Gareth Trickey / en Batman returns to U of T /news/batman-returns-u-t <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Batman returns to U of T</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2014-03-03T04:45:02-05:00" title="Monday, March 3, 2014 - 04:45" class="datetime">Mon, 03/03/2014 - 04:45</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">A northern long-eared bat (photo by Brandon Keim via Flickr)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/gareth-trickey" hreflang="en">Gareth Trickey</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Gareth Trickey</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/our-faculty-staff" hreflang="en">Our Faculty &amp; Staff</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/utm" hreflang="en">UTM</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/science" hreflang="en">Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty" hreflang="en">Faculty</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/biology" hreflang="en">Biology</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">Assistant professor travels the world studying bats</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Bats – winged creatures that hunt in the night. For some, bats are the stuff of nightmares. But for new οMississauga professor <strong>John Ratcliffe</strong>, bats are one of nature’s wonders.</p> <p>Ratcliffe, a former PhD student at οMississauga, has traveled the world to further the study of bats and echolocation. His research in the neuroethology and ecology of echolocating bats has led him to the tropics of Central and South America, parts of Africa and India, and islands in the south Pacific.</p> <p>For the past six years, Ratcliffe served first as a postdoctoral then as an assistant professor at the University of Southern Denmark. In January this year, Ratcliffe returned to Mississauga to serve as an assistant professor in the Department of Biology at οMississauga.</p> <p>Ratcliffe will instruct a third-year course in sensory biology and a fourth-year course in the evolution of animal cognition. His return to Mississauga will also afford him the opportunity to study local bat populations. Five resident species of bats and three migratory species inhabit the area around οMississauga.</p> <p>Ratcliffe has a particular fondness for the northern long-eared bat common in the caves and tree hollows along the Credit River. Unlike most bats that snare insects from the skies, the northern long-eared bat is also a specialist at taking moths and katydids from leaves and other surfaces.</p> <p>But it is the outbreak of white-nose syndrome among local populations of the northern long-eared bat and the little brown bat that has Ratcliffe and other North American bat researchers gravely concerned.</p> <p>“White nose-syndrome is having a devastating impact on bats,” Ratcliffe said.</p> <p>“It’s a fungus that forms of the face and in the respiratory tract and can cause bats to wake prematurely from hibernation in winter. Once the bat is awake it starts to burn a lot of energy trying to warm itself up. By the time spring arrives these bats are often underweight or dying from starvation.”</p> <p><img alt src="/sites/default/files/2014-03-03-batman.jpg" style="width: 300px; height: 333px; margin: 10px; float: right;">Ratcliffe (pictured right) completed his PhD at οMississauga back in 2005 under the late Professor <strong>James Fullard</strong> and Professor Emerita <strong>Sara Shettleworth</strong>.</p> <p>While he admits a life-long fascination of bats, Ratcliffe’s research into echolocation has also led to studies of insects, oilbirds and porpoises.</p> <p>“My studies have primarily been focused on how bats detect and localize prey and how they are able to differentiate poisonous from edible prey,” he said.</p> <p>“Bats are much longer lived than most animals their size. Some bats can live past 40 years and across species can vary from a kilogram-and-a-half in size to two grams.</p> <p>“Most species of the 1200 or so alive today produce only a single offspring each year. I’ve been very fortunate to have been able to travel the world studying them.”</p> <p><em>Gareth Trickey is a writer with the University of Toronto Mississauga.</em></p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/2014-03-03-northern-long-eared-bat.jpg</div> </div> Mon, 03 Mar 2014 09:45:02 +0000 sgupta 5919 at Dimetrodon had "steak knife" teeth, researchers say /news/dimetrodon-had-steak-knife-teeth-researchers-say <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Dimetrodon had "steak knife" teeth, researchers say</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2014-02-07T06:45:28-05:00" title="Friday, February 7, 2014 - 06:45" class="datetime">Fri, 02/07/2014 - 06:45</time> </span> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/gareth-trickey" hreflang="en">Gareth Trickey</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Gareth Trickey</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/breaking-research" hreflang="en">Breaking Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/top-stories" hreflang="en">Top Stories</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/utm" hreflang="en">UTM</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/science" hreflang="en">Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/paleontology" hreflang="en">Paleontology</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/fossils" hreflang="en">Fossils</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research" hreflang="en">Research</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/global" hreflang="en">Global</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">Prehistoric predator the first to develop serrated teeth</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>The first top predators to walk on land were not afraid to bite off more than they could chew, a University of Toronto Mississauga study has found.</p> <p>Graduate student <strong>Kirstin Brink</strong>, lead author of the study, and Professor <strong>Robert Reisz </strong>from οMississauga’s <a href="http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/biology/">Department of Biology</a>, suggest that Dimetrodon, a carnivore that walked on land between 298 million and 272 million years ago, was the first terrestrial vertebrate to develop serrated ziphodont teeth.</p> <p>According to the study published in <a href="http://www.nature.com/ncomms/index.html"><em>Nature Communications</em></a>,&nbsp; ziphodont teeth, with their serrated edges, produced a more efficient bite and would have allowed Dimetrodon to eat prey much larger than itself.</p> <p>While most meat-eating dinosaurs possessed ziphodont teeth, fossil evidence suggests serrated teeth first evolved in Dimetrodon some 40 million years earlier than theropod dinosaurs.</p> <p><img alt src="/sites/default/files/2014-02-07-brink-and-reisz-dimetrodon-skull.jpg" style="width: 400px; height: 267px; margin: 10px; float: right;">“Technologies such as scanning electron microscope (SEM) and histology allowed us to examine these teeth in detail to reveal previously unknown patterns in the evolutionary history of Dimetrodon,” said Brink (pictured at right with Reisz and a Dimetrodon skull fossil).</p> <p>The four-meter-long Dimetrodon was the top of the terrestrial food chain in the Early Permian Period and is considered to be the forerunner of mammals.</p> <p>Brink and Reisz’s research found Dimetrodon had a diversity of previously unknown tooth structures and was also the first terrestrial vertebrate to develop cusps – teeth with raised points on the crown, which are dominant in mammals.The study also suggests ziphodont teeth were confined to later species of Dimetrodon, indicating a gradual change in feeding habits.</p> <p>“This research is an important step in reconstructing the structure of ancient complex communities,” Reisz said. "Teeth tell us a lot more about the ecology of animals than just looking at the skeleton. We already know from fossil evidence which animals existed at that time but now with this type of research we are starting to piece together how the members of these communities interacted.”</p> <p>Brink and Reisz studied the changes in Dimetrodon teeth across 25 million years of evolution.</p> <p>The analysis indicated the changes in tooth structure occurred in the absence of any significant evolution in skull morphology. This, Brink and Reisz suggest, indicates a change in feeding style and trophic interactions.</p> <p>"The steak-knife configuration of these teeth and the architecture of the skull suggest Dimetrodon was able to grab and rip and dismember large prey,” Reisz said. “Teeth fossils have attracted a lot of attention in dinosaurs but much less is known about the animals that lived during this first chapter in terrestrial evolution.”</p> <p>The study was funded by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) postgraduate scholarship to Brink and an NSERC Discovery Grant to Reisz.</p> <p><em>Gareth Trickey is a writer with the University of Toronto Mississauga.</em></p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/2014-02-07-dimetrodon-with-inset_1.jpg</div> </div> Fri, 07 Feb 2014 11:45:28 +0000 sgupta 5863 at North American champions: οdebate team reclaims title from Harvard /news/north-american-champions-u-t-debate-team-reclaims-title-harvard <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">North American champions: οdebate team reclaims title from Harvard</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2014-01-30T10:15:16-05:00" title="Thursday, January 30, 2014 - 10:15" class="datetime">Thu, 01/30/2014 - 10:15</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">North American debate champions Kaya Ellis and Louis Tsilivis (photo courtesy Kaya Ellis)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/gareth-trickey" hreflang="en">Gareth Trickey</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Gareth Trickey</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/more-news" hreflang="en">More News</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/utm" hreflang="en">UTM</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/students" hreflang="en">Students</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/student-life" hreflang="en">Student Life</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/honours" hreflang="en">Honours</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/campus-life" hreflang="en">Campus Life</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">Bests McGill University in final round</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>The University of Toronto has argued its way back into the top spot at the 2014 North American Debating Championships.