A/Prof. Steve McKechnie

Program Director, Climatic Stress Program, CESAR
School of Biological Sciences
Monash University, VIC, 3800
Australia

Steve McKechnie completed his undergraduate education at The University of Sydney and proceeded there to complete a PhD in 1972 under the supervision of Professor Charles Birch.  Steve then moved to Stanford University for postdoctoral research with Professor Paul Ehrlich before returning to Australia where he started work with Drosophila at La Trobe University with Professor Peter Parsons. He moved to a Lectureship in Genetics at Monash University in 1976 and is currently an Associate Professor of Genetics in Monash’s School of Biological Sciences.

 
Recent publications

 
Rako, L, Blacket, MJ, McKechnie, SW and Hoffmann, AA (2007) Candidate genes and thermal phenotypes: identifying ecologically important genetic variation fro thermotolerance in the Australian Drosophila melanogaster cline. Molecular Ecology 16: 2948-2957.

Collinge, J.E., Hoffmann, S.W. & McKechnie, S.W. (2006) Altitudinal patterns for latitudinally-varying traits and polymorphic markers in Drosophila melanogaster from eastern Australia. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 19: 473-482.

Umina, P. A., Hoffmann, A. A., Weeks, A. & McKechnie, S. W. (2006) An independent non-linear latitudinal cline for the sn-glycerol-3-phospate (a-Gpdh) polymorphism of D. melanogaster in eastern Australia.  Genetical Research 86: 1-9.

 
Weeks, A. R., S. W. McKechnie and A. A. Hoffmann (2006) In search of clinal variation in the period and clock timing genes in Australian Drosophila melanogaster populations.  Journal of Evolutionary Biology 19: 551-557.

 
Saw, J, NM, Endersby & SW McKechnie (2006) Lack of mtDNA diversity among Australian diamondback moth Plutella xylostella (L.) suggests isolation and a founder effect. Insect Science 13: 365-373.

 
Endersby, N. M., McKechnie, S.W., Ridland, P.M.  & Weeks, A.R. (2006) Lack of structure in populations of diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella (L.), in Australia revealed using microsatellite markers. Molecular Ecology 15: 107-118.

 
Charlton, K, A. Taylor & S. W. McKechnie (2006) Bottlenose dolphins from eastern coastal waters off southern Australia have genetically unique mitochondrial DNA. J. Cetacean Res. Manage.  8:173-179.

 
Johnson, T.K.  McKechnie, S.W. & Clancy, D.J. (2006) Water balance in Drosophila: can early physiological decline predict aging and longevity? Journals of Gerontology series. 61A, 2: 146-151.

 
Umina, P. A., A. R. Weeks, M R. Kearney, S. W. McKechnie & A. A. Hoffmann (2005) A rapid shift in a classic clinal pattern in Drosophila reflecting climate change. Science 308: 691-693.

 
Kellett, M., A. A. Hoffmann and S. W. McKechnie (2005) Hardening capacity in the Drosophila melanogaster species group is constrained by basal thermotolerance Functional Ecology 19: 853-858.

 
Anderson, A.R., Hoffmann, A.A. and McKechnie, S.W. (2005) Response to selection for rapid chill-coma-recovery in Drosophila melanogaster: physiology and life history traits. Genetical Research 85: 15-22.

 
Endersby, N. M., McKechnie, S. W. Vogel, H., Gahan, l. J., Baxter, S.W., Ridland, P..M. and Weeks, A.R. (2005) Microsatellites isolated from diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella (L.), for studies of dispersal in Australian populations. Molecular Ecology Notes 5: 51-53.

 
Anderson, A. R., Hoffmann, A. A., McKechnie, S. W., Umina, P. A. and Weeks, A. R. (2005) The latitudinal cline in the In(3R)P inversion polymorphism has shifted in the last 20 years in Australian Drosophila melanogaster populations. Molecular Ecology 14: 851-858.

 
Kellett, M. & McKechnie, S. W. (2005) A cluster of diagnostic Hsp68 amino-acid sites that are identified in Drosophila from the melanogaster species group are concentrated around b-sheet residues involved with substrate binding. Genome 48: 226-233.

 
 Endersby NM, McKechnie SW and Ridland PM (2004). Population structure and movement of diamondback moth in Australia: beginnings of a molecular marker approach. In: Improving Biocontrol of Plutella xylostella.  Proceedings of the International symposium (eds AA Kirk and D Bordat), CIRAD, Montpellier, France, 21-24 October 2002, pp. 167-171

 
Anderson, A R., Collinge, J., Hoffmann, A. A., Kellett, M., and McKechnie, S. W. (2003) Thermal tolerance trade-offs associated with the right arm of chromosome 3 and marked by the hsr-omega gene in Drosophila melanogaster. Heredity 90: 195-202.

 
Endersby, N., Weeks, A., McKechnie, S. W. and Ridland, P. (2003) Development of genetic markers to study dispersal of diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella (L.) in Australia. 13th Australian Research Assembly on Brassicas – Conference Proceedings, 58-61.

 
Magiafoglou, A., Schiffer, M., Hoffmann, A. A. and McKechnie, S. W. (2003) Immunocontraception for population control: Will resistance evolve? Immunology and Cell Biology 81: 152-159.

 
Weeks, A. R., McKechnie, S. W. and Hoffmann, A. A. (2002) Dissecting adaptive clinal variation: markers, inversions and size/stress associations in Drosophila melanogaster from a central field population. Ecology Letters 5: 756-763.