Meetings programme |
Schedule of upcoming meetings
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The Society's meetings are open to Fellows, guests and members of the public.
Entry is free, but fellows and guests are reminded that if they wish to partake of refreshments before the meeting, there is a $4.00 charge to cover this. Meetings are held on the second Thursday of each month, March to November inclusive. Meeting commence at 6.30 pm and are preceded by wine and nibbles at 6.00 pm. An invited lecture is normally arranged for each meeting. For ordinary meetings, the reading of papers and the presentation of exhibits of scientific interest. These meetings are usually held in the Society's Rooms. Meetings are occasionally organised jointly with other kindred societies and may be held elsewhere. Occasional Symposia on topical issues are also organised by the Society. COVID 19 restrictions While social restrictions are in force, the Society is holding its meetings on line, currently using the Zoom application. To gain access to these meetings, please contact the Society through our email for the link to that particular meeting. |
Intended speaker list for this year .
Until the restrictions on gatherings is lifted, meetings will be held on the Zoom platform. For the Zoom access and password for a meeting, contact us at roysocsa@gmail.com Aug 9th - Vera Weisecker, Flinders zuniv "The Right Kind of Boring: Australian Marsupials" ABSTRACT: Australian marsupials include some of the world’s most iconic mammals, such as koalas, kangaroos, and bilbies. However, in studies of evolution and ecology, marsupials are persistently dismissed as primitive and boring. In this talk, I will discuss how this “boring-factor” is actually a tremendous scientific asset. This is because the unique marsupial traits of altricial birth and extended pouch development make them great models for understanding the drivers and constraints of mammalian evolution and adaptability. In this talk, I will showcase just a few of the ways in which research on marsupial mammals can enrich our scientific understanding of the deep and more recent mammalian past. I want to particularly focus on the question of whether, and how, marsupials are particularly threatened by recent human-induced environmental change, and what kind of research we can do to better understand the dynamics behind marsupial extinction patterns. Sep 10th - Diego Garcia-Bellido: Diego’s main interest is the taxonomical diversity and functional morphology of the early metazoans generated during the so-called Cambrian "explosion" (some 540 million years ago), and the phylogenetic relationships among the major animal groups (phyla) that appeared with this unique event in the history of the biosphere. Oct 8th - Gunnar Keppel: Gunnar works in vegetation ecology, island biogeography and conservation biology, most recently focusing on drivers of diversity patterns, at the local scale (within meters) how environmental heterogeneity impacts microclimate and species distributions, regionally the role of refugia in facilitating the persistence of biodiversity and finally, the roles of climatic, biogeographic and topographic drivers in effecting patterns of biodiversity on large and global scales Nov 12 - Small Research Grants speakers |