School of Animal Biology UWA: Zoology Honours

Want to develop the skills to become an independent scientific researcher, to work effectively in a research team, to present research findings in a public forum, and to write scientific articles and reports?

The Zoology Honours course is a research intensive year that offers the development of generic research skills required to work effectively in a scientific career. The research conducted by students in the Zoology Honours year is at the cutting edge of discovery, with many research projects being published in leading international scientific journals, giving their authors the advantage in obtaining postgraduate scholarships, or research positions in the public sector.

This year you could explore troglobitic diversity in the Pilbara, contributing to knowledge of conservation strategies. You could explore evolutionary conflicts of interest between males and females, uncover the function of complex calls produced by male tree frogs, study the sex ratios of hatchlings at western Australian rookeries of marine turtles, or examine the power of sexual selection to purge populations of deleterious mutations that reduce fitness. Or you could even develop your own research program. Details of all these projects, and more, can be found in the 2010 list of research projects.

Coordinator: Leigh W Simmons

Applications due December 18th

The group project for 2010 will involve molecular and morphological tests of speciation in Rhagada snails

The “species problem” has a long history of controversy, and the choice of species concept has become increasingly important in the context of assessing biodiversity. Molecular phylogenetic analyses often disagree with morphological taxonomies, due to either convergence or conservatism of morphology. DNA barcoding has been proposed as an efficient means of distinguishing between species, but his approach assumes that the degree of distinctness and amount of divergence for COI reliably indicates biological species. There is a need for studies from a wide range of taxa, to test the consistency of different approaches to recognizing species. This project will combine morphological and molecular analyses to test for reproductive isolation between divergent forms of Rhagada land snails, the most diverse genus of snails in the Pilbara region. The taxonomy has been based entirely on morphology, and the lack of sympatry has prevented tests of reproductive isolation. Finding zones of contact between divergent forms now allows direct tests of whether morphology or degree of genetic divergence indicate biological species.
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2010 Deadlines

December 18th 2009 Applications for Honours 2010 close

Book Review 2010

Sustaining Life

Edited by Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein

Published by Oxford University Press

ISBN13:9780195175097