Evolutionary Biology Lab

Evolution & Ecology Research Centre and School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales


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 Previous years     

      

   

 Lab News

     

22/11/2024: Vicky Ying and Caitlin Creak presented their research at the BEES Student Research Forum


4/11/2024: Soleille Miller gave her PhD Exit Seminar

     

     


10/09/2024: Congratulations to Soleille Miller on submitting her PhD thesis!

     

    

    


2/08/2024: Daniela Wilner, Caitlin Creak and Soleille Miller gave talks at the Evolution2024 meeting in Montreal.


3/07/2024: Soleille Miller gave a talk at the Genetics Society of Australasia conference at Macquarie University.


26/02/2024: Congratulations to Ana Vasconcelos on completing her PhD!


15/12/2023: Congratulations to Caitlin Creak and Daniela Wilner on winning awards for their talks at the Australasian Evolution Society meeting at the University of Adelaide.

Congratulations to Jigmidmaa Boldbaatar and Soleille Miller, who also gave great talks at the conference.


4/12/2023: Lab dinner


22/11/2023: Congratulations to Jigmidmaa Boldbaatar on winning the Outstanding Evolution & Ecology Presentation award at the Student Research Forum!

Congratulations to Daniela Wilner, Caitlin Creak and Soleille Miller on giving great talks on their PhD research!

Congratulations to Kristin Hubakk and Vicky Ying on giving excellent talks on their Honours projects!


18/07/2023: Soleille gave a great talk on her work on the genomics of facultatively asexual stick insects at the International Congress of Genetics in Melbourne

 


12/07/2023: Work led by Soleille Miller explores what happens to genomes and traits of natural populations of stick insects when they transition from sexual to asexual reproduction


ASSAB2023: Congratulations to Caitlin Creak on winning an award for her very creative poster!

Congratulations to undergraduate student Shay Hirani and Honours student Vicky Ying on excellent first conference presentations, and to Daniela Wilner on a great presentation of some of her PhD work.


20/06/2023: Congratulations to Soleille Miller on winning the Best Overall 1-min Thesis award!


31/05/2023: Work led by Felix Zajitschek shows that dietary restriction fails to prolong life of Drosophila melanogaster under stressful conditions


13/02/2023: Lab members and friends gather for birthday cake.


17/12/2022: Jigmidmaa Boldbaatar, Daniela Wilner, and Soleille Miller gave great talks at the Australasian Evolution Society meeting at the Australian National University in Canberra.


22/11/2022: Congratulations to Daniela Wilner on winning the Outstanding Evolution & Ecology Presentation award at the Postgraduate Research Forum!


16/08/2022: Congratulations to Soleille Miller on winning the Outstanding Evolution & Ecology Presentation award at the Postgraduate Research Forum!


6/08/2022: Back from fieldwork in far-north Queensland!


23/06/2022: Daniela Wilner gave a great 1min thesis talk at the UNSW Science Postgraduate Research Showcase


1/06/2022: Cold PhD students at the Evolution & Ecology Research Centre Writing Retreat, Smith's Lake Field Research Station


27/04/2022: Lab meeting


7/03/2022: Jigmidmaa, Daniela and Soleille completed a successful fieldwork trip to far-north Queensland.


19/01/2022: Jigmidmaa Boldbaatar has successfully completed her MSc!


15/12/2021: Lab dinner 2021


2-3/12/2021: Ana Vasconcelos, Soleille Miller and Daniela Wilner gave great talks at the Australasian Evolution Society meeting at Monash University.


1/11/2021: Congratulations to Jigmidmaa Boldbaatar on submitting her MSc thesis!


11/06/2021: Congratulations to Dr. Zac Wylde on his superb PhD Exit Seminar!


26/05/2021: Our first face-to-face lab meeting since early 2020, now that Daniela Wilner and Soleille Miller are finally at UNSW!


