Information processing at its limits: from the dimmest habitats to the smallest sizes. Ensuring optimal information processing at the limits of size and ambient light is a challenge for technical systems, but has been elegantly solved by animals. The challenge of navigation is similar for animals of all sizes and in both day and night. This project aims to conduct a comparative analysis to identify the consequence of size and light on the information processing capacities for visual navigation. ....Information processing at its limits: from the dimmest habitats to the smallest sizes. Ensuring optimal information processing at the limits of size and ambient light is a challenge for technical systems, but has been elegantly solved by animals. The challenge of navigation is similar for animals of all sizes and in both day and night. This project aims to conduct a comparative analysis to identify the consequence of size and light on the information processing capacities for visual navigation. Outcomes of this project will reveal the behavioural and physiological adaptations needed and the costs associated with navigating in the dimmest of habitats and at the smallest of sizes. Identifying such optimal biological solutions for robust navigation will be relevant for image processing, computer vision and robotics.Read moreRead less
Comprehending and modelling the workings of the animal brain. Truly understanding how the brain operates is a grand challenge of 21st century neuroscience. Progress toward this goal can be made through studying small-brained animals, like the honey bee. This project aims to use microscopy and pharmacology to analyse the neural mechanisms by which bees learn and classify complex things. This will enable the construction of a computational model of decision making in the bee brain. Analysing this ....Comprehending and modelling the workings of the animal brain. Truly understanding how the brain operates is a grand challenge of 21st century neuroscience. Progress toward this goal can be made through