</p> <p><strong>Kaya Ellis </strong>from οMississauga and <strong>Louis Tsilivis</strong> from the Faculty of Law pooled their powers of persuasion to finish in first place ahead of other prominent universities from Canada and the United States.</p> <p>The οHart House Debating Club duo faced off against McGill University in the final round of competition last Sunday, with the seven judges awarding Ellis and Tsilivis a convincing 6-1 win.</p> <p>The first place finish sees οreclaim the title after finishing runner-up to Harvard University in last year’s final.</p> <p>οnow boasts a record six championship victories, ahead of Yale with four and McGill and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with two apiece.</p> <p>Ellis, who is enrolled in the Master of Management of Innovation Program at οMississauga, was also awarded third place in the top debater category. She becomes only the seventh female champion in the competition’s 23-year history.</p> <p>“It’s an exhausting but exciting experience to compete at such a high level,” Ellis said.“The final day of competition consists of four elimination rounds with each debate lasting about 45 minutes.You get topics thrown at you that you know nothing about and you have only 15 minutes to prepare.</p> <p>“It’s challenging but it’s exciting to engage in a discourse with opposing teams.”</p> <p>The format for the debate was a hybrid of the Canadian and US parliamentary systems.</p> <p>Teams of two were assigned the role of either government or opposition, with a government speaker opening proceedings, followed by a seven-minute rebuttal from the opposition before returning to the government and then final opposition speaker. The first government speaker was also afforded three minutes of closing remarks.</p> <p>Topics ranged from the introduction of economic sanctions in the Kyoto Protocol to the internet privacy rights of foreign nationals and the publishing of information from anonymous sources.</p> <p>Ellis said that despite popular perceptions of debaters being argumentative, debating clubs mainly attracted students who were open to new ideas and the chance to hear the opinions of others.</p> <p>“The University of Toronto has been extremely supportive of the debating team,” Ellis said. “The university treats debating as seriously as it does varsity sports and helped to finance the team's trip to the championships in Ottawa.</p> <p>“The debating club does require a lot of commitment but it’s also a great outlet from course studies and you become friends with a lot of students from other universities.”</p> <p><em>Gareth Trickey is a writer with the University of Toronto Mississauga.</em></p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/2014-01-30-debate-team.jpg</div> </div> Thu, 30 Jan 2014 15:15:16 +0000 sgupta 5842 at Bigger = better in prehistoric oceans /news/bigger-better-prehistoric-oceans <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Bigger = better in prehistoric oceans</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2014-01-24T10:16:47-05:00" title="Friday, January 24, 2014 - 10:16" class="datetime">Fri, 01/24/2014 - 10:16</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Avalofractus fossil - Ediacara biota (photo courtesy Marc Laflamme)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/gareth-trickey" hreflang="en">Gareth Trickey</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Gareth Trickey</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/breaking-research" hreflang="en">Breaking Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/top-stories" hreflang="en">Top Stories</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/utm" hreflang="en">UTM</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/collaborations" hreflang="en">Collaborations</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research" hreflang="en">Research</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/global" hreflang="en">Global</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">How multicellular organisms competed with bacteria</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>A NASA research group featuring University of Toronto Mississauga professor <strong>Marc Laflamme</strong> has helped to explain why some prehistoric organisms evolved into larger animals.</p> <p>Laflamme, an assistant professor with the <a href="http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/cps/">Department of Chemical and Physical Sciences</a>, and his colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Node of NASA’s <a href="http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/nai/">Astrobiology Institute</a> suggest that height offered a distinct advantage to the earliest forms of multicellular life.</p> <p>The study forms part of the NASA Astrobiology Institute’s research into the origins of life on earth and the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe.</p> <p>For the study, Laflamme and his colleagues used a technique known as canopy flow modeling to reconstruct ocean currents operating in the deep seas some 580 million years ago.</p> <p>The three-dimensional modeling helped to illustrate how dense communities of bacteria and multicellular organisms competed for nutrients in Pre-Cambrian seas.</p> <p>According to the group’s research, published in the science journal <a href="http://www.cell.com/current-biology/"><em>Current Biology</em></a>, primitive multicellular organisms known as <em>Ediacara biota</em> took on larger sizes in order to access nutrient-rich currents occurring above the seabed.