7/05/2021: Congratulations to Dr. Erin Macartney on her excellent PhD Exit Seminar and graduation!


A successful field-trip to far-north Queensland!


10/12/2020: Lab dinner


4/12/2020: Jigmidmaa Boldbaatar gave a talk at the Australasian Evolution Society meeting.


7/10/2020: Welcome to new PhD students Daniela Wilner and Soleille Miller!


30/09/2020: Ana Vasconcelos gave a talk at the Australasian Society for the Study of Animal Behaviour conference.


12/08/2020: Zac Wylde published an article on ageing in The Conversation

 


11/08/2020: Jigmidmaa gave a nice talk on her research at the recent Postgraduate Research Forum.


28/02/2020: Congratulations to Erin Macartney on winning the EERC Impact Paper Award! Also congratulations to Zac Wylde on winning the runner up award for the Outstanding Evolution and Ecology Student Paper of 2019.


02/2020: Fieldwork in far-north Queensland


18/12/2019: Hunting flies north of Sydney

 


27/11/2019: Congratulations to Erin on her wonderful student plenary talk, and Zac, Ana and Nathan on their excellent talks and posters at the Australasian Evolution Society conference at UNSW!

 


18/11/2019: Lab dinner


24/10/2019: Lab meeting, fuelled by Jigmidmaa's traditional Mongolian pies.


23/10/2019: Congratulations to Zac Wylde, whose paper on parental age effects has been accepted for publication in PLoS Biology.


20/09/2019: Congratulations to Erin Macartney on submitting her PhD thesis!

 


16/09/2019: Congratulations to Zac Wylde on submitting his PhD thesis!


6/09/2019: Congratulations to Dr. Nathan Burke on the official conferral of his PhD and on getting a great postdoc position at the University of Auckland.


31/08/2019: Congratulations to Zac Wylde on acceptance of his paper on chemical signaling of social dominance at Animal Behaviour!


8/08/2019: Welcome to new MSc student Jigmidmaa Boldbaatar, who joins our lab from Mongolia!


31/07/2019: Lab dinner!


10/07/2019: Ana Vasconcelos, Zac Wylde and Nathan Burke gave great talks at the Australasian Society for the Study of Animal Behaviour meeting in Auckland, New Zealand.


15/05/2019: Congratulations to Dr. Amy Hooper on her PhD graduation!

 


Congratulations also to Dr. Nathan Burke on the official acceptance of his PhD by the university. 


9/05/2019: Lab meeting


4/05/2019: Congratulations to Erin Macartney on acceptance of her paper on effects of diet on sperm traits in Biological Reviews!


11/02/2019: Congratulations to Nathan Burke on winning the Outstanding Evolution and Ecology Thesis of 2018 Award!


12/02/2019: Welcome to new PhD student Ana Vasconcelos, who joins us from Brazil.


11/02/2019: Congratulations to Zac and Cass on their wedding!


05/02/2019: Russell and Nathan Burke studied stick insects in the Daintree rainforest.


28/11/2018: Congratulations to Nathan Burke on his great PhD Exit Seminar!


06/11/2018: Russell gave a Professorial Inaugural Lecture.


31/10/2018: Erin Macartney gave a great talk at the UNSW Postgraduate Research Forum.


24/09/2018: Congratulations to Erin Macartney, whose paper on diet effects on sperm motility in neriid flies has been accepted for publication in JEB!


19/08/2018: Nathan Burke gave a great talk at ESEB2018 in Montpellier, France.


1/08/2018: Congratulations to Erin Macartney on winning an award in the UNSW 1-minute thesis competition!


16/07/2018: Congratulations to Nathan Burke on submitting his PhD thesis!


23/04/2018: Congratulations to Amy Hooper on a great PhD Exit Seminar!


23/04/2018: Congratulations to Erin Macartney, whose paper on the costs of epigenetic parental effecs has been accepted for publication in Heredity.


