E&E Seminar Series - Drugs in the environment: natures high?

ABSTRACT

Humans have brought about unprecedented changes to environments everywhere. Vast quantities of pharmaceutical drugs are taken by humans, and due to inadequate removal during waste water treatment, make their way into rivers, lakes, and even drinking water. How do drugs in the environment affect the health of wildlife, the complex interdependencies within ecological communities, and the biodiversity of our planet? Using poecilid fishes as models, this talk will outline long term research investigating the impacts of pharmaceutical pollution on the behaviour of exposed organisms and their weighty ecological and evolutionary consequences. 

BIOGRAPHY

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Bob Wong is a Professor of behavioural and evolutionary ecology based in the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University, Australia. Bob received his PhD from the Australian National University and undertook postdoctoral fellowships at Boston University and the University of Helsinki before joining Monash. Research in Bob’s Group focuses on how human-induced environmental change affects wildlife behaviour, ecology and evolution. Bob is the Executive Editor of Animal Behaviour, a Trustee and Council Member of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour, and President-Elect of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology.