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Career of Marie Curie Fellows

The European Commission just published an interesting document on the long-term career development of Marie Curie researchers: Marie Curie researchers and their long-term career
development: A comparative study". You can find it here (executive summary).

in general, it seems that Marie Curie programs have a positive effects on multiple indicators of career quality (although not speed). This part was particularly interesting:

"No particular effects on career ‘speed’ were registered. MC fellows achieve  professorship titles more frequently than other fellows, but this seemingly requires  more time than for researchers with smaller mobility experience, i.e. those that  tend to stay in the same institution throughout their entire career. Here, an ‘affiliation effect’ can be observed which rewards non-mobile researchers within certain academic environments and penalises somewhat mobile ones."

This is very likely to be ascribed to the typical recruitment of European Universities (Spain and Italy for example), in which the "internal" researchers is heavily supported by the local hiring committee. Thus, staying in the same place for (almost) all the career may be a wise decision. Sad thing.

 

 

Paper accepted

New paper accepted: S Vincenzi. Extinction risk and eco-evolutionary dynamics in a variable environment with increasing frequency of extreme events. Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

It should be published online on the 11th of June.

Here is the abstract.

One of the most dramatic consequences of climate change will be the intensification and increased frequency of extreme events. I used numerical simulations to understand and predict the consequences of directional trend (i.e. mean state) and increased variability of a climate variable (e.g. temperature), increased probability of occurrence of point extreme events (e.g. floods), selection pressure, and effect size of mutations on a quantitative trait determining individual fitness, as well as the their effects on the population and genetic dynamics of a population of moderate size. The interaction among climate trend, variability, and probability of point extremes had a minor effect on risk of extinction, time to extinction and distribution of the trait after accounting for their independent effects. The survival chances of a population strongly and linearly decreased with increasing strength of selection, as well as with increasing climate trend and variability. Mutation amplitude had no effects on extinction risk, time to extinction or genetic adaptation to the new climate. Climate trend and strength of selection largely determined the shift of the mean phenotype in the population. The extinction or persistence of the populations in a “extinction window” of 10 years was well predicted by a simple model including mean population size and mean genetic variance over a 10-year time frame preceding the “extinction window”, although genetic variance had a smaller role than population size in predicting contemporary risk of extinction.

New paper published

I got a new paper accepted and published: S Vincenzi, A Piotti (2014). Evolution of serotiny in maritime pine (Pinus pinaster) in the light of increasing frequency of fires. Plant Ecology (still online only) DOI 10.1007/s11258-014-0342-y

And here is the abstract.

Wildfire frequency and intensity in the Mediterranean region are predicted to increase with climate and anthropogenic changes in the following decades. Pines species often posses fire-embracing and fire-avoiding strategies that increase the probability of persistence and performance in fire-prone habitats. One such strategy is serotiny, i.e., the capacity to retain seeds in long-closed cones within the plant canopy; serotinous cones release seeds only when either a fire or a heat shock occurs. In this work, we used a simulation approach and Pinus pinaster populations as a model system to investigate how (i) an increased frequency of fire, (ii) genetic characteristics of serotiny, and (iii) observed differences in life histories interact to determine (a) risk of local population extinction and (b) temporal changes in the prevalence of serotiny in the modeled population. In addition, we tested whether the contemporary evolution of serotiny in the face of increased probability of occurrence of fires increased the probability of population persistence with respect to a scenario in which serotiny was not allowed to evolve. Our simulations showed that over the 300 years of simulated time, the evolution of serotiny did not substantially contribute to the persistence of populations. Extinction risk increased with the increasing probability of occurrence of fire and slightly decreased with (i) higher gene flow from outside the modeled population, and (ii) higher prevalence of serotiny at the beginning of the simulation. The prevalence of serotiny at the end of simulation time was difficult to predict and mostly driven by stochasticity.

Videos of EURAXESS event in New York City

At the end of March 2014, I was invited to present my project funded by a Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship at the EURAXESS event at Columbia University in New York City. The event was very good and all the five contributions were interesting and engaging. Here are the videos of all the presentations (my contribution is here).

One-page application to "Science and the City" event

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Euraxess Links North America is putting together a terrific event in New York City on the 28th of March. The event aims to present exciting EU-funded research as well as to offer and share tips and experience with potential applicants to EU research actions.

I sent my one-page application including Title, Abstract, and Motivation, you can read it here below (formatting somewhat lost).

Science and the City, NYC March 28th, 2014

Title: Shaken, burned, drowned, but still there: how species survive catastrophic events in an increasingly extreme world.

Abstract: The world is becoming more extreme. Increasingly frequent catastrophic events, such as fires, floods, extreme high or low temperatures, rain and snowstorms, deep freezes, and droughts often result in crashes or extinction of populations or species, loss of genetic diversity, and dramatic changes in ecosystems. Surprisingly, even after almost complete collapses, in some species populations are able to bounce back to safe abundances from a handful of surviving individuals. How does it happen? Why and how do certain species possess traits that allow them to persist when on the verge of extinction? And, will those species and populations be able to survive an increased frequency and intensity of extreme events associated with global climate change?

I study the resilience of population to extreme events using marble trout, a freshwater fish currently found only in Slovenia, as model species. Since 1993, my colleagues and I have extensively collected and analyzed marble trout demographic and genetic data. The last relict populations of this species are routinely affected by catastrophic flash floods and debris flow driving them just a few individuals away from extinction. We have observed multiple occasions when just a handful of fish surviving a flood rescued the population! However, the future is not bright for marble trout: rainfall and stream discharge data collected since the 1960s show a recent increased frequency, intensification, and altered seasonality of catastrophic floods. Will marble trout be able to persist? Will we observe bigger or smaller fish, more juveniles or older fish? Will population collapses lead to more deformities caused by inbreeding, dangerous loss of genetic diversity, and/or altered life cycles? Will we be able to save the species through science‑driven conservation actions? To answer these questions, an interdisciplinary research approach combining cutting‑edge molecular genetics, demographic modeling, natural history and meteorology is needed. The complexity of project along with its intrinsic interdisciplinary nature motivated me to present an application for a Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship, which I won in 2011.

Motivation: EU funding schemes are a terrific opportunity for early-career scientists. I would be delighted to take the opportunity offered by “Science and the City” to present my EU‑funded research, as well as offering my vision and tips for a successful application to EU funding schemes. Extreme events are having a massive impact on ecosystem and species, including humans (e.g. the recent California drought, the deep freeze in NE US, floods in central Europe and China), and it is my desire to raise awareness on the interdisciplinary research required for predicting their occurrence, understand their consequences, and mitigate their impact.

Since winning my Marie Curie IOF in late 2011 I have been helping several scientists preparing their applications to EU research calls. I use my blog to offer advice on how to apply to MC Actions and ERA Starting Research Grants (https://simonevincenzi.com/category/marie-curie/), including how to prepare applications, and suggestions on the number and quality of publications allowing the applicant to be competitive. I also uploaded on my website my winning MC IOF application, free for the public and fellow scientists. Due to my blog, word of mouth, and Twitter activity (@svincenzi) I routinely receive emails from applicants and winners of EU research actions asking for help or advice regarding research, how to prepare the application package, and more practical things such as how to pay taxes in the US, what solutions I recommend for health insurance, and how to prepare reports. Looking forward, in my future capacity as a senior scientist I have the ambition to develop a structured program that supports the applications of young and promising scientists to EU funding schemes.

 

Simone Vincenzi, Marie Curie IOF Fellow

              UCSC (USA) and Polytechnic of Milan (Italy)