27/03/2018: Dr Felix Zajitschek has joined our lab!


5/02/2018: Congratulations to Amy Hooper on winning the E&ERC Outstanding Evolution and Ecology Student Paper of 2017 award for her paper on the evolution of ageing in Evolution Letters. Nathan Burke was runner-up for his paper on the evolution of sex in TREE.


 31/01/2018: Congratulations to Amy Hooper on submitting her PhD thesis!


14/12/2017: Congratulations to Amy Hooper, whose paper on the role of sexual selection in the evolution of ageing has been accepted for publication in Evolution Letters!


5/12/2017: Nathan Burke, Erin Macartney and Zac Wylde gave great talks at the Australasian Evolution Society meeting in Hobart, Tasmania.


17/11/2017: Lab meeting


2/11/2017: Zac Wylde and Erin Macartney gave great talks at the recent Postgraduate Research Forum.


10/09/2017: Zac Wylde and Erin Macartney (pictured with Susi Zajitschek) presented their work at the Biology of Sperm meeting in Sheffield, UK.


25/08/2017: Amy Hooper, Erin Macartney and Russell presented their research at ESEB2017 in Groningen, Netherlands.


18/08/2017: Congratulations to lab alumna Margo Adler on the launch of Beaker Street, a pop-up science bar at the Tasmanian Museum in Hobart, as part of National Science Week 2017. The highly successful science-outreach event attracted thousands of people.


25/07/2017: Nathan Burke gave a talk on his research at the 2017 meeting of the Australasian Society for the Study of Animal Behaviour. He also presented his work at the UNSW Faculty of Science 1-minute thesis competition.


5/06/2017: Nathan Burke gave a great talk at the mid-year Postgraduate Research Forum, and also won a prize at the bake-off competition!


5/06/2017: Congratulations to Nathan Burke on getting a paper from his PhD research accepted for publication in Trends in Ecology and Evolution!


10/05/2017: setting up the new lab...


The lab is packed up for the impending move to the new biology building!


A new lab member: the Australian leaf insect Phyllium monteithi:


4/04/2017: Congratulations to Erin Macartney on acceptance of her paper "Adult dietary protein has age- and context-dependent effects on male post-copulatory performance" for publication in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology!


23/03/2017: A rare gynandromorph (female/male mosaic) spiny leaf insect found by Nathan Burke in his stocks:


1/01/2017: Nathan Burke has published a popular article on his research in Wildlife Australia.


20/12/2016: Our paper "Ontogenetic timing as a condition-dependent life history trait: high-condition males develop quickly, peak early and age fast" has been accepted for publication in Evolution. Congratulations to Amy, Foteini et al. on their excellent work!


 13/12/2016: Congratulations to Ronda Lau, who has formally completed her Master's degree!


29/11/2016: End-of-year lab dinner


03/11/2016: Congratulations to Ronda Lau on final approval of her Masters thesis!


3/11/2016: Erin Macartney, Zac Wylde and Amy Hooper gave excellent talks at the Postgraduate Research Forum. Erin also won a prize in the baking competition. Well done!


26/10/2016: Congratulations to our collaborator (and former lab-member) Angela Crean on winning the prestigious L'Oreal Women in Science Fellowship!


13/10/2016: Matt Piper from Monash University is visiting and giving a talk on his work on dietary amino acids.


11/10/2016: Longina abdominalis, the mysterious neriid of São Paulo, has finally been captured (thanks to the efforts of Eduardo Santos of the Universidade de São Paulo and local amateur entomologist Rodrigo Lázaro). Males of this species have unusual morphology whose function is unknown. Perhaps we will soon have an answer.


5/10/2016: Neriids are featured on the cover of Functional Ecology:


25/08/2016: Russell gave a talk at Monash University.


17/08/2016: Russell gave a talk at Macquarie University.


15/08/2016: Our paper on the latent costs of high condition, by Margo Adler, Marco Telford and Russell, has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.  


