Herald Sun: Deakin University Professor John Endler elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.
• Deakin Media: Deakin’s Professor John Endler elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society.
• Australian Academy of Science: Academy President and Fellows elected to Royal Society.

We are looking for a PhD candidate keen on studying the combined impact of pollution and infection susceptibility on migrating shorebirds.

The specific hypothesis of the project are that:

1) susceptibility to infections (e.g. avian influenza) will increase in a host due to high exposure to environmental pollution;

2) pollutants modulate the immune system in a specific manner that facilitates infection prevalence and/or disease severity;

3) microRNA profiles can be used as a predictive tool to assess disease outbreaks and severity.

The position is based at NTNU in Trondheim, Norway, and financed by the Norwegian Research Council and has a special responsibility within the project COAST-IMPACT (August 2020 – July 2023).

The overall aim of COAST-IMPACT is to study the impact of pollution in the coastal wetlands of East Asia by assessing the biodiversity of littoral macroinvertebrates, and the resulting impact of food availability, pollution and infection in migrating shorebirds along the East Asian Australian Flyway using these wetlands.

The field component of this PhD project will be linked to the ongoing large-scale study of migrating shorebirds in Australia (Melbourne in Victoria, and Broome in Western Australia).

Secondly, the lab component of the project will elucidate the mechanisms driving pollutant-induced immunomodulation that relate to increased infection susceptibility in the host (targeting microRNAs and inflammation markers).

Lastly, the obtained data will be used to develop diagnostic biomarkers to assess infection and exposure that will allow to improve disease outbreak predictions for the future.

For further information and to apply for this position CLICK HERE (PhD position) or contact Prof Marcel Klaassen.

For those who were unable to connect during live broadcasting of this seminar, you may now find the recording at the CIE’s YouTube channel (don’t forget to subscribe to our channel) or simply follow these direct links to seminar’s content:

• Intro to disease ecology
• Is COVID-19 just as bad as the plague or small pox?
• Where does COVID-19 come from?
• Will COVID-19 become more virulent over time?
• Some key things about transmission
• How to manage COVID-19?
• Can we avoid this happening again?

Seminar was presented by Alfred Deakin Professor Marcel Klaassen from the Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, Geelong.

A follow-up talk by Marcel was given to the CIE-Geelong discussion group on the epidemiology of COVID-19. You can now watch the recording of this talk:

• COVID-19 epidemiology – its past and its possible futures
• The app that Marcel developed and which was used in the presentation is available HERE (please scale your screen’s zoom so data fits your screen; navigation is done by clicking on the right or left sides of your screen, similar to a photo gallery, even if you can’t see the navigation arrows)

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Interested in Disease Ecology and Epidemiology?

Then you should consider taking SLE 354 in T2-2020. More information below (make sure to watch the Welcome to SLE 354 video):

Avoiding and fighting disease is an important aspect of our life and that of most other organisms. Often the pathogens that cause these diseases are microorganisms and invertebrate parasites that try and use other organisms (i.e. hosts) to their benefit. This unit will provide a deep understanding of the processes underlying the evolution and ecology of host-pathogen interactions and how these affect animal populations and communities and even ecosystems.

Notably in the face of various global change processes, creating sub-optimal conditions for many animals and making them, and the populations, communities and ecosystems of which they form part, more vulnerable to disease, this unit is of great importance to the broad community of animal ecologists. At the same time this unit is also of interest to students of wildlife conservation and management and the (bio-) medical sciences wanting to develop a deeper understanding of why pathogens are around and why they behave the way they do; knowledge of fundamental importance when managing wildlife and endeavouring fighting infectious diseases.

During T2-2020 this unit will be delivered entirely online, using video recordings, web-based presentations, tutorials and (computer) pracs. Group assignments will involve the production and delivery of online powerpoint presentations and a scientific report centred around your self-selected COVID-19 or other (wildlife) disease research project.

A prerequisite for following this unit is general knowledge of animal life and research methods/statistics. As your unit chair, I trust you will find this unit both intellectually stimulating and relevant to your studies in your current course and your future directions as a Deakin graduate.

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Intro to disease ecology

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Is COVID-19 just as bad as the plague or small pox?

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Where does COVID-19 come from?

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Will COVID-19 become more virulent over time?

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Some key things about transmission

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How to manage COVID-19?

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Can we avoid this happening again?

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Welcome to SLE 354

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COVID-19 epidemiology – its past and its possible futures

Hi Researchers of the CIE

We would like to invite you to consider this opportunity for you to share your research with wider audiences.  Impact and community engagement are what we are encouraged to consider more and more as academics at Deakin… participating in this project will do both for you.

We invite researchers (at any stage) to join us as we present a public symposium about Integrative Ecology.  The symposium date is the 11^th April at Deakin Downtown.  There will be 5 research presentations across the morning session.  Then the public part of the day concludes and lunch will be served to you and the teachers who have offered to stay the full day to continue working.  This work will involve designing and developing teaching and learning sequences for lower secondary science students (years 7 – 10).  We hope that you will stay for the afternoon session to support this process.

A team of Community Science Project students will be supporting this project.  These students will be in touch with you and will facilitate collecting the necessary information prior to the 11^th April.  This information may include:

• A narrative (collected through an interview) regarding the significance of your research
• A narrative about how you collect data – the methodology/methods of your research
• Some photos or video of this process would be great (especially if taken in the field) – this will be used to craft video resources to add engagement and interest to the resulting teaching and learning materials.
• One or two research papers – if you are published in this area.  We would like to design student activities that have them engaging in published science.
• One or two media articles – if you have any.  This will scaffold students to make accurate judgements about media presentations of science.
• Some data, if possible… as teachers often find it very hard to access good quality data so they can scaffold student development in learning how to analyse real (secondary) data.

We will also need you to review the final web-based materials once they are generated – towards the end of May.

The process has been designed to be thorough – but not time consuming or onerous for you.

We have successfully worked with several Deakin Scientist previously – check out our materials

https://blogs.deakin.edu.au/contemporary-science-practice-in-schools/

Please contact me if you have any questions.

If you would like to be part of this initiative and raise your project’s profile, can you please send an EOI to Peta White by Friday 1^st March 2019?

 

Kind regards,

Peta

Peta White (PhD)

Lecturer in Science and Environmental Education

Bachelor of Science/MTeach D304 Course Director