Naturally Speaking

We hope that the UK will never see another major livestock disease outbreak such as foot and mouth disease or avian influenza. But if we do, we will be much better prepared to deal with it thanks to EPIC, the Centre of Expertise on Animal Disease Outbreaks. This interdisciplinary group of researchers from several Scottish institutions, including researchers from the Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health & Comparative Medicine, use a range of approaches to understand and mitigate disease spread to inform policy on control strategies, e.g. using animal movement data to simulate how an introduced disease would likely spread under various scenarios.

In this episode, Naturally Speaking’s Lucy Gilbert, also a member of EPIC, speaks with Prof Dominic Mellor and Dr Theo Pepler about the important work being done by this group towards emergency preparedness for livestock disease outbreaks in Scotland.  

This podcast was edited by Lucy Gilbert and Taya Forde.

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Feature image: Original artwork courtesy of PhD researcher Eleni Christoforou, 2019©

Intro and outro music sampled from: “The Curtain Rises” and “Early Riser” Kevin MacLeod [CC BY 3.0]

https://naturallyspeaking.blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/ana-payo-payo.mp3 In March, the Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine hosted seminar speaker and workshop facilitator Dr Ana Payo Payo from the University of Aberdeen. In this episode, Naturally Speaking’s Lucy Gilbert and Martina Quaggiotto speak with Ana about her research on the migration patterns of shags – a particularly interesting species of seabird – off the Scottish coast. Dr Payo Payo also tells us about her involvement in Homeward Bound, a unique leadership programme that empowers women in science to fight against climate change.

This podcast was edited by Lucy Gilbert and Taya Forde.

Don’t forget you can subscribe to automatically receive all our latest content, or just our podcasts. We are also available on iTunes and other podcast catchers.

Feature image: Original artwork courtesy of PhD researcher Eleni Christoforou, 2019©

Intro and outro music sampled from: “The Curtain Rises” and “Early Riser” Kevin MacLeod [CC BY 3.0]

For International Women’s Day this year, the Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health & Comparative Medicine celebrated with a special social event in the museum, where an extra special speech was given by one of our highly respected senior academics. In this episode, we capture the highlights of Prof Pat Monaghan‘s Women’s Day talk, wherein she speaks about her career in academia and the challenges she has overcome as a woman in science. Be sure to listen all the way through – Pat’s inspirational rap is not to be missed!

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This podcast was produced by Ellen Hughes, Jenni McIntyre and Taya Forde.

Feature image: Original artwork courtesy of PhD researcher Eleni Christoforou, 2019©

Intro and outro music sampled from: “The Curtain Rises” and “Early Riser” Kevin MacLeod [CC BY 3.0]

The aquaculture industry is growing at a rapid rate, but our understanding of the factors that contribute to fish ‘performance’ – that is, how to ensure optimal health and growth – is not keeping pace. Rather than conduct costly field experiments, researchers at the Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health & Comparative Medicine are taking a different approach. Join us as we speak to Dr Martin Llewellyn and PhD candidate Raminta Kazlauskaite about their project SalmoSim, in which they have developed an artificial salmon gut. While it sounds like something out of Franken-fish, they see this system being used for a range of applications, from studying drug stability, to the effects of pre- and pro-biotics on the microbiome, to antimicrobial resistance transfer, and ultimately to differences in fish performance through the use of different feeds. Tune in to find out more!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to automatically receive all our latest content, or just our podcasts. We are also available on iTunes and other podcast catchers.

This podcast was produced by Lydia Bach and Taya Forde.

Feature image: Original artwork courtesy of PhD researcher Eleni Christoforou, 2019©

Intro and outro music sampled from: “The Curtain Rises” and “Early Riser” Kevin MacLeod [CC BY 3.0]

Imagine being able to predict the reservoir species for a newly-found virus just from its genetic code. Using cutting edge machine learning techniques, that is precisely what researchers from the University of Glasgow’s Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health & Comparative Medicine and the Centre for Virus Research have managed to do. Join us in this episode of Naturally Speaking as we speak with Simon Babayan and Daniel Streicker about their recent paper in Science.

The paper discussed in this podcast is: Babayan S, Orton R and Streicker DG. Predicting reservoir hosts and arthropod vectors from evolutionary signatures in RNA virus genomes. Science, 2018; 362 (6414): 577-580.

Don’t forget you can subscribe to automatically receive all our latest content, or just our podcasts. We are also available on iTunes and other podcast catchers.

This podcast was edited by Keila Meginnis and Taya Forde.