5/08/2016: Welcome to Associate Professor Liran Carmel from The Hebrew University, who will be joining our lab for his sabbatical.

Liran Carmel


2/08/2016: Amy Hooper participated in the Postgraduate Research Expo 1 min thesis competition, expertly summarizing two years of research in 60 s. Great work!

 


20/07/2016: Congratulations to Aidan Runagall-McNaull on winning an APA scholarship for PhD studies. Welcome back to the lab, Aidan!


8/06/2016: Ronda Lau gave an excellent Exit Seminar and Nathan Burke gave a superb research talk at the Postgraduate Research Forum.


8/06/2016: Nathan Burke and Erin Macartney won prizes in the BEES Bake-Off.


2/06/2016: Russell gave a talk on Sex and Ageing at the Shock Summit on Personalized Geroscience in Seattle, Washington, USA.


24/05/2016: Congratulations to Ronda Lau, whose MPhil thesis has passed examination pending minor corrections!


5/04/2016: Amy Hooper will be serving on the E&ERC Student Committee.


31/03/2016: Congratulations to Ronda Lau on submitting her Master's thesis!


15/03/2016: A paper on the role of seminal fluid in the evolution of mate choice by Angela Crean, Margo Adler and Russell in Trends in Ecology and Evolution is featured by National Geographic, the ABC, Science Daily and other media.


14/03/2016: Erin Macartney is starting PhD studies. Welcome back!


4/03/2016: Long-time collaborator Troy Day (Queen's University, Canada) was here for a 10-day visit.

 


4/03/2016: Congratulations to Nathan Burke on winning the E&ERC Outstanding Evolution and Ecology Postgraduate Researcher Award!


22/01/2016: A paper on the nutritional geometry of parental effects by Aidan Runagall-McNaull, Angela Crean and Russell has been accepted for publication in Functional Ecology.


13/01/2016: Amy Hooper's paper on sperm allocation in squid (from her Honours) has just been published in Animal Behaviour. Her work is featured by Monash University News, and the Daily Mail (UK).


17/12/2015: Congratulations to Angela Crean on accepting a very prestigious postdoctoral fellowship position at the University of Sydney!


11/12/2015: Congratulations to Angela Crean on winning the UNSW Faculty of Science Early Career Research Excellence Award!


12/11/2015: End-of-year lab dinner


11/11/2015: Claire Santhaseelan and Kumudika Gunaratne gave their Honours Final Seminars.


05/11/2015: Amy Hooper and Zac Wylde gave talks at the Postgraduate Research Forum.


Congratulations to Amy Hooper, whose first paper has been accepted for publication in Animal Behaviour!


Congratulations to Nathan Burke on winning a place on the Australian team at the Linnaean Games, to be held at the 2016 meeting of the Entomological Society of America in Orlando, Florida, USA.


27-30/09/2015: Nathan Burke gave an invited talk on his research at the Australian Entomological Society meeting in Cairns.


18/09/2015: Russell served as "opponent" at Rob Griffin's PhD defense at Uppsala University, Sweden. Rob's thesis was on the genetic architecture of sexual dimorphism, and he was supervised by Urban Friberg.


23/08/2015: Angela Crean gave an invited talk at the annual scientific meeting of the Endocrine Society of Australia and the Society for Reproductive Biology in Adelaide.


21-22/08/2015: Angela Crean and Russell joined a group of collaborators from UNSW and the University of Sydney to ponder the evolution of pre-eclampsia.


Congratulations to Nathan Burke on being runner-up for the 2015 Phil Carne Prize from the Australian Entomological Society for his recent paper in Animal Behaviour.


09-14/08/2015: Most of the lab presented their work at Behaviour2015 in Cairns, Qld.


Congratulations to Erin Macartney on successfully completing her Masters degree!


