Gareth Trickey

Bats – winged creatures that hunt in the night. For some, bats are the stuff of nightmares. But for new U of T Mississauga professor John Ratcliffe, bats are one of nature’s wonders.

Ratcliffe, a former PhD student at U of T Mississauga, 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.

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 U of T Mississauga.

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 U of T Mississauga.

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.

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.

“White nose-syndrome is having a devastating impact on bats,” Ratcliffe said.

“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.”

Ratcliffe (pictured right) completed his PhD at U of T Mississauga back in 2005 under the late Professor James Fullard and Professor Emerita Sara Shettleworth.

While he admits a life-long fascination of bats, Ratcliffe’s research into echolocation has also led to studies of insects, oilbirds and porpoises.

“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.

“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.

“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.”

Gareth Trickey is a writer with the ��Ƶ Mississauga.

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Dimetrodon had "steak knife" teeth, researchers say

sgupta — Fri, 07 Feb 2014 11:45:28 +0000

Dimetrodon had "steak knife" teeth, researchers say sgupta Fri, 02/07/2014 - 06:45

Gareth Trickey

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Gareth Trickey

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Breaking Research

North American champions: U of T debate team reclaims title from Harvard

sgupta — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 15:15:16 +0000

North American champions: U of T debate team reclaims title from Harvard sgupta Thu, 01/30/2014 - 10:15

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North American debate champions Kaya Ellis and Louis Tsilivis (photo courtesy Kaya Ellis)

Gareth Trickey

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Gareth Trickey

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Bests McGill University in final round

The ��Ƶ has argued its way back into the top spot at the 2014 North American Debating Championships.

Kaya Ellis from U of T Mississauga and Louis Tsilivis 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.

The U of T Hart 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.

The first place finish sees U of T reclaim the title after finishing runner-up to Harvard University in last year’s final.

U of T now boasts a record six championship victories, ahead of Yale with four and McGill and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with two apiece.

Ellis, who is enrolled in the Master of Management of Innovation Program at U of T Mississauga, was also awarded third place in the top debater category. She becomes only the seventh female champion in the competition’s 23-year history.

“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.

“It’s challenging but it’s exciting to engage in a discourse with opposing teams.”

The format for the debate was a hybrid of the Canadian and US parliamentary systems.

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.

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.

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.

“The ��Ƶ 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.

“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.”

Gareth Trickey is a writer with the ��Ƶ Mississauga.

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Bigger = better in prehistoric oceans

sgupta — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 15:16:47 +0000

Bigger = better in prehistoric oceans sgupta Fri, 01/24/2014 - 10:16

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Avalofractus fossil - Ediacara biota (photo courtesy Marc Laflamme)

Gareth Trickey

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Gareth Trickey

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Breaking Research

Just ask him about venom, origins of turtles

sgupta — Mon, 13 Jan 2014 13:00:27 +0000

Just ask him about venom, origins of turtles sgupta Mon, 01/13/2014 - 08:00

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Professor Robert Reisz has published more than 155 papers and been cited more than 3,000 times (image courtesy Robert Reisz)

Gareth Trickey

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Gareth Trickey

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Leading expert in vertebrate paleontology celebrated

Students and colleagues, past and present, have paid tribute to the ongoing work of ��Ƶ Mississauga professor Robert Reisz in a special edition of paleontology journal Comptes Rendus Palevol.

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.

To mark the occasion, Reisz was also granted the honour of having three newly-discovered extinct species of vertebrate named after him.

While festschrifts traditionally coincide with an academic’s retirement, Reisz is quick to point out this edition was compiled to mark his 65th birthday.

“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.

“I’m what you would call a late, late bloomer.”

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 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.

He has also trained and mentored numerous postdoctoral fellows as well as doctoral and masters students since arriving at U of T Mississauga’s Department of Biology in 1975.

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.

"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.

“I am flattered and touched by the articles they wrote for me.”

Gareth Trickey is a writer with the ��Ƶ Mississauga.

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