Dear all,
This is the last SEEN of the 2010-11 academic year.
First years, thank-you for your contributions to the Spanish field course – it was really enjoyable and I was very impressed with the level of dedication and motivation you all showed.
Second years, thank-you for the enjoyable tutorials I have had with many of you, I really enjoyed our discussions about Animal Personality.
Third years, thank-you for telling me all about your lab-based or library-based projects this week. All your talks were interesting, it’s clear how hard you worked (I feel very knowledgeable about the proposed wildlife corridor in Belize).
Good luck to all with your exams, and to 3rd years good luck with your futures (if you would like to receive SEEN after graduation send me a message from your preferred email address in September).
All of you, please send me any links over the summer and I will collate them for the next issue.
Best wishes,
Judith
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This week we had a joint Butterfly Identification talk with Southampton Natural History Society. Brian Fletcher from Butterfly Conservation told us about the common butterflies of Southampton. Apparently butterflies are more common in the South of the UK than the North, species are also separated into the East and West so Hampshire’s location in the middle means that there is a large number of butterfly species here in Southampton. You can all download the form to take part in the survey here: http://sotonnhs.org/index.asp
In the news
• Fukushima nuclear reactor
Long clean-up aheadhttp://www.nature.com/news/2011/110404/full/news.2011.207.html
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110411/full/472146a.html
Longterm health effects will be studiedhttp://www.nature.com/news/2011/110405/full/472013a.html
What about the effects on the Pacific Ocean?http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110412/full/news.2011.230.html
There will be repercussions for the entire nuclear industryhttp://www.nature.com/news/2011/110418/full/472274a.html
Could we be at risk?http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110421/full/472400a.html
• Interspecific interactions:
Plants and herbivores – herbivores fight back against plant silica by evolving high-crowned teeth
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v472/n7341/full/472009b.html Link to full article
Caterpillars and chicks – the behaviour of both is affected by their arms race http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v472/n7342/full/472138a.html
Avian brood parasitism – hosts maintain brood parasitism defence behaviours in absence of parasites, this is important for driving the arms race
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/04/08/rsbl.2011.0268.abstract?papetoc
Symbionts – may manipulate host’s behaviour, benefiting both partnershttp://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/04/06/rsbl.2011.0249.abstract?papetoc
• Sexual selection
The peacock is the most famously cited example of sexual selection but do females always choose males with the larges tail?
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110418/full/news.2011.245.html
In siskins there is selection for traits that help females choose the most intelligent male
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v472/n7342/full/472139a.html Link to full text
Mallard males with more colourful bills have superior antibacterial semen
Review – http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/04/scienceshot-safe-sex-duck-style.html?ref=hp
Original articlehttp://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/04/06/rsbl.2011.0276.abstract?papetoc
Manakin females prefer males with quick feethttp://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/04/video-quick-feet-impress-females.html?ref=hp
Environmental stresses can change sexual selection pressures. We know that bright colours are expensive to produce, meaning that resources cannot be used for other processes, such as defence against radiation, as has been found in Chernobyl. Direct evidence of the conflict between natural and sexual selection pressures.http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110504/full/news.2011.267.html
• Increasing ocean noise bad for cephalopodshttp://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/04/ocean-noise-could-harm-squid-and.html?ref=hp
Coral reef crustaceans choose quiet locationshttp://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/03/crustaceans-crave-a-little-quiet.html?ref=hp
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0016625
• Call-mimicking in killer whaleshttp://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/12/killer-whales-mimic-friends-and.html
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-7692.2010.00397.x/abstract
Whales regularly change their songs (every couple of months), with local trends being evident, similar to differences in humans’ music choices across different countrieshttp://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/04/whale-pop-songs-spread-across-th.html?ref=hp
• Evidence for an epigenetic cause of obesity found here at Southampton University
Review – http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/04/why-skinny-moms-sometimes-produc.html?ref=hp
article –http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/early/2011/04/04/db10-0979
• Louse might tell us if the ancestors of current birds and mammals survived the KT extinctionhttp://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/04/did-feathered-dinos-spread-lice.html?ref=hp
• I taught you about the peppered moth in BIOL1003 and BIOL2001. New research shows that the melanic form was due to a mutation in a single individual
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110414/full/news.2011.238.html
• Nobody know what happens to turtles between when they enter the sea as hatchlings and emerge as breeding adults several years later. Satellite tracking will now let is see exactly where they gohttp://www.nature.com/news/2011/110427/full/news.2011.258.html
Tracking hatchlings and juveniles is important for turtle conservation because they are currently under threat, and humans are not solely to blame
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/04/humans-not-solely-to-blame-for.html?ref=hp
• Females are harder to fool than males, in dogs at least
Article –http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/04/20/rsbl.2011.0287.abstract?papetoc
Review – http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/04/female-dogs-arent-easily-fooled.html?ref=hp
• Live chat video – Is it ethical to study dolphins in captivity?
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/04/live-chat-the-ethics-of-animal-r.html?ref=hp
• April Fool! (yes, I know it’s now May)
Become Dr Doolittle with this app from Google (watch the video) –http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/landing/translateforanimals/
Gorillas addicted to apps on i-pads –http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3503234/Gorillas%20get%20iPads%20to%20aid%20alertness%20and%20keep%20them%20happier%20in%20zoos.html
Unicorn fossil found at the tower of London –http://www.metro.co.uk/news/859713-unicorn-at-tower-of-london-it-s-raven-mad
Spiders on drugs – Found by Pete Boyd a postgrad who demonstrated on the field course this year, in Bella Vista. Very funny (and not true).http://www.boreme.com/posting.php?id=9542
• Careers
Guide to life sciences careers
http://www.nature.com/scitable/ebooks/guide-to-life-science-careers-14053951/contents
A PhD position to work on genotype by environment interactions at the University of Exeter in Cornwall is being advertised. Successful applicants will work with Professor David Hosken and Associate Professor John Hunt using Drosophila simulans as a model. The position is only open to UK residents. For more details see:
http://www.exeter.ac.uk/studying/funding/award/index.php?id=781
PhD position: Enhancing freshwater ecosystem biomonitoring: defining and testing a next generation sequencing biodiversity identification framework.
Applications are invited for a fully-funded PhD studentship for full time study in the Molecular Ecology and Fisheries Genetics Laboratory (http://mefgl.bangor.ac.uk<http://mefgl.bangor.ac.uk/>), School of Biological Sciences, supervised by Dr Simon Creer and Prof Gary Carvalho, to start no later than October 2011.
A PhD position is available with Dr Hywel Williams in Biosciences, College of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Exeter (Streatham
Campus, Exeter) http://www.exeter.ac.uk/studying/funding/award/index.php?id=774 Contact: Hywel Williams (<http://uk.mc259.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=h.williams@uea.ac.uk>)