Feature image: Original artwork courtesy of PhD researcher Eleni Christoforou, 2019©

Intro and outro music sampled from: “The Curtain Rises” and “Early Riser” Kevin MacLeod [CC BY 3.0]

https://naturallyspeaking.blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/discovery_ep2.mp3

Join us again aboard the Royal Research Ship Discovery, cruising towards the mid-Atlantic to an area known as the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone. As we heard in the previous episode, this unique cruise brought together researchers from multiple disciplines to apply their specialist skills to collect data in the region. In this episode we hear from scientists bridging the gap between the physical oceanography, the chemistry and primary production, and the ecological roles of cephalopod molluscs.

We begin by hearing from Dr. Igor Belkin, our onboard Oceanographer. Igor talks us through the physical features of the ocean and in particular one of his passions, ocean fronts. Fronts – where two water masses meet – play an important role both in regulating Earth’s climate and in nutrient cycling. Which leads us on to our next team of scientists.

Dr. Tom Browning and Ali Al-Hashem from GEOMAR worked around the clock in the ship’s laboratories. Their aim: to collect samples of water continually as we cruised. Tom and Ali are interested in the nutrient content of the region. Nutrient availability in the ocean is a limiting factor in the growth of algae (phytoplankton), an indicator of primary productivity and a foundational food source for other organisms further up the food-chain. Ali is also interested in looking at the chemical signature of the guano of seabirds the seabird team catch. Little is known about the role higher apex predators such as seabirds play in nutrient cycling in the oceans.

Last, but definitely not least we hear from Dr. Vladimir Laptikhovsky, expert in cephalopod molluscs. Vlad tells us about the importance of cephalopods in the oceans, particularly deep-sea squids, their role in nutrient cycling, and their importance in the diets of apex predators. We also learn how identifying species of squid from a seabird regurgitate sample is a challenging process!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to automatically receive all our latest content, or just our podcasts. We are also available on iTunes and other podcast catchers.

This podcast series was designed, recorded and narrated by Julie Miller, and edited by Taya Forde.

Feature image: Sunset on board the Royal Research Ship Discovery, courtesy of Julie Miller.

Intro and outro music sampled from: “The Curtain Rises” and “Early Riser” Kevin MacLeod [CC BY 3.0]

https://naturallyspeaking.blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/zoology_museum.mp3

This podcast celebrates the past, present and future of the Hunterian Zoology Museum located in the Graham Kerr Building at the University of Glasgow. And who better than our Museum’s specialist curator to reveal the life and times of this majestic place? In this Naturally Speaking episode, Maggie Reilly tells Naturally Speaking editor Martina Quaggiotto all about the history of our Zoology Museum – from its creation in 1923 by architect John Burnet supervised by Professor Sir Graham Kerr, to its current role in providing an invaluable resource for both teaching and research at the University of Glasgow.

The collection, which started with William Hunter’s personal specimens, now comprises around 600,000 specimens. It is a great showcase for the animal world – including existing and extinct species – and highlights its diversity.

If you are interested in any aspects of the museum’s history, its architecture and various curious anecdotes of our Zoology Museum (did you know that Stephen Jay Gould came to visit it himself?) or more generally how museum specimens are collected, stored and what biological information they can provide, please listen to this Naturally Speaking podcast!

Don’t forget you can subscribe to automatically receive all our latest content, or just our podcasts. We are also available on iTunes and other podcast catchers.

This podcast was recorded, edited and produced by Naturally Speaking contributors Martina Quaggiotto and Taya Forde.

Feature image courtesy of M. Quaggiotto, 2018.

Intro and outro music sampled from: “The Curtain Rises” and “Early Riser” Kevin MacLeod [CC BY 3.0]

https://naturallyspeaking.blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/rod-page-final.mp3

Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health & Comparative Medicine researcher Prof Rod Page was recently awarded the Ebbe Nielsen prize for his proposal to help document the biodiversity of Australia by linking a variety of open sources of data. Tune in to hear about the challenges and opportunities associated with the exciting field of ‘biodiversity informatics’ – tapping into big data to document the variety of life on our planet in more connected ways.

Don’t forget you can subscribe to automatically receive all our latest content, or just our podcasts. We are also available on iTunes and other podcast catchers.

This podcast was recorded, edited and produced by Naturally Speaking contributors Kirsty McWhinnie and Taya Forde.

