The Royal Society of Tasmania

The advancement of knowledge

ABN 65 889 598 100

Christmas dinner and lecture: Monday 30th November 2020

Registrations have now closed. We now have a full house. Apologies to those who missed out.

The President and Council of The Royal Society of Tasmania warmly invite members and friends to the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania in Sandy Bay for dinner and a lecture by polar historian, John Williamson, entitled “Hobart and Amundsen: An Antarctic gateway illusion?”

Amundsen Monument

Our Patron, Her Excellency Professor the Honourable Kate Warner AC, Governor of Tasmania, and Mr Richard Warner AM will be joining us for the evening. Open this post for details and the booking form.

Patriotism and Place in 19th Century Tasmania

The Royal Society of Tasmania, Northern Branch, invites you to a Zoom webinar by Henry Reynolds, on Sunday November 22, 2020, at 1:30 pm.

Topic: Patriotism and Place in 19th Century Tasmania

Register in advance for this webinar. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

To download a flyer for printing, click here.


Andrew Inglis Clark was the one of the few republicans among the generation of colonial politicians who became the fathers of federation. His views are more interesting because they emerged from a long tradition of Tasmanian patriotism based on a powerful commitment to place, which was already apparent in the 1820’s and reinforced in succeeding generations.

Our speaker Henry Reynolds – Honorary Research Professor, Aboriginal Studies, Global Cultures & Languages at the University of Tasmania – grew up and was educated in Tasmania at Hobart High School and the University of Tasmania with a B.A hons and a M.A. With his wife Margaret he spent several years teaching in London, returning to Australia in 1965 to take up a lectureship in the new Townsville University College. He spent most of his career in North Queensland, and is best known for his many books, articles and documentaries about the relations between Aborigines and settlers.

Prof. Reynolds has published several articles about the Honourable Andrew Inglis Clark, including the entry on Clark in the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

Henry Reynolds has published 20 books and over 60 chapters in books and articles in journals.  Among his best known books are: The Other Side of the Frontier, The Law of the Land, This Whispering in Our Hearts, Fate of a Free People, Why Weren’t We Told, North of Capricorn, Forgotten War and Drawing the Global Colour Line co-authored  with Marilyn Lake. Many of his books have appeared on best-seller lists and total sales would be around 250,000 copies. Several of Henry’s books have won major literary prizes: the Prime Ministers Prize for non-fiction, the Queensland Premiers Prize (twice), the Human Rights Commission Prize for literature (twice), the Victorian Premier’s prize for non-fiction, the Banjo Prize of the Australian  Book Council, and the Ernest Scott  Prize(twice). His most recent book Forgotten War won the Victorian Premier’s Prize and was short-listed for the Queensland Premier’s prize and the Tasmanian Literary Prize.

Henry Reynolds received the Royal Society of Tasmania Clive Lord Memorial Medal, in 2016. Among numerous other awards and distinctions are:

  • Honorary doctorates from University of Tasmania and James Cook University
  • Election to Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres-Strait Islander Studies, and the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia.

Generously supported by

Antarctic krill: What do the Southern Ocean’s charismatic “omega-fauna” eat, and how might they fare in a future high CO2 world?

The Royal Society of Tasmania invites you to a Zoom webinar by Dr Jessica Ericson on November 8, 2020, at 3pm.

To participate in this webinar, you must register in advance; click here to do that. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) are fascinating invertebrates with an important role in the Southern Ocean, as the primary prey of Antarctic whales, seals, penguins, fish, squid and seabirds. Krill are lipid rich, making them a particularly nutritious food for their predators.

Many of us know what animals eat krill, but what do krill eat and what makes them so nutritious? This PhD research used fatty acids as dietary biomarkers to investigate the diet of krill over consecutive years and seasons, filling knowledge gaps on krill diet, especially in winter. Because krill are so important in the food web, any decreases in krill biomass could result in a major ecological regime shift.

Little is known about how climate change will affect krill. As part of this PhD research, the first long-term study (one-year) was carried out to investigate the effects of ocean acidification on the physiology and biochemistry of krill. These novel results, and those from other recent studies will be discussed.

About the speaker

Dr Jessica Ericson — Post-doctoral Research Scientist (Shellfish Ecophysiology and Aquaculture) at Cawthron Aquaculture Park, New Zealand — specialises in the study of ecologically and economically important marine invertebrates from temperate and polar regions.

Her research primarily focuses on how climate change stressors (e.g. ocean acidification and warming) affect the physiology, biochemistry, immunology and behaviour of different invertebrate species. She has studied a wide range of ‘charismatic micro-fauna’ including limpets, mussels, oysters, sea urchins and krill. The unique responses of these organisms to their environment always provide opportunities to learn something new.

Her studies have taken her to remote locations including Antarctica and she has spent many weeks at sea on research voyages. Jessica was born in New Zealand and comes from a long line of lighthouse keepers and scientists, so believes it is no coincidence that she chose marine science as a career path. She is also a keen mountain biker, ocean swimmer and printmaker. She lives in Nelson, New Zealand, but considers Tasmania to be her second home.

