Sampling the invasive population of Xenopus on Awaji Island

Japan has several invasive populations of Xenopus laevis and among them is the one on Awaji Island, South of Kobe City. Prof Takeshi Igawa kindly accompanied me to the site, making the trip possible. We were joined there by the amazing Nobuyuki Higashiguchi who has been catching Xenopus from this population for over 6 years. 

The island has a lot of rice paddys and small resevoirs that are needed to flood them. These present a myriad of habitats for Xenopus as they are all interconnected. 

We spent several days trapping in various different ponds and amassed a large number of animals. We were also treated to the mastery of a throw net as Nobuyi showed us how to catch tadpoles from one of the reservoirs. 

A talk on rapid evolutionary patterns for Hiroshima University

I was very pleased to be asked to give a talk at the prestigious Amphibian Research Centre at Hiroshima University, Japan. I was hosted by the amazing Profs. Takeshi Igawa and Hajime Ogino. 

There were many students from the Centre who grilled me for what seemed like a very long time after the talk. 

 

After the talk we went for a great meal with many of the students and staff from the centre. 

 

Measey, J. (2024) What can biological invasions teach us about rapid evolutionary change? 28 June 2024 Amphibian Research Centre, Hiroshima University, Japan 

Collecting Xenopus from WuHu, Anhui Province

My friend and collaboratory Prof. Supen Wang had mentioned to me that he had captured Xenopus leavis  near his laboratory in WuHu, Anhui Province, China. So, In mid-June Qen Qen and I flew up to WuHu to see what we could collect. 

It was great to meet up with Profs. Wang and Zhao again. I had been capturing Xenopus with Prof Wang in 2019 in Kunming, but I hadn't seen Prof Zhao since Beijing in 2016. Qen Qen and I were accompanied by their students, Zhirong He and Yuting Wang, to the field sites where we set some bucket traps.

Walking out with our bucket traps

Setting traps at the site of an established population of Xenopus laevis  outside WuHu.

We were successful in capturing some Xenopus laevis (albino) alongside Ambystoma mexicanum (axolotl) in the same trap! Both species are widely available in the pet trade in China.

Many of the animals we captured were very small metamorphs, making dissection challenging!

Sirkelsvlei - there's more than meets the eye

For many years, the MeaseyLab conducted monitoring of Xenopus gilli in Cape Point. We also conducted a lot of research during that period and, thanks to the excellent work of Andre de Villiers, learned a lot about the biology of this species.

Now, Sue Matthews, has written up some of this information in a feature article for the magazine Water Wheel.  In the article Sue tells the story of this special vlei that occurs in Cape Point. She also takes the opportunity to tell her readers a lot more about the story of Xenopus gilli  conservation. It's well worth a read!

Further Reading:

Matthews, S. (2024) Sirkelsvlei - Taking a stroll through Cape Point’s largest permanent waterbody. Water Wheel.  pdf

A new chapter on the student-advisor relationship

A couple of weeks back, I read a review of "How to write a PhD in Biological Sciences: a guide for the uninitiated", where the author was critical of the book for not having any information on how to navigate the "tricky topic of the student-supervisor relationship". I had never really thought that this was part of the book, but on reflection, the book has advice on how to write emails, and the other book ("How to publish in Biological Sciences") has a chapter on bullying, so perhaps it is a good topic for a new chapter in Part 1 of "How to write a PhD in Biological Sciences: a guide for the uninitiated". 

It turns out that there is quite a lot of literature on this topic. 

Usually, I paste the entire new chapter into this Blog, but it turns out that this chapter is quite large, and of course all you have to do is click on the above image and you can read it in situ. 

Instead, here I will provide some highlights:

4.1 Expectations

4.1.1 Keep your expectations real

4.1.2 Student-advisor agreements

4.1.3 Other students and postdocs in the group

4.2 Power imbalance

4.2.1 Relationships between advisors and their students

4.2.2 Conflicts of interest

4.3 Communication

4.4 Meetings

4.5 Responsibilities

4.5.1 Time-management

4.6 Respect and Professionalism

4.6.1 Take advice

4.6.2 Personal problems

4.7 When things do go wrong

4.8 Having more than one advisor

4.9 Celebrations

4.9.1 Share the down times

As ever, if you spot that there is something missing or something wrong, please get in touch and let me know. 

There are other updates to other chapters too, including:

• a section on instant messaging in: Communicating by email and messanger
• an update about plagiarism and AI in both: Plagiarism and AI
• a rewrite of the chapter on: Reconciling yourself to doing things you've been avoiding
• a new chapter about selecting postgraduate courses

On reflection, it seems I've been quite busy with the book and that there is quite a lot of new content. Of course, this is the real advantage to bookdown and having the book as a living project.