22-25/06/2015: Field-work in Brazil (with Glauco Machado, Eduardo Santos and Solimary García Hernández from the Universidade de São Paulo).


26-30/06/2015: Amy Hooper, Foteini Spagopoulou and Russell presented talks at Evolution 2015 in Guarujá, Brazil.


Congratulations to Nathan Burke on placing 1st in the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center's Evolution Film Festival with his video "Escaping the sex trap: Can female resistance promote the loss of sex?".


Congratulations to Nathan Burke on his runner-up award for Best E&ERC Talk at the June Postgraduate Research Forum.


Congratulations to former Honours student Aidan Runagall-McNaull, whose first paper has been accepted for publication in Scientific Reports


Lab meeting 02/04/2015


Evolution & Ecology Research Centre awards 2015: The paper in Ecology Letters by Angela Crean and co-authors won the High-impact Paper Award, and Russell won the Supervisor Excellence Award.


Welcome to new Honours students Kumudika Gunaratne and Claire Santhaseelan.


Congratulations to Erin and Ange, whose paper on imaging of sperm movement has been published in the journal Microscopy and Microanalysis.


Congratulations to Nathan, whose first paper has been published in Animal Behaviour, and featured in NewScientist.


Lab dinner 2014


Congratulations to Ronda, Erin and Amy on their great talks at the recent Postgraduate Research Forum.


Congratulations to Nathan Burke on winning the Crispin Rice Prize for Outreach and Communication in Evolution and Ecology!


Research led by Angela Crean has shown for the first time that individuals can 'inherit' features from a previous mate of their mother who is not their genetic father. Featured by National Geographic, BBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, The Guardian,The Telegraph, The Washington Post, Science Daily, Esquire.


Amy and Foteini set up a large experiment on male reproductive ageing in neriid flies.


Nathan Burke's short film The Edge won first prize at the Footprints Eco-Film Festival.


Lab Discussion Group (a.k.a. Cake Eating Group), 14/08/2014


Congratulations to Erin Macartney and Angela Crean on their highly-acclaimed presentations at ISBE2014 in New York City.


Margo Adler's paper on dietary restriction and ageing in BioEssays has been featured on UNSW News, ABC News, ScienceDaily, Medical News Today, Scientific American, and many other media.


Thanks to Margo and Ange for the wonderful tie, which features spines on a beetle penis (dissected by Luis Cayetano). Finally, Russell owns a tie and can look respectable at special occasions.


6/11/2013: Congratulations to Oscar, Nathan and Aidan on their fantastic Honours exit seminars!


Lab dinner 2013


30/10/2013: We celebrated the (near-) completion of Honours projects at our lab picnic above Coogee beach. It was a very hard day.


2/10/2013:  Most of the lab attended the Australasian Evolution Society meeting in Geelong, Vic. Nathan, Angela, Lára, Erin, Oscar and Aidan all gave excellent talks. We also encountered some of the local wildlife. Congratulations to Nathan on being chosen as runner-up for the Best Student Talk award!


13/09/2013: Russell gave a talk at the National University of Singapore.


After their careers in research, some of Nathan Burke's stick insects retired to a good home at Tigger's Childcare. Apparently, they're very happy there.


Angela Crean, Lára Hallsson and Margo Adler presented their work at the recent European Society for Evolutionary Biology meeting in Lisbon. Russell gave a talk at this year's Queenstown Research Week meeting on epigenetics in Queenstown, New Zealand.


Welcome to visiting student Tsai-Ming Lu from the OIST Graduate School in Okinawa, Japan. On his first visit to the lab, Tsai-Ming was treated to Nathan's fabulous mealworm cookies.


Congratulations to Angela Crean on being a National Finalist in Fresh Science 2013! After winning in the state finals, Ange headed to Melbourne to participate in the finals on 22 July.


Ever wanted to know how to sniff a spiny leaf insect? Here's how it's done (all part of serious research by Nathan Burke on sexual conflict in facultatively asexual animals).