Butterfly Brilliance: The Lambkin-Knight Butterfly Collection

The Royal Society of Tasmania invites you to a public lecture by Trevor Lambkin, David Maynard and Simon Fearn.

Where: On your computer via Zoom
When: 1.30 pm Sunday 25th October 2020

To participate in this webinar, you must register in advance; click here to do that. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

To download a flyer for printing, click here.

A collection of around 12000 butterflies compiled by Trevor Lambkin and Ian Knight over the last 50 years has most generously been donated to QVMAG. Including many hundreds of species, some extremely rare and some that are now extinct, it is an important part of Australia’s national research infrastructure.

Hear from one of the donors, lepidopterist Trevor Lambkin about building the collection, and from QVMAG staff David Maynard (Senior Curator of Natural Sciences) and Simon Fearn (Museum Collections Officer) on its research potential and housing such a large collection.

Generously supported by  

An account of Earth’s Middle Ages – Life and Resources

You are invited to a Zoom webinar presented by Dr Indrani Mukherjee at 3pm on October 4, 2020, in Hobart. 
 
Register in advance for this webinar using this link. 
 
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
 

Indrani’s PhD involved understanding pyrite trace element and sulphur isotope geochemistry of Proterozoic marine black shales using LA-ICP-MS and SHRIMP-SI techniques. The research focussed on nutrient-productivity cycles in past oceans and atmosphere-ocean redox state in the context of biological evolution in the Proterozoic era. Pyrite chemostratigraphy was also used for assessing mineralisation potential of black shales. This presentation will expand on the research foundations built over the course of Indrani’s PhD targeting both fundamental and applied aspects of geochemistry. The former involves advancing our knowledge of Precambrian atmosphere-ocean dynamics in shaping the course of early evolution. The latter involves utilisation of the geochemical data combined with statistical tools, for applications such as biogenicity tools, predictive modelling, and mineral exploration.

Our speaker, Dr Indrani Mukherjee, is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Geochemistry at CODES, University of Tasmania. She completed her PhD in 2018 from the University of Tasmania under the supervision of Professor Ross Large. Indrani acquired her B.Sc. (Honours) and M.Sc. in Geology degrees from the University of Delhi, India. She was awarded a RST Doctoral Award in 2019.

Indrani’s main focus has been on understanding pyrite trace element and sulphur isotope geochemistry in Precambrian marine black shales. Her research ties past geochemical conditions of the atmosphere-ocean system to evolution of early complex life and secular distribution of ore deposits through time. Indrani aims to apply the pyrite LA-ICP-MS technique towards developing a deep time model for evolution of complex life and devising vectors to SEDEX Zn-Pb and sedimentary Cu mineralisation.

Chemical Answers Now: protecting us and our environment

Where: On your computer via Zoom
When: 1.30 pm Sunday 27th September 2020

To participate in this webinar, you must register in advance; click here to do that. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Professor Breadmore is pioneering the development of portable and transportable technology to provide chemical information when and where the sample is collected. Applications include the detection of home-made explosives at airports, the continuous monitoring of nutrients in our rivers, and more recently, whether we can use these to detect viruses.

After public education in northern Tasmania, our speaker graduated from University of Tasmania with BSc (Hons); PhD; DSc. He has made a continued and sustained contribution towards miniaturized analytical technology for clinical, forensic, environmental and food applications at UTAS. He was one of three finalists in the Eureka Outstanding Young Researcher Award (2011), has been listed in the Analytical Scientist’s power list of the top 100 analytical chemists in the world (2014, 2017, 2019), and is the Director of the Australian Centre for Research on Separation Science.

Generously supported by  

Cyclic dynamics in Tasmanian high mountain treeless vegetation

Virtual lecture by Distinguished Professor Jamie Kirkpatrick, winner of the RST Clive Lord Medal 2019.

When: 3pm, Sunday, 6th September, 2020, by Zoom webinar.

To participate in this webinar, you must register in advance; click here to do that. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Tasmanian high mountain treeless vegetation is globally outstanding for its dominance by shrubs, hard-leaved graminoids and cushion plants, many of which are Cretaceous palaeoendemics. The highly maritime Tasmanian environment makes snow intermittent, exposing plants to fierce wintry winds and allowing mammals to graze all year round. The high mountain winds are associated with apparently cyclic succession in several situations, including bogs and fjaeldmark. Other apparently cyclic changes relate to the internal dynamics of ecosystems. Climate change has, so far, not affected the areas exhibiting these processes because of an interaction between stronger winds caused by climate change and environmental lapse rates. However, any marked ongoing warming at higher altitudes is likely to fossilise active processes. There is already some indication of such fossilisation in low altitude fjaeldmarks.

Our speaker Jamie Kirkpatrick AM is Distinguished Professor in Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Tasmania where he helps students learn about nature, researches its characteristics and conservation, and engages with wider society. He has supervised to graduation more than 70 higher degree students. He is most cited in the academic literature for his work on planning conservation reserves and on the socio-ecology of urban areas. He has also written, or contributed to, many publications that are accessible to a wider audience. These include several books with Peter Dombrovskis, and, most recently, his own book Art by Nature.