Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE180101520
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$365,058.00
Summary
Diet, variance and individual variability in life-history. This project aims to provide biologists with novel statistical tools that will shift analytical paradigms. In many species, dietary restrictions increase average lifespan, and affect average rates of growth and reproduction, also known as ‘life history’. The use of recently developed tools has shown that individual variability in life history also appears to increase under dietary restrictions. This project will explore the effects of di ....Diet, variance and individual variability in life-history. This project aims to provide biologists with novel statistical tools that will shift analytical paradigms. In many species, dietary restrictions increase average lifespan, and affect average rates of growth and reproduction, also known as ‘life history’. The use of recently developed tools has shown that individual variability in life history also appears to increase under dietary restrictions. This project will explore the effects of diet composition on variability in life-history traits, and the factors driving this variation. This is expected to improve the prediction of the effects of changing nutritional environments.Read moreRead less
Maternal contributions to offspring development in a changing climate. This project aims to investigate how maternal contributions to offspring developmental environments affect metabolism, learning, growth, and survival of offspring. This project expects to provide mechanistic and evolutionary insights into how changes in metabolic function, brought about by changes in the developmental environment, contribute to variation in learning and life-history. Expected outcomes include an in-depth unde ....Maternal contributions to offspring development in a changing climate. This project aims to investigate how maternal contributions to offspring developmental environments affect metabolism, learning, growth, and survival of offspring. This project expects to provide mechanistic and evolutionary insights into how changes in metabolic function, brought about by changes in the developmental environment, contribute to variation in learning and life-history. Expected outcomes include an in-depth understanding of how changes in maternal investment and hormones impact offspring developing in different thermal environments and how such changes are mediated by compromised physiological function – providing significant benefits in understanding population persistence in Australia's rapidly changing climate.Read moreRead less
Population divergence and the thermal ecology of sexual conflict. This project aims to test how populations of introduced mosquitofish have adapted to local differences in water temperature (such as Tasmania versus Queensland). To what extent has natural selection (for survival) and sexual selection (the ability of males to acquire mates and/or females to resist unwanted matings) driven the local adaptation of populations? Many species have traits that evolve under intense sexual conflict – nota ....Population divergence and the thermal ecology of sexual conflict. This project aims to test how populations of introduced mosquitofish have adapted to local differences in water temperature (such as Tasmania versus Queensland). To what extent has natural selection (for survival) and sexual selection (the ability of males to acquire mates and/or females to resist unwanted matings) driven the local adaptation of populations? Many species have traits that evolve under intense sexual conflict – notably when males harass or coerce females into mating and females resist these attempts. It is assumed that sexual conflict traits are rarely affected by the local environment. The project will test the hypothesis that temperature can actually drive the evolution of such traits, specifically coercion and resistance to mating.Read moreRead less
Artificial light at night as a driver of evolutionary change. This project aims to investigate whether artificial light at night drives evolutionary change using a combination of field observations, laboratory experiments and advanced genetic techniques. This multi-disciplinary study expects to provide a significant advance in understanding of the impact of light at night for animals and will enhance our capacity to predict the outcome of future urban expansions for all species. The outcomes wil ....Artificial light at night as a driver of evolutionary change. This project aims to investigate whether artificial light at night drives evolutionary change using a combination of field observations, laboratory experiments and advanced genetic techniques. This multi-disciplinary study expects to provide a significant advance in understanding of the impact of light at night for animals and will enhance our capacity to predict the outcome of future urban expansions for all species. The outcomes will have broad implications for estimating the future biodiversity and health of our urban areas and will benefit both globally and within Australia by providing much needed data regarding the likely resilience of species currently residing in our major cities.Read moreRead less
Larval dispersal and settlement mechanisms in the first genome-enabled Australian marine animal, Amphimedon queenslandica (Porifera). We know remarkably little about the lives of the enigmatic animals that live on our stunning coral reefs, except that many have a tiny larval stage that travels far beyond where the adults can go. This project explores how genomes and environment work together to ensure that larvae spread their species around to keep our reefs vibrant and diverse.
