February 2015 - BERG - University of Stirling Mailing Lists

Spring BERG seminars
by Kristin Descovich 07 Oct '15

07 Oct '15

Dear BERGers, Happy new year and welcome back! It's time to start planning our BERG seminars for the Spring semester. Please add the following seminar dates to your diary at the usual time of 5:30pm in the Psychology common room. February: 4th and 11th March: 11th, 18th and 25th April: 1st, 8th and 15th We already have some great speakers lined up, but have plenty of space for more, so please consider giving a seminar this semester. Presenting at BERG is an excellent way to practice talks, hone presentation skills, get feedback on grant application ideas, or lead discussion of a research paper. You can sign up by following this link to the doodle poll. https://doodle.com/5kc3zpst4bs2aty2 Please add your name and select a date that is vacant, then email me your presentation title (kristin.descovich(a)stir.ac.uk<mailto:kristin.descovich@stir.ac.uk>). You might also like to host a post-graduate student or colleague from a nearby University. We have some funds to support local travel and dinner for external speakers. Also note the upcoming divisional seminars which are likely to be of interest to BERG members. These are held on Thursdays at 4pm in the Psychology common room. January 22nd - Dr Susan Cheyne January 29th - Dr Ian Peers March 5th - Dr Jo Williams Our BERG meetings are only as good as we make them, so please encourage any students or colleagues interested in behaviour and evolution to come along to a meeting, or sign up to the BERG mailing list at http://lists.stir.ac.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/berg. You can also use this link to unsubscribe. I look forward to seeing you all at BERG this semester! Cheers and regards, Kris Dr Kris Descovich Research Fellow in Animal Welfare Psychology, School of Natural Sciences University of Stirling Stirling, FK9 4LA Scotland Tel: 01786 467643 E-mail: kristin.descovich(a)stir.ac.uk

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SCAB 2015
by Hannah Buchanan-Smith 24 Feb '15

24 Feb '15

Dear BERGers Please find attached details of this year’s Scottish Conference on Animal Behaviour (SCAB) on Saturday 28th March in St. Andrews. I very much hope that there will be good Stirling attendance – speakers and audience. ABSTRACT SUBMISSION CLOSES ON 13th MARCH. All details below/on website/facebook page. Best, Hannah From: Scab The Conference [mailto:scab.the.conference@gmail.com] Sent: 20 February 2015 13:41 To: Axel Wiberg Subject: SCAB 2015 Dear SCAB Attendee, You're receiving this e-mail because you were on a mailing list for last year's SCAB conference in Edinburgh. Hopefully you will have heard recently about the upcoming SCAB 2015 in St Andrews. We have finally come to a stage where we can start collecting registrations and talk/poster submissions for the upcoming conference at the the end of March (Saturday 28th). Registration for conferences here at St Andrews is required to go through our Online Shop service. I would therefore direct your attention to the link below where you will be able to pay the registration fee and submit abstracts and titles for your talks. You can also enter dietary information and other essentials. SCAB website here<http://onlineshop.st-andrews.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=1&d…> You can keep up to date with further developments on Facebook as well, search for "SCAB 2015" I've also been contacted by Mike Hansell who is compiling a history of the SCAB meetings. He informs me that the first meeting was held in 1976 here in St Andrews. He has asked me to include a call for information from attendees who are willing to contribute. "SCAB is Forty but has no history! You can help find it. The first meeting of SCAB was in the University of St Andrews in 1976; so this year’s meeting on 28th March in St Andrews is a historic event. The problem is that SCAB has no history. The great success of SCAB has been the opportunity it has given to younger researchers to present their work in a critical yet informal environment. It has also given valuable experience to conference organisers, its informal arrangements allowing the meeting to pass annually from one University to the next on a ‘your turn I think’ basis. It travels light, leaving its history behind it. But, I believe that history is important and I am now trying to rescue what I can of it. I plan to lodge this information in the Archive of the University of Glasgow and I am now asking you if you can provide information that will fill in gaps that currently exist in my record on where the meetings were held, the programme of speakers and posters and the Conference organisers. I will be contacting you directly towards the end of February with further details of the aim of this project and also a spreadsheet showing what I currently know and do not know of past meetings. Please look at these two items and contact me with any information you think might help. SCAB needs a history! Mike Hansell IBAHCM, University of Glasgow, G12 8QQ Mike.Hansell(a)glasgow.ac.uk<mailto:Mike.Hansell@glasgow.ac.uk>" Please forward this message on to any of your colleagues and friends who would be interested in attending or giving a talk at SCAB. I've also attached a conference poster to this e-mail and I would be grateful if you could put it up in your departments (if one is not already up) to advertise the event. Should you have any further questions you can reply to this e-mail or write directly to raww(a)st-andrews.ac.uk<mailto:raww@st-andrews.ac.uk> or evg(a)st-andrews.ac.uk<mailto:evg@st-andrews.ac.uk> We're looking forward to seeing you all here in St Andrews soon, Best wishes, The SCAB Team

