Dr Tariq Ezaz: ‘Boys or Girls? Temperature decides’

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Thursday, 7 November 2013 - 12:30pm to 1:30pm

Reptiles, such as lizards, snakes and turtles, display enormous diversity when it comes to determining the sex of their offspring. In some reptiles, genes on a special chromosome determine whether a baby will be a boy or a girl. In others, the nest temperature determines the sex of developing embryos.  In a few others, genes and nest ‘temperature’ work together to decide the sex of developing embryos. As little as 0.5dC change in nest temperature can produce all boys or all girls in some reptiles with temperature dependent sex determination. Dr Ezaz and his team try to understand the underlying molecular mechanisms (e.g. chromosomes, genes, DNA) involved in reptile sex determination. They use Australian lizard species as models, such as central bearded dragon and eastern water dragon.

Dr Tariq Ezaz is an Associate Professor of Genetics and an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow. Tariq received his PhD from the University of Stirling, Scotland in 2002. He did his first postdoctoral research at the same institution before moving to ANU in 2004 as a postdoctoral research Fellow at the Research School of Biology. He moved to the University of Canberra in 2008 as a research Fellow and subsequently accepted a faculty position in 2010. Tariq was awarded a prestigious ARC Future Fellowship in 2011 to continue his work on sex determination in reptiles. He has been working on understanding the evolution of sex determining mechanisms and sex chromosomes in a wide range of animals, such as fish, frogs, dragons, geckos, snakes, skinks and birds. His current research focuses on trying to understand the molecular mechanisms as well as the interaction between molecules and environment in reptilian sex determination.