Understanding marine life-history patterns: an eco-energetics approach. This project aims to determine how temperature affects the energetics of development in marine invertebrates and explain why global distributions of marine organisms show the patterns they do. This project will provide new insights into whether Australia's temperate marine fauna are uniquely vulnerable to future change. Leveraging a new framework, eco-energetics, the project will determine the relative performance of differe ....Understanding marine life-history patterns: an eco-energetics approach. This project aims to determine how temperature affects the energetics of development in marine invertebrates and explain why global distributions of marine organisms show the patterns they do. This project will provide new insights into whether Australia's temperate marine fauna are uniquely vulnerable to future change. Leveraging a new framework, eco-energetics, the project will determine the relative performance of different larval types across every stage of the life history. The project will provide significant benefits such as a new powerful and comprehensive framework for understanding current and predicting future patterns in marine life, providing inferences that extend beyond the species studied in this project.Read moreRead less
Does mother know best? Unifying proximate causation and ultimate explanation in mammalian sex allocation. The study of parental effects is a fundamental area in evolutionary ecology, but is characterised by poor integration of theory (ultimate causation) and physiology (proximate causation). This is true in sex allocation research that focuses almost exclusively on ultimate causation without integrating the physiological mechanisms for sex ratio adjustment. Using a combination of experiments and ....Does mother know best? Unifying proximate causation and ultimate explanation in mammalian sex allocation. The study of parental effects is a fundamental area in evolutionary ecology, but is characterised by poor integration of theory (ultimate causation) and physiology (proximate causation). This is true in sex allocation research that focuses almost exclusively on ultimate causation without integrating the physiological mechanisms for sex ratio adjustment. Using a combination of experiments and modelling, the project addresses this gap in understanding mammalian sex allocation, specifically: the lack of known mechanism; the connection between proximate mechanistic explanation and adaptive fitness explanations; and, knowledge on constraints. This project argues that one mechanism, pre-implantation glucose levels, links adaptive hypotheses with proximate causation. Read moreRead less
Evolution on the edge: a model system for evolution on invasion fronts. This project aims to develop a shared experimental platform, using the well-studied ecological model, Daphnia, to test emergent predictions about evolution on invasion fronts. Evolution happens rapidly on invasion fronts, accelerating the speed and potentially the damage caused by an invasion. By manipulating invasions through an experimental landscape, the project aims to answer currently infeasible questions, including whe ....Evolution on the edge: a model system for evolution on invasion fronts. This project aims to develop a shared experimental platform, using the well-studied ecological model, Daphnia, to test emergent predictions about evolution on invasion fronts. Evolution happens rapidly on invasion fronts, accelerating the speed and potentially the damage caused by an invasion. By manipulating invasions through an experimental landscape, the project aims to answer currently infeasible questions, including whether pathogens become more virulent as they spread, and whether evolutionary trade-offs place limits on spread rate. This work would dramatically improve our understanding of biological invasions and may have implications for the management of phenomena ranging from emergent diseases to invasive pests and malignant growths.Read moreRead less
The fitness consequences of age-dependent changes in cognitive abilities. This project aims to investigate health-related topics in invasive fish. The evolution of large brains suggests that smarter individuals have more offspring due to natural and sexual selection. This project aims to test if the ability to perform cognitively challenging tasks predicts reproductive success. In addition, many life history traits show a trade-off between early and late life performance. This project will test ....The fitness consequences of age-dependent changes in cognitive abilities. This project aims to investigate health-related topics in invasive fish. The evolution of large brains suggests that smarter individuals have more offspring due to natural and sexual selection. This project aims to test if the ability to perform cognitively challenging tasks predicts reproductive success. In addition, many life history traits show a trade-off between early and late life performance. This project will test this prediction to see if individuals with above average cognitive performance when young are below average when old, that is faster 'cognitive senescence', or whether some individuals stay relatively smarter than others throughout their lives.Read moreRead less
Human longevity: Modelling social changes that propelled its evolution. The project plans to simulate behavioural and social changes that could have driven the evolution of human longevity past the end of female menopause. The aims are to develop a mathematical framework for modelling complex organisation in a population in terms of fundamental social units and to qualitatively evaluate the relative importance of these social units in potentially driving human evolution from the ancestral state. ....Human longevity: Modelling social changes that propelled its evolution. The project plans to simulate behavioural and social changes that could have driven the evolution of human longevity past the end of female menopause. The aims are to develop a mathematical framework for modelling complex organisation in a population in terms of fundamental social units and to qualitatively evaluate the relative importance of these social units in potentially driving human evolution from the ancestral state. Such models may enable us to compare two prominent and opposing hypotheses of the evolution of human longevity: the Grandmother Hypothesis and the Hunting Hypothesis.Read moreRead less