Tag: ecology

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The 2019 EcoEvo Hall of Fame

Every year, contributors to the blog look back on their favourite papers of the previous year and tell us what it was about these publications that stuck in their mind so much. With a range of different topics and reasons, it’s always great to see what each of us thinks makes for a great paper! Find out what we elected as our favourite papers in 2018 and 2017, and read on for this year’s entries:

Perrot-Minnot, M. J., Guyonnet, E., Bollache, L., & Lagrue, C. (2019). Differential patterns of definitive host use by two fish acanthocephalans occurring in sympatry: Pomphorhynchus laevis and Pomphorhynchus tereticollis. International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife, 8, 135-144.

Chosen by Paula Tierney

Read the full International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife paper here

https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S2213224418300671-fx1_lrg.jpg
Graphical abstract from paper

Sometimes a paper doesn’t have to make huge waves in the broader ecology world to be a great paper and sometimes a paper comes along at just the right time to answer the questions you need answering. Perrot-Minnot et al. 2019 did both for me this year. Since the taxonomic revision of the acanthocephalan parasite Pomphorhychus laevis by Špakulová et al in 2011 resurrected the closely-related species Pomphorhynchus tereticollis, the systematics of the genus in Europe has been something of a taxonomic dumpster fire. It also left one of my PhD chapters with a bit of an identity crisis since,

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EcoEvo Blog Photo competition winner announcement!

Once again, the time has come for the annual Eco Evo photo competition! The third instalment of the competition saw some wonderful submissions from across the School of Natural Sciences, and the top spot was fiercely contested. Due to their desire to participate, the editors stepped away from the judging process and the shortlisting was conducted by an unbiased third-party and the photos were anonymised. Finally, the vote for the winning photo was put to the Trinity School of Natural Science, again the photos were anonymised.

Read on to see the full gallery of submissions and to find out which photo was chosen as the winner.

Photo by Jenny Bortoluzzi.

A Green turtle swims away with its trusty remora after feeding on seagrass in the Bahamas. Remoras and turtles enjoy a symbiotic relationship as the fish removes parasites and keeps the shell clean while receiving benefits in the form of food, transport and protection.

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Meet the new editorial team for 2019/20!

Time flies and it’s time for yet another academic year! We’re a bit late for our introduction, students are already heading into reading week but we were too busy getting over the shock that first years were born in 2001… Do you feel old too?

And with that, we wave goodbye to our fantastic 2018-19 editor, Fionn Ó Marcaigh. Thank you for your hard work and enthusiasm for sharing people’s stories! We have big shoes to fill… We say “we” because this year, you get two editors for the price of one! Let us introduce ourselves:

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ESJ 66: Best in Show

This was my first time in Kobe, famous for its beef and cheesecake. Much of the city was rebuilt in the wake of a devastating earthquake that claimed the lives of more than six thousand people in 1995. The city mascot is Kobear (コーベア), a pun almost as clever as the bear is cute. The conference centre was a vertical maze of meeting rooms and halls, with signs in Japanese and an army of concierges attempting to funnel us towards our venue of choice.

I had met Dr. Maria Dornelas at the entrance hall on day one and introduced her to Yuka Suzuki. I’ve known Yuka for a couple of years at this point, but we had never worked on anything together until this conference. Yuka and I had been chosen to organise a symposium at the Ecological Society of Japan’s 2019 annual meeting (ESJ 66), an honour not often given to such early career researchers. The ESJ meetings do not have plenary speakers, meaning that the few invited speakers that headline organised symposia act as the big draw. So, the pressure was on for us to deliver a symposium that people would find interesting and inspiring.

Read the full post on Sam’s blog, The Infrequent Musings of an Early-Career Ecologist!

Or read his award-winning paper here:
Ross SRP-J, Friedman NR, Dudley KL, Yoshimura M, Yoshida T, Economo EP. (2018). Listening to ecosystems: data rich acoustic monitoring through landscape-scale sensor networks. Ecological Research 33(1), 135-147. DOI: 10.1007/s11284-017-1509-5 

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The 2018 EcoEvo Hall of Fame

As we launch into another year of research, we thought it would be interesting to look back on some of the work that came out in 2018, so we asked the School of Natural Sciences what papers they would like to induct into our second annual Hall of Fame. Read on for the papers we thought were fascinating, notable, or just cool. When you’re finished, you can check out 2017’s Hall of Fame here.

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EGG heads talk ecological genetics in Dublin

Using genetics to understand ecology is fascinating. The data reveal things that often cannot be found by observation alone, such as patterns of cryptic diversity, migration pathways and the source of colonising populations.

But life in ecological genetics research is peculiar because we sit on a border between two fairly different fields of science. In an ecological crowd we’re called the ‘genetics person’ while among geneticists we’re seen to have only a rudimentary knowledge of ‘real’ genetics and our comments on ecological theory are sometimes met with funny looks. So spending time in an ecological genetics crowd is refreshing and, last week, about 30 members of the British Ecological Society did exactly that. Continue reading “EGG heads talk ecological genetics in Dublin”

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A recipe for collaboration

 

Recently, along with Adam Kane, Kevin Healy, Graeme Ruxton and Andrew Jackson, we published a review on scavenging behaviour in vertebrates through time in Ecography.

This paper was my first review paper as well as my first paper written from afar, without ever actually meeting in a room with the co-authors for working on the project.

Difficulty: *

Preparation time: 5 month to submission

Serves: 5 people (but any manageable number of people who you like working with will do)

Ingredients:

  • An exciting topic:

For this recipe you will need an exciting topic.

In this case, prior to writing the review, we had often discussed the prevalence of scavenging behaviour through time and what ecological factors influence it.

Indeed, it came as a natural follow up to a paper published by the other co-authors earlier this year on ‘the scavenging ability of theropod dinosaurs’.

More generally, the topic should be broad enough to allow every person to look for anecdotes (did you know there was once a ‘scavenging bat called *Necromantis*?’ and to bring these together in an interesting, more generalised framework. Continue reading “A recipe for collaboration”

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Research haikus

Last month, the Zoology Department’s Dr. David Kelly launched his first book of Japanese short form poetry, Hammerscale from the Thrush’s Anvil. At the launch of the book, David invited us in the audience to try our hand at writing our own haikus.

Taking him up on his challenge, and taking inspiration from his book, a few of us in the School of Natural Sciences have penned our own poems based on our areas of study. We even have a contribution from David Kelly himself!

Trying not to sacrifice coherency at the alter of syllable number was a rather new struggle for most of us, but we managed and, I’d like to think, emerged with a greater appreciation for the poets in our midst. Read on for our science-y foray into the arts!

(Paula Tierney @_ptierney)

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