Landscape Genomics, never stop learning

You all have heard the saying “You never stop learning in life”, haven’t you? Well, it is actually true. Not only we learn from our daily experiences, but we are constantly attending courses to become better at what we already do or learn new things, being it some hobby or improving our professional skills. This is exactly what I will be doing this week in Berlin, together with people from all over the world (4 continents represented, how cool!!). We’re attending a course in Landscape Genomics held by Stéphane Joost and organised by Physalia courses. Never stop improving yourself!!

Scientific communication

Last week I attended a workshop on Open Science and Responsible Research organised by Starbios2 and the University of Primorska. While this week I was in Brussels for a course on Science Communication held by the COST Academy. It is good to know that there is a growing interest in the whole idea of making scientific results available to everyone. And it helps to know I’m not the only one feeling I need to improve myself in this direction. Thank you to the organisers for the opportunity and to all the fellow attendees for sharing ideas, experiences and challenges, we’ll get better with practice and collaborations.

Hybridization in European Ungulates

With some colleagues, I recently published a review paper on hybridization in European ungulates. What we found is that, albeit geographically patchy, hybridisation is relatively common in several ungulate taxa. Despite reported changes in phenotype and fitness‐related traits in some species, the consequences of hybridisation for adaptation, life history, and evolutionary potential still remain largely unknown. However, considering the current conservation paradigm aiming at preventing the spread of domestic or non‐native genes in native populations, we suggest that conservation plans should: 1) determine the genetic origin of possible source populations; 2) protect native populations from the risk of crossbreeding with non‐native ones, and 3) establish permanent monitoring. There still work to be done and things to discover, but we have all the tools do to it. Let’s do it fellow conservationists and wildlife managers!

Addressing the academic needs of refugees

I have just found out about the S.U.C.RE. project and I would like to share it with you. It’s coordinated by Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in collaboration with  the University of Cologne (Universität zu Köln), VU Amsterdam (Vrije Universeteit Amsterdam) as well as the Greek Council for Refugees. The project focuses on the response of Universities to the academic needs of refugees and migrants, both students and scholars. However, they are also trying to develop good practices and work for the psychosocial integration/support of refugees and migrants as well as their proper information on legal and health issues. I think this is a great initiative and I’m sure we will all benefit from it.

Training schools

A couple of really interesting training schools came to my attention this week. One will be based at the Federal Research Institute for Animal Health (Greifswald-Insel Riems, Germany) and aims at informing veterinarians on how to conduct epidemiological investigations in case of an African Swine Fever outbreak (more info here). It will take place in June (26th -28th) and the application deadline is 25th May.

The other will be at Wageningen University (Wageningen, the Netherlands) and will provide hands-on sessions on both wet and dry lab for ChIP-seq for functional animal genome analysis (more info in this PDF). It will be held in June as well (25th -29th) and the deadline for applications is 15th May.

I know some of the teachers, and I am sure they will both be awesome! So, if you’re interested in one of these topics, I would recommend them.

What can you do with a zoology degree?

I’ve been asked similar questions quite often recently and sometimes it is difficult to give an answer that is supporting and honest at the same time. So I found it interesting to read the reflections of a student who has a clear view of what she wants and explores the possibility with a critical mind.

Barreleye Zoology

Is a question I’ve been thinking a lot about recently.

I went into the final Bio Enterprise and Employability workshop, the Careers Café, hoping to gain some answers to this question.

The panel consisted of five Bangor graduates:

• Bethan Wynne Jones (2014 graduate, completed a masters Wetland Science and Conservation). Ecosystem and Climate Change officer at the Snowdonia National Park.
• Graham French (completed a Marine Biology degree in 1998, then a PGCSE in Outdoor Activities and Science in 2000). Lecturer in Education at Bangor University.
• Nia Jones (2003 graduate, completed an MSc in Ecology). The Living Seas manager at the North West Wales Wildlife Trust.
• Jon Cannon (1998 graduate, studied Marine Zoology). A Process Manager at Dŵr Cymru (Welsh Water).
• Rhys Morgan (2012 graduate, completed a Masters in Zoology). The animal care technician at Bangor University.

Each speaker talked about their career after finishing studying at Bangor University, and gave advice about…

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The power of technology

Technological improvements are changing the way we do science and research, in many ways. Today, I went with my students to Randers Regnskov where Ole, Julie and Helena explained us how cryopreservation works and how they are doing it. So an important technological implementation to support the conservation of endangered species. But technology can also bring together scientist living and working in different places. We had the pleasure of having a guest lecture by Mike Bruford from Cardiff University today. And with “from Cardiff University” I literally mean he was in Cardiff while giving the guest lecture! He explained us how the Frozen Ark Project aims at implementing the cryopreservation technologies for the very same purpose of preserving biodiversity and supporting endangered species conservation. The project additionally plans to support the establishment of an international network to make all information available and understand which species are most in need of sampling. Please check the website to learn more and find out how you can support.

Thank you Julie, Helena, Ole and Mike for your time and explanations, and thank you Julie and Mafalda for your help and work in setting this all up. It would have not been possible without you!

Balanced teaching. Can we make our teaching more effective for students and ourselves?

I wrote a few years ago about our overhaul of Intro Bio at Michigan. We substantially reduced the amount of content we cover in the course (though I suspect current students would be surprised to realize that – it still feels like more than enough). We also added in more in class activities (clicker questions […]

via What if we make a class better for student learning but unsustainable for faculty? — Dynamic Ecology

 

A good friend of mine forwarded this blog post to me today. I think this is good food for thought. It is not easy to find a balance between our desire to provide the best learning experience for our students and the tight schedule we all need to juggle with. We might face different challenges, but the burden and the pressure is often the same. I think we should address this in our approach and, maybe, bring the issue to the table next time we’re re-discussing a course with the study board or the faculty. But it would also be nice to talk about it and compare challenges and solutions to improve our own approach.

Communicating science, learning from the best!

Yesterday,  I spent the day learning how to communicate science and how to use communication to support the goals of the ASF-Stop action. The course was organized by the COST Academy and thought by two real experts by Sci Connect:  Greg Foot and Jon Copley. No need to say it was an amazing experience, we learnt, had fun and took the chance to increase our network. Well, it would have been a waste not to take the chance, considering all the open minded and interesting people attending! I really hope more training will come.

Use of museum skins in genomic analyses

Yesterday, our latest paper on the use of museum skins in genomic analyses was published online by Conservation Genetic Resources. It has been a really interesting teamwork, with people form different institutions (Museums, Universities) and backgrounds collaborating for a better understanding of how population change over time. Hope you’ll like it as much as I enjoyed working on it!