Nutritional ecology of free ranging herbivores. Australian grasslands underpin most of our livestock industries and provide important habitats for many native plants and animals. In order to manage these areas sustainably, farmers and other land managers need to know how much food animals consume and how the nutritional quality of that food varies. However there is no simple way of doing this and this prevents timely manipulation of stock numbers and limits our ability to predict fluctuations i ....Nutritional ecology of free ranging herbivores. Australian grasslands underpin most of our livestock industries and provide important habitats for many native plants and animals. In order to manage these areas sustainably, farmers and other land managers need to know how much food animals consume and how the nutritional quality of that food varies. However there is no simple way of doing this and this prevents timely manipulation of stock numbers and limits our ability to predict fluctuations in numbers of native herbivores such as kangaroos. The project will provide a cheap and quick means for ecologists and land managers to incorporate nutritional analyses into their work
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Trade-offs underlying the evolution of female mating strategies. Multiple mating by females (polyandry) is a fundamental problem in behavioural ecology. The project will utilise an Australian species of stingless bee to quantify both the costs and the most probable benefits of polyandry. This will provide insight into the trade-offs underlying the evolution of mating strategies in this species and in general. Stingless bees are important members of many Australian ecosystems and have consider ....Trade-offs underlying the evolution of female mating strategies. Multiple mating by females (polyandry) is a fundamental problem in behavioural ecology. The project will utilise an Australian species of stingless bee to quantify both the costs and the most probable benefits of polyandry. This will provide insight into the trade-offs underlying the evolution of mating strategies in this species and in general. Stingless bees are important members of many Australian ecosystems and have considerable economic potential as well. The knowledge gained during the project will also substantially aid the development and management of the commercial use of stingless bees, which will have both ecological and economic benefits to Australia.Read moreRead less
You are what you eat: can tissues of top predators which show sequential dietary change identify long-term trends in ecosystems? This project uses stable isotope signatures in the whiskers of top predators to determine foraging ecology. We aim to validate current stable isotopic models so this cost-effective tool can be used to examine large scale changes in food web dynamics in one of the world's climate hotspots in the Antarctic. Changes in the Antarctic directly impact the Australian communit ....You are what you eat: can tissues of top predators which show sequential dietary change identify long-term trends in ecosystems? This project uses stable isotope signatures in the whiskers of top predators to determine foraging ecology. We aim to validate current stable isotopic models so this cost-effective tool can be used to examine large scale changes in food web dynamics in one of the world's climate hotspots in the Antarctic. Changes in the Antarctic directly impact the Australian community as our climate is affected by changes in Antarctica. As this project is part of an International Polar Year Program, Impact of CLImate induced glacial melting on marine and terrestric COastal communities on a gradient along the Western Antarctic PENinsula (ClicOPEN), it strengthens Australia's international scientific links and exposes Australia's future scientists to internationally collaborative research which is of global significance.Read moreRead less