</p> <p>These enigmatic leaf-shaped life-forms grew up to a metre in height and are thought to be among the earliest assortment of large, multicellular life.</p> <p><img alt src="/sites/default/files/2014-01-24-marc-laflamme.jpg" style="width: 300px; height: 413px; margin: 10px; float: right;">Whether <em>Ediacara </em>represent the earliest animal lineages or an entirely extinct group of multicellular life is still a mystery, and an active research direction for Laflamme.</p> <p>The findings of the multinational group suggest larger <em>Ediacara </em>were able to absorb nutrients in higher quantities, which in turn helped to fuel the high energy costs associated with increased size.</p> <p>The study also suggests that large <em>Ediacara</em> altered the flow of surrounding ocean currents, thus promoting further growth.</p> <p>Laflamme (pictured right) said the results of the study may help to explain how relatively large multicellular organisms were able to compete against smaller, more-efficient bacterial films.</p> <p>“Science has always had a difficult time explaining how and why the earliest forms of multicellular life got big,” Laflamme said. “This research helps to explain how we moved from a world ruled by microscopic bacteria to our world today where animals and plants dominate.</p> <p>"The new methods used in our research may also help to explain how multicellular life competed during the Cambrian explosion of complex animals.”</p> <p><em>Gareth Trickey is a writer with the University of Toronto Mississauga.</em></p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/2014-01-24-prehistoric-fossil-utm.jpg</div> </div> Fri, 24 Jan 2014 15:16:47 +0000 sgupta 5831 at Just ask him about venom, origins of turtles /news/just-ask-him-about-venom-origins-turtles <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Just ask him about venom, origins of turtles</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2014-01-13T08:00:27-05:00" title="Monday, January 13, 2014 - 08:00" class="datetime">Mon, 01/13/2014 - 08:00</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Professor Robert Reisz has published more than 155 papers and been cited more than 3,000 times (image courtesy Robert Reisz)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/gareth-trickey" hreflang="en">Gareth Trickey</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Gareth Trickey</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/our-faculty-staff" hreflang="en">Our Faculty &amp; Staff</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/paleontology" hreflang="en">Paleontology</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/honours" hreflang="en">Honours</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty" hreflang="en">Faculty</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">Leading expert in vertebrate paleontology celebrated</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Students and colleagues, past and present, have paid tribute to the ongoing work of University of Toronto Mississauga professor <strong>Robert Reisz</strong> in a special edition of paleontology journal <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1631068313001401"><em>Comptes Rendus Palevol</em></a>.</p> <p>The academic tribute, known as a festschrift, features an editorial chronicling Reisz’s contribution to the field of paleontology as well as 11 research papers written by former students.</p> <p>To mark the occasion, Reisz was also granted the honour of having three newly-discovered extinct species of vertebrate named after him.</p> <p>While festschrifts traditionally coincide with an academic’s retirement, Reisz is quick to point out this edition was compiled to mark his 65th birthday.</p> <p>“I have absolutely no intention of retiring any time soon,” Reisz said. “Most scientists tend to slow down at this point in their careers but I seem to be doing the opposite.</p> <p>“I’m what you would call a late, late bloomer.”</p> <p>Reisz is considered a leader in the study of vertebrate paleontology. In the past 40 years, he has published more than 155 papers, presented at more than 90 scientific meetings and has been cited some 3,020 times. His&nbsp;body of work includes one of the first cladograms of early amniote phylogeny, research into the use of venom among mammals and new hypotheses about the origin of turtles.</p> <p>He has also trained and mentored numerous postdoctoral fellows as well as doctoral and masters students since arriving at οMississauga’s Department of Biology in 1975.</p> <p>But as the Palevol editorial points out, Reisz’s contribution to the world of paleontology is far from over, making the tribute more of “a sign post, rather than a monument” to his career.</p> <p>"There are two ways scientists leave a legacy,” Reisz said. “One is through their research and the second is through their students. I have been doing this for such a long time now that not only do I have my students, which I call my paleontological children, but I also I have what I call my paleontological grandchildren, students taught by my former students.</p> <p>“I am flattered and touched by the articles they wrote for me.”</p> <p><em>Gareth Trickey is a writer with the University of Toronto Mississauga.</em></p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/2014-01-13-robert-reisz-utm-paleontologist.jpg</div> </div> Mon, 13 Jan 2014 13:00:27 +0000 sgupta 5806 at