A big congratulations to Pat Tomkins and Nori Kawasaki on being awarded their PhDs!
Postdoc in the USA
Congratulations to Marcus Michelangeli who has been offered a postdoc position in Prof Andy Sih’s lab at UC Davis.
SETAC ECETOC Young Scientist Award 2018
Congratulations to Michael Bertram, who has received the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Europe ECETOC Young Scientist Award 2018, presented in recognition of the best Early Career platform presentation at the SETAC Europe 28th Annual Meeting in Rome, Italy. His presentation was titled ‘Exposure to the widespread androgenic steroid 17β-trenbolone alters behaviour in fish’.
A pharmaceutical pollutant alters fish reproduction
Pharmaceutical pollution is a major and growing environmental concern. Pharmaceuticals enter the environment primarily as a result of insufficient removal during wastewater treatment processes, as well as via discharge from manufacturing and disposal of unused medications. Worryingly, aquatic environments can act as a sink for these contaminants, with freshwater species therefore being particularly vulnerable. New research, led by PhD candidate Michael Bertram, has revealed for the first time that exposure to the widespread pharmaceutical pollutant fluoxetine—at levels that have been detected in freshwater systems worldwide—alters male reproductive behaviour, sperm count and body condition in a freshwater fish. Consequently, this research highlights the need for further investigation of the potential sub-lethal impacts of pharmaceutical pollution on ecological and evolutionary processes in exposed wildlife. This study was conducted in collaboration with researchers from the Development and Stem Cells Program of Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute and the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, the Department of Biological Sciences at Macquarie University, and the Department of Environmental and Marine Biology at Åbo Akademi University in Finland.
To find out more about this research, click here.
Fresh Science
Jake Martin has just finished participating in Fresh Science, a national competition that helps early-career researchers find and share their scientific discoveries. On the back of various
media training and public speaking events, Jake's PhD research was picked up by Robyn
Williams on ABC Radio National, as well as Einstein a go-go on community radio station RRR.
Well done Jake.
Scientists at the Governor’s residence
Topi and Minna were recently invited as guests of the Governor of Victoria to celebrate
Finland’s Centenary of Independence at the Governor’s residence. Both Topi and Minna first came to Monash under fellowships awarded by the Academy of Finland and have continued to maintain research links to the lab.
Congratulations Marcus!
Marcus Michelangeli is the latest PhD graduate from the lab. Well done!
Ben Guiron systematic reviews workshop
Bob is in Israel co-organising and attending a systematic reviews workshop on conservation
behaviour jointly funded by Monash University and Ben Gurion University of the Negev.
Congratulations Minna Saaristo
Minna received a grant from the Faculty of Science Advancing Women’s Success Grant
Scheme. Minna will be using the money to visit a research lab in the UK in 2018 and to cover
the cost of attending the 2018 SETAC Europe conference where she will be hosting one of
the symposia.
PhD visitors
The Wong lab is pleased to be currently co-hosting a couple PhD researchers. Reut Vardi
(Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel) will be working on learning in Lampropholis
skinks as part of a joint Monash and Ben Gurion grant. Sean Ehlman (University of California
Davis, USA) will be working on antipredator behaviours in Lampropholis skinks as part of a
grant from the National Science Foundation.
Finland stint
Bob and Topi are carrying out fieldwork in Finland during the Northern Hemisphere Summer
investigating how the distribution of nesting resource in the field affect patterns of male
settlement in sand gobies.
Lab retreat in Portsea
The Wong lab spent a couple of days bonding and cooking up a treat at Portsea this year as
part of our annual lab retreat. We were joined this year by Dr Kenyon Mobley, who has
been visiting us from the Max Plank.
Visitor from Max Planck
The Wong lab is delighted to welcome Dr Kenyon Mobley from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology. Kenyon will be working on a paper on pipefish ornamentation during his visit to Melbourne.
Antidepressants a death trap for our fish
While antidepressants may keep humans happy they are detrimental to our fish population, according to new international research led by Monash University biologists. The findings, detailed in two separate papers, were led by Honours students in the lab under the cosupervision of Dr Minna Saaristo. Congratulations to both Alisha and Jake for getting their honours research published!
Click here to see press coverage of the research.
Birds and bees shape flower colour
The ABC has just run a story on the role of bird and hymenopteran vision in the evolution of floral colouration. Read about our research, carried out in collaboration with colleagues here at Monash and RMIT, here.
Townsville fieldtrip
Members of the Wong lab went up to Townsville to collect guppies from Alligator Creek for a longitudinal experiment funded by a Discovery Grant from the Australian Research council.
American visitor
For the past several weeks, our Group has been hosting Amelia Munson (bottom right), a PhD student from Prof Andy Sih’s Group at UC Davis. Ameila has been studying the effects of a novel predator on the behaviour of feral red devil cichlids. Her visit to Australia has been funded by a prestigious East Asia Pacific Science Institute fellowship in partnership with the National Science Foundation (US) and The Australian Academy of Sciences. Today we had a lovely farewell lunch for Amelia at a spicy Korean restaurant.
Swedish summer!
As part of an ongoing collaboration between our research group and Tomas Brodin’s team at Umeå University, Minna Saaristo and Michael Bertram are currently working in Sweden investigating the impacts of pharmaceutical pollution on anxiety behaviour in European perch. While abroad, Michael has also presented a talk at the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) conference in Nantes and will present at the upcoming International Society for Behavioral Ecology (ISBE) conference in Exeter. In their spare time, Michael and Tomas have been out banding birds!
Another PhD completion
Congratulations to Nick Moran who submitted his thesis today.
Radio Marinara
Click here to listen to Bob’s interview about the sex lives of squid on Radio Marinara.