Science Events
The Faculty of Science has a strong commitment to the wider community and takes pride in celebrating the achievements of its academics staff/students through a wide range of events.
For science events relevant for promotion on the Science website, please submit events information.
The birds and the bees (and trees) and climate change
- VC's Research Lecture Series
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Speaker : Professor David Karoly, School of Earth Sciences
Time and Date : 6:30PM, Monday 4th August 2008
Venue : Theatre A, Elisabeth Murdoch Building (bldg 134), Parkville
Contact Details
Name : Robyn Trethowan
Phone : 8344 4392
email : dvc-research@unimelb.edu.au
Department : School of Earth Sciences
Description : The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded in 2007 that warming of the climate system is unequivocal and most of this global-average warming since the mid-20th century is very likely due to increases in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. How has this warming affected natural systems, such as plants and animals?
Observed changes in many natural systems on all continents show the expected responses to warming, such as earlier spring events or poleward range shifts. A comprehensive assessment shows that anthropogenic climate change is having a significant impact on many physical and biological systems at continental and global scales.
Mining biodiversity and genes
- VC's Research Lecture Series
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Speaker : Professor Ary Hoffmann FAA
Time and Date : 6:30PM, Monday 8th September 2008
Venue : Theatre A, Elisabeth Murdoch Building (bldg 134), Parkville
Contact Details
Name : Robyn Trethowan
Phone : 8344 4392
email : dvc-research@unimelb.edu.au
Department : Bio21 Institute
Description : DNA sequence data can now be used to provide an enormous amount of information for managing and conserving natural populations of plants and animals. In this talk I show how such data can help manage iconic species like the mountain pygmy possum, and help predict the ability of insects from rainforests and plants from Victorian alpine areas to avoid extinction under climate change. I also show how information from the DNA sequences of a range of organisms are helping ecologists to understand how species deal with the different types of stresses encountered in environments including climatic stresses. This work also yields numerous insights into the function of novel genes.