The Annual Margaret Savigear Lectures

Margaret Savigear Lectures 2021

Event details

Monday 4 March 2024
1:00pm
LT1 Alfred Denny, Alfred Denny Building, The University of Sheffield, Western Bank, Sheffield, S10 2TN
You don't need to register for this event. We look forward to seeing you on the day.

Description

The Margaret Savigear Lectures acknowledge the importance of role models to the next generation of scientists by explicitly increasing the visibility of women biologists and celebrates the importance of mentors.

The format is to invite inspirational female academics representing an early and a later career stage. Margaret Savigear received her BSc from what was then the Department of Zoology in 1939, and was awarded an MSc in 1949. Her pursuit of a postgraduate degree was unusual at the time and supported by the then Head of Department, Leonard ES Eastham.

In recognition of Professor Eastham's inspiration and mentoring, Mrs Savigear donated to the department to establish the Leonard Eastham prize for final year undergraduates to undertake a Zoology research project.

The lectures will be followed by a frank and illuminating Q&A session. This is a fantastic opportunity to ask the speakers about their research, career and get advice. Our aim with these events is to offer inspiring role models for our researchers, especially those early in their careers. If you wish to submit questions or topics to ask our speakers please do so here.

(Talks will be available online via google meet - please see the event invite in the School of Biosciences calendar for the link.)

Schedule

Time Item Location
1.00pm - 1.10pm Introductions LT1 Alfred Denny
1.10pm - 2.00pm Talk: Dr Hannah Froy, University of Edinburgh LT1 Alfred Denny
2.10pm - 3.00pm Talk: Professor Katy Heath, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign LT1 Alfred Denny
3.00pm - 3.30pm Refreshments and informal discussions Alfred Denny Conference Room
3.30pm - 4.15pm Q&A with early career researchers Alfred Denny Conference Room

Lecture Abstracts

Dr Hannah Froy, University of Edinburgh

Title: Sex-specific effects of early-life adversity on adult fitness in a wild mammal population

Abstract: The conditions experienced during early life can have long-term repercussions for organismal health and fitness. In systems with strong sexual selection, males may be more sensitive to adverse early-life conditions owing to their greater nutritional requirements, more rapid growth trajectories, and the development of costly secondary sexual characteristics. The long-term study of Soay sheep on St Kilda, Scotland, offers detailed longitudinal data on morphology, life history, and demography collected over four decades. Soays are highly polygynous, with males experiencing strong intrasexual competition, growing around 60% larger than females, and having greater variance in reproductive success. The sheep live in a variable environment characterised by large fluctuations in resource availability, heavy parasite burdens and severe winter weather. They also show clear signs of senescent decline in later life. In this talk, I will present results from two recent studies into the differential impact of early-life conditions on lifelong survival and reproduction in Soay sheep, demonstrating sex-specific effects of early-life adversity and transgenerational effects. These studies highlight the importance of early-life conditions in generating heterogeneity among individuals, with potential implications for life-history evolution, sexual selection, and population dynamics. 

Professor Katy Heath, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Title: Evolutionary Genetics of Multiscale Symbiosis

Abstract: We live in a symbiotic world, where many of the plant and animal traits important to selection are governed by myriad microbial taxa. These symbionts in turn host their own plasmids, viruses, and other mobile genetic elements, which alter symbiont traits and ultimately scale up through their hosts to influence critical processes in ecosystems, human health, and agriculture. We use the model symbiosis between leguminous plants and nitrogen-fixing rhizobial bacteria, as well as their interactions with other plant and microbial community members, to study multiscale genetic effects operating from molecular to ecosystem scales in natural systems. Personally, my drive to understand how genetic variation evolves and is maintained in mutualistic interactions has taken me through a meandering and interdisciplinary career that started during my graduate work, from the perspective of plant evolutionary ecology, to now where I run a large research group where we focus on integrating from gene regulation and gene function in bacteria up through nitrogen cycling in wild populations.

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