Feature image: Original artwork courtesy of PhD researcher Eleni Christoforou, 2018©

Intro and outro music sampled from: “The Curtain Rises” and “Early Riser” Kevin MacLeod [CC BY 3.0]

https://naturallyspeaking.blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/vector_control.mp3

Malaria – a disease transmitted between people by mosquitoes – remains a major cause of death globally, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. While recent efforts to control mosquitoes have been very successful in reducing malaria, particularly insecticide-treated bed nets, mosquito populations seem to be persisting. In this episode of Naturally Speaking, editors Ellen Hughes and Taya Forde are joined by Institute researcher Prof Heather Ferguson, along with her long-time collaborator, Dr Nico Govella of Ifakara Health Institute, Tanzania. Tune in as we learn about their work on understanding mosquito ecology using a unique semi-field system design known as a ‘mesocosm’ (aka Mosquito City). Be sure to stick with us until the end to hear some great stories about the challenges of fieldwork!

The paper discussed in the article is Ng’habi et al. (2018) Nature Scientific Reports 8:13949.

Don’t forget you can subscribe to automatically receive all our latest content, or just our podcasts. We are also available on iTunes and other podcast catchers.

Feature image: Original artwork courtesy of PhD researcher Eleni Christoforou, 2018©

Intro and outro music sampled from: “The Curtain Rises” and “Early Riser” Kevin MacLeod [CC BY 3.0]

https://naturallyspeaking.blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/discovery1.mp3

On the 6th June 2017, an international team of scientists led by Dr. Ewan Wakefield departed Southampton on the Royal Research Ship Discovery. Their cruise number was DY080 and their aim was to gather multiple data from an area in the mid-Atlantic where the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone (CGFZ) interrupts the mid-Atlantic ridge between the Azores and Iceland. In this area, polar and southern waters meet and form a perennial but moving front. Major fronts of the world’s oceans support relatively high levels of primary and secondary production and tend to be important foraging hotspots for wide-ranging higher predators, such as pelagic seabirds. Ewan and colleagues observed that tracking data highlighted the sub-Polar Front of the North Atlantic as a potentially important area for both migratory and locally-breeding seabirds. In particular, the complex region of the sub-polar front south of the CGFZ, where the North Atlantic Current crosses the mid-Atlantic ridge, is targeted by seabirds from multiple populations. In addition, a small but growing body of evidence suggests that other wide-ranging taxa, including cetaceans, tuna and marine turtles, also aggregate south of the CGFZ. As evidence from tracking data mounts, Bird Life International is preparing to submit a proposal to OSPAR to designate this area as an Important Bird Area.

The cruise route (yellow), with the North Atlantic Current (green). The proposed Important Bird Area (pink). The Scientific Team (bottom right). From left to right: Igor Belkin, Vladimir Laptikhovsky, Paulo Catry, Ali Al-Hashem, Holly Hogan, Simon Pinder, Julie Miller, Ewan Wakefield, Paloma Carvalho, Laura Thompson, Nadya Ramirez-Martinez, Marguerite Tarzia, Guilherme Bortolotto de Oliveira, Claire Lacey, and Tom Browning.

Despite these advances in tracking data, very few direct observations have been made of higher predators in the CGFZ. As a result there is a lack of information on predator distribution, abundance and diet – information that is necessary for effective management and protection. Observational evidence would also serve to address fundamental ecological questions, such as how oceanic higher predators partition niches, how they connect disparate ecosystems and how these processes are affected by climate change.

In this episode, we hear from PSO (Principal Scientific Officer) Dr. Ewan Wakefield and Marguerite Tarzia representing Birdlife International on the cruise. Together, they explain the motivation behind the research and how a multi-disciplinary team ended up on a ship heading off to the middle of the ocean…

The NERC flag catching the ‘breeze’ on the RRS Discovery (Photo: Julie Miller)

Cruise DY080 forms part of a UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)-funded project Seabirds and wind – the consequences of extreme prey taxis in a changing climate, which aims to quantify the past and future distributions and ecosystem roles of pelagic seabirds in the CGFZ and similar areas.

Don’t forget you can subscribe to automatically receive all our latest content, or just our podcasts. We are also available on iTunes and other podcast catchers.

This podcast series was designed, recorded and narrated by Julie Miller, and edited by Martina Quaggiotto and Taya Forde.

Feature image: Royal Research Ship Discovery, courtesy of Julie Miller.

Music during the podcast from “(Another) Swan Song” by The New Mystikal Troubadours, accessed from freemusicarchive.org.

Intro and outro music sampled from: “The Curtain Rises” and “Early Riser” Kevin MacLeod [CC BY 3.0]