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SEB Bulletin March 2007

Interested in applying for a travel grant? Visit www.sebiology.org
Deadlines for applications for the next two rounds are: 30th June 2007 and 30th September 2007

15th FESPB Congress, Lyon, France

A Company of Biologists' Travel Fund Grant allowed me to attend the 15th FESPB Congress, Lyon, France. I gave a 15 minute presentation in one of the three parallel afternoon sessions, which was my first opportunity to speak at an international conference. The talk itself went well and the lesson I took away from the experience was that it is always good to prepare answers for obvious questions.

My talk was on the first day so I could relax and enjoy the rest of the time. There were many interesting presentations over the 5 days and my perspective was changed and broadened by hearing them. I also found the conference very good for discussions and meeting people. Some of the conversations have sparked off new ideas for my research, and I hope that my suggestions and comments to other people will contribute to their work. I was also able to meet face to face for the first time with someone I've been collaborating with by email. Many thanks for the CoB for paying for me to go.

Daniel Kinsman
University of Sheffield

World Congress of Biomechanics

Many thanks to the Company of Biologists and SEB for the grant they gave me to attend the World Congress of Biomechanics. The conference, held in Munich (29 July - 4 August 2006) was quite productive for me. I was invited to present a talk entitled 'Escaping Flatland: Three dimensional kinematics and hydrodynamics of median fins in fishes' in a special symposium on the mechanics of swimming and flying. In my talk my co-authors and I proposed a new approach to studies on fish swimming, requiring an understanding of the three-dimensional motions of fluid flow. In general, our ideas seemed well received. Additionally, I met several people whose work I have followed, but had not met in person including Dr John Dabiri from Caltech and Dr Z. Jane Wang from Cornell. I was also able to meet a collaborator, Dr Johan van Leeuwen to discuss some specifics of our collaboration. I also attended a session on neuromuscular control which is relevant to my post-doctoral work on sensorimotor integration during swimming in the lamprey, and was able to meet Dr Mark Grabiner of the University of Illinois and Dr Miriam Pijnappels of the Free University of Amsterdam, whose work on perturbations during locomotion I have followed.

Eric Tyrell
University of Maryland

Collaborative research project, "Energetic costs of diving in cormorants"

Dave Jones at The University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, hosts an impressive deep dive tank used for studying diving animals. At 10 m in depth, this tank perfectly suited our objective, to study the diving energetics and foraging behaviour of double-crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus). This species occurs throughout North America and is in many aspects similar to the European great cormorant (P. carbo). Similar also are the concerns, often misguided, that they eat large amounts of fish of commercial interest. Thus it is important to understand how these birds hunt and what their food demands really are. With travel grants from the Company of Biologists we were able to travel to Vancouver in the sunny autumn of 2006.

With Manfred's expertise and previous experience using the dive tank and working with this species, the cormorants quickly got used to diving within the tank for their food and we were able to start collecting data within just a few days of arrival - an unusual luxury with such work! We measured the energy required by these birds when diving to different depths for either sessile prey (fish pieces) or motile prey (live juvenile coho salmon, Oncorhynchus kisutch), by measuring the oxygen uptake at the surface between dives. Preliminary analysis suggests that because of the increase in heat loss with depth, deeper dives are more costly than shallow dives. Also, hunting for motile prey is more expensive than picking sessile prey items, presumably because of the cost of pursuit. We also studied how the foot-stroke frequency of a cormorant changes with depth and during the different dive phases. This was achieved by attaching an accelerometer data logger to the back of the birds during some of the trials to measure body motion. During the descent phase stroke frequency was highest, decreasing with depth as birds propelled themselves towards the bottom of the tank. At this point they travelled more horizontally and with a lower stroke frequency, taking fish pieces from the tank floor, before ascending passively.

We will also investigate whether the acceleration recordings relate to the respirometry data: if there is a positive relationship between the amount of body motion during a dive and the amount of oxygen taken up after the dive, then measurements of body motion could potentially provide information on the energetic costs for cormorants when they dive for food.

We were fortunate that the weather during our stay in Vancouver was excellent and was matched by the progress we were able to make with our experiments. We have finished up with detailed respirometry, accelerometry and observational data. Preliminary analyses of these data show that we have some interesting stories to tell on the diving behaviour and energetics of cormorants when foraging in a variety of environments.

Lewis Halsey, Craig White
(Centre for Ornithology, University of Birmingham)

Manfred Enstipp
(IPHC-DEPE/CNRS, Strasbourg)

Preferential pHi Regulation and CO2 Tolerance in Fishes of the Amazon Basin

Currently in the third year of my Ph. D., I have become interested in the relationship between CO2 tolerance and intracellular pH protection during a respiratory acidosis in fishes. With the help of an SEB award from the COB Travel Fund, I was very fortunate last August to experimentally address this research area at INPA, the National Institute for Research in the Amazon, in Manaus, Brazil. While my research to date has focused on white sturgeon, an ancient chondrostean, this research and research by others on a few fish species of fish indicate that the generally accepted pattern of acid-base regulation, where plasma pH is compensated during exposure to hypercapnia, is not the only way that fish can regulate acid-base status. A few water-breathing vertebrates (for example, white sturgeon, Acipenser transmontanus; the armored catfish, Liposarcus pardalis, the marbled swamp eel, Synbranchus marmoratus) are able regulate pHi in tissues (e.g., heart, liver) despite a large reduction in blood pH - in some cases, greater than 0.8 pH units!