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FW: Monday seminar - Public attitudes and involvement, conservation conflicts, and science-policy interfaces
by Hannah Buchanan-Smith 18 Feb '15

18 Feb '15

This looks like an interesting seminar..... --------------- The seminar on Monday (23rd Feb) will be by Juliette Young (CEH, Edinburgh)..... 12 noon in A6 (Cottrell building). Juliette has been leading on some really interesting interdisciplinary work and has on-going collaborations with folk in BES. Title: Public attitudes and involvement, conservation conflicts, and science-policy interfaces Summary: This presentation will provide a whistle-stop tour of some of the interdisciplinary research we carry out at CEH Edinburgh. Topics covered will include: assessing public understanding of biodiversity and its management in Scotland; exploring stakeholder involvement in Natura 2000; managing, mapping and resolving conservation conflicts; developing effective science-policy interfaces, including an update on the IPBES. Bio: I have been working at CEH since 2002. Although I started my career as a zoologist, I have since become a mix of natural and social scientist, having done a PhD in social sciences. Most of my work now focusses on the political dimension of biodiversity conservation, with a focus on protected areas, science-policy-society dialogue and conflicts.

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Josep Call talk in Edinburgh - 24 Feb
by Hannah Buchanan-Smith 16 Feb '15

16 Feb '15

Tuesday, 24 February 12.30noon – LUNCHTIME TALK Chrystal MacMillan Building - Seminar Room 2 Josep Call, Max Planck Insitute of Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig & School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews http://www.eva.mpg.de/psycho/staff/call/ "Apes as intuitive statisticians" Abstract Numerous animal species are capable of selecting the larger of two quantities even when those are presented concurrently and fall outside either object file or subitizing range. Much less is known about animals’ ability to spontaneously estimate probabilities, an ability that should be distinguished from sensitivity to reinforcement probabilities. In this talk I will present data on how great apes estimate probabilities in tasks that require comparing two probabilities and extrapolating from populations to samples to net the highest possible payoff. These data have implications for several disciplines including comparative cognition, logic, and experimental economics. Host: Alex Weiss

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Free online course on Animal Welfare
by Hannah Buchanan-Smith 13 Feb '15

13 Feb '15

Dear Bergers This MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) on Animal Welfare offered by our colleagues in Edinburgh has just come to my attention - a week late, but still time to sign up. https://www.coursera.org/course/animal Enjoy! I know it features Living Links somewhere in it.... Best, Hannah

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Wed 11th Feb
by Kristin Descovich 10 Feb '15

10 Feb '15

Dear BERGers, This Wednesday we have a special guest all the way from Argentina. Dr Viridiana Gonzalez from the Universidad Nacional del Nordeste will be speaking on the "Environmental education program at the Corrientes Biological Research Station". Please do come along and invite any friends that may be interested. We will meet in the Psychology common room 3A94 at 5:30pm and will have drinks, nibbles and an abundance of stimulating conversation as per usual. A current BERG schedule is also attached. Hope to see you all on Wednesday night. Cheers and regards, Kris Dr Kris Descovich Research Fellow in Animal Welfare Psychology, School of Natural Sciences University of Stirling Stirling, FK9 4LA Scotland Tel: 01786 467643 E-mail: kristin.descovich(a)stir.ac.uk

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Wed 4th Feb
by Kristin Descovich 02 Feb '15

02 Feb '15

Dear BERGers, We are back to our usual meetings on Wednesday night. Kicking us off for the semester is Dr Sonia Rey Planelles from the Institute of Aquaculture with a presentation entitled "Environmental temperature and fish: What does it have to do with personality, emotions and welfare?" Please do come along, and invite any friends that may be interested. We will meet in the Psychology common room 3A94 and will have drinks and nibbles as usual. A current BERG schedule is also attached. Hope to see you all on Wednesday night. Cheers, Kris Dr Kris Descovich Research Fellow in Animal Welfare Psychology, School of Natural Sciences University of Stirling Stirling, FK9 4LA Scotland Tel: 01786 467643 E-mail: kristin.descovich(a)stir.ac.uk

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