Congratulations to Ange and Joel on their wedding!


Congratulations to Margo Adler on winning the Outstanding Evolution and Ecology Thesis of 2012 award and the Crispin Rice Prize for Outreach and Communication in Evolution and Ecology! Margo received her awards at the Evolution & Ecology Research Centre awards ceremony on Friday, 8th of March.


Welcome to new students Chris Allister, Nathan Burke, Oscar Lee, Erin Macartney and Aidan Runagall-McNaull.


Congratulations to Elizabeth Cassidy on submission of her Masters thesis, and her excellent Exit Seminar


Congratulations to Margo Adler on submission of her PhD thesis, and her highly successful Exit Seminar


Russell has received an ARC Future Fellowship for 2012-2016


Elizabeth Cassidy and Russell gave talks at the First Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology in Ottawa (July 6-11, 2012)


Russell attended a meeting on the evolution of genomic imprinting at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, USA


Angela Crean has received an ARC DECRA fellowship and grant  for 2012-14


Eleanor Bath won the 2012 Rhodes Scholarship for PhD studies at Oxford University


Margo Adler won the Best Talk award at a recent Postgraduate Research Forum


Elizabeth Cassidy gave a talk at the 2011 meeting of the Australasian Evolution Society in Townsville



Recent publications

Boldbaatar, J., Vasconcelos, A.C.O., Burke, N.W. and Bonduriansky, R. 2025. Could adult or juvenile dispersal shape geographical parthenogenesis? Evidence from the facultatively parthenogenetic phasmid Megacrania batesiiEvolutionary Ecology

Raynal, R. S., Bonduriansky, R., and Schwanz, L. E. 2024. The impact of acclimation on standard and maximum metabolic rate in a small freshwater fish. Ecological and Evolutionary Physiology

Ying, W.C.V., Wilner, D., Adler, L., Wylde, Z. and Bonduriansky, R. 2024. Male-female chemical interactions in a facultatively parthenogenetic stick insectEthology 130 (10): e13503

Miller, S., Wilner, D., Boldbaatar, J., Burke, N.W., Rollins, L.A. and Bonduriansky, R. 2024. Does ecology shape geographical parthenogenesis? Evidence from the facultatively parthenogenetic stick insect Megacrania batesii. Ecology & Evolution 14: e70145.

Hubakk, K., Wylde, Z. and Bonduriansky, R. 2024. Can developmental plasticity shape sexual competition and promote reproductive isolation? Behavioral Ecology 35 (4): arae047.

Boughman, J.W., Brand, J.A., Brooks, R.C., Bonduriansky, R. and Wong, B.B.M. 2024. Sexual selection and speciation in the Anthropocene. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 39(7): 654-665.

Miller, S.M., Stuart, K.C., Burke, N.W., Rollins. L.A. and Bonduriansky, R. 2024. Genetic and phenotypic consequences of local transitions between sexual and parthenogenetic reproduction in the wild. The American Naturalist 203: 727511.

Crino, O., Bonduriansky, R., Martin, L. and Noble, D. 2023. A conceptual framework for understanding stress-induced physiological and transgenerational effects on population responses to climate change. Evolution Letters qrad037.

Zajitschek, F., Zajitschek, S.R.K., Vasconcelos, A.C.O. and Bonduriansky, R. 2023. Dietary restriction fails to extend life in stressful environments. Functional Ecology 37:2459–2470.

Piper, M.D.W., Zanco, B., Sgrò, C.M., Adler, M.I., Mirth, C.K. and Bonduriansky, R. 2023. Dietary restriction and lifespan: adaptive reallocation or somatic sacrifice? FEBS Journal https://doi.org/10.1111/febs.16463

Bonduriansky, R. 2023. Australia's Amazing Insects. Australian Wildlife 2023(2): 23-26.

Full publication list (with pdf reprints)
© Russell Bonduriansky 2024