The Amazonian basin represented a perfect location to ask the following question: is this seemingly rare pattern of acid-base regulation (i.e., preferential pHi regulation) associated with either CO2 tolerance or air-breathing? Cyclical and substantial increases in CO2 in the Amazon may have obliged fish to have a relatively high CO2 tolerance. Also, episodic air-breathing, which is exhibited by many Amazon fish species, likely requires high CO2 tolerance. The great diversity of fish species available in the Amazon allowed for a survey of some CO2 tolerant fishes to investigate the ubiquity of preferential pHi regulation.

Working in collaboration with Dr. C. Brauner, Dr. L. Kuchel and Linda Hanson (University of British Columbia), Dr. D. Jackson (Brown University) and Dr. A. Val (INPA), I experimentally characterized the acid-base regulatory responses of four species to severe hypercapnia. While the data collected is still being interpreted, I believe that preferential pHi regulation may not be as unusual as once suspected. This research trip was a wonderful opportunity to increase the scope of my Ph. D. and gain unique insight into comparative physiology as a graduate student. I greatly appreciate the support from the Society of Experimental Biology and the Company of Biologists.

Daniel W. Baker
Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Canada

Experimental Biology 2006

I am very grateful to the SEB in funding my trip to present a poster at Experimental Biology 2006. Presenting a poster at this event allowed me to speak to many people in my field and their constructive critique was very helpful. I was also able to see many interesting talks on work that had not yet been published. In particular, a talk by John Blenis was very relevant and the data he presented will directly affect my future work.

I also spoke to many top scientists in the field whose work I have admired for years, some of which included Gustavo Nader, Laurie Goodyear, Eva Chin and Sue Bodine. Speaking to these individuals in an informal setting has given me invaluable insight into how a scientist's career develops and progresses. The importance of maintaining an open mind and developing a broad field of knowledge was also emphasised.

During my time in San Francisco my colleagues and I had some spare time to see some of the beautiful city. We experienced Alcatraz, Peir 39, Fisherman's Warf and Ghiradelli Square. In the evenings we socialised with other postdoctoral fellows and PhD students which allowed me to see science ina different perspective and to get to know people who may be able to help me if I encounter any problems with my research.

The entire experience was not only valuable to my future development as a scientist but was also very enjoyable. Thanks again for your assistance in my travel expenses.

Lee Hamilton
Dundee University

14th Triennial Symposium of the International Society for Tropical Root Crops

The city of Thiruvananthapuram in tropical south India provided a suitable and beautiful setting for the 14th Triennial Symposium of the International Society for Tropical Root Crops. I was fortunate to present my work thanks to a travel grant from the Society for Experimental Biology and the Company of Biologists.

The conference was attended by delegates from over thirty countries and the six days were filled with over 100 talks and 120 posters that addressed the sustainable development, utilisation, production and constraints of root crops. Cassava and sweet potato are amongst the most important and provide a vital source of calories and nutrition for over 500 million people living in developing countries. The sessions included 1. Global scenario on production utilization and marketing of root crops, 2. Crop improvement and genomics for sustainable development, 3. Harvest Plus: Breeding roots and tubers for better nutrition, 4. Roots and tubers for feed and industry, 5. Biotic and abiotic stress, 6. Participatory technology development and transfer. It was invaluable to see the range of approaches that were being adopted to develop root tubers for improved farming and health. Of particular interest was work presented by Hernán Ceballos from CIAT (Colombia) who is using conventional plant breeding approaches to exploit natural variation in landraces to improve starch quality, protein and carotenoid content in cassava. Similarly, work closely linked to my project was present by Peng Zhang from ETH (Switzerland) who is developing cassava to overcome post-harvest physiological deterioration and also infection by cassava geminiviruses but through the production of transgenic plants. Important studies were also presented by Jan Low (International Potato Centre, Nairobi) about the development and marketing of orange-fleshed sweet potato that is aimed at improving vitamin C intake of children in developing countries.

Attending this conference provided an excellent opportunity for me to meet researchers with whom I had formed connections and also to establish important new contacts. Significantly, it also enabled me to meet people who have first hand experience of the problems associated with tropical root crops, consolidating the importance of forming close collaborations with institutes and research centres in developing countries to allow researchers to better understand the problems associated with root crops and enable transfer and integration of technologies.

I would like to express my thanks to the Central Tuber Crops Research Institute (Kerala, India) and the International Society for Tropical Root Crops for hosting this important event. Throughout they were excellent hosts, supplying not only an extensive scientific programme but delicious food and wonderful entertainment!

Simon Bull
University of Bath

SICB 2007

The annual SICB meeting was held in Phoenix, USA in January 2007. I would like to thank the Society for Experimental Biology and the Company of Biologists for the travel grant which helped me to attend this conference.

It was the second largest SICB on record with more than 1082 presentations including 10 symposia on a wide range of topics and more than 400 posters. One of the advantages of a conference of this size is to hear about work outside your own field study. Of particular interest for me were the sessions on feeding mechanics and the symposium with complementary sessions on evolution of feeding as for my PhD I'm especially interested in the feeding functional morphology and the evolution of motor control in lizards.

Attending this conference was an excellent opportunity to present already a part of my data and make contact with other researchers. Both my poster, entitled 'The role of lingual sensory afferents in the control of prey capture and transport in the lizard Pogona vitticeps' and my oral presentation, entitled 'Functional consequences of the loss of the lower temporal bar: a comparative study of bite forces and feeding kinematics in lepidosaurians' were selected and generated lots of interest. Talking with other researchers gave me new ideas for further experiments and probably future collaborations will occur.

So once again thank you to the SEB and CoB for their support!

Vicky Schaerlaeken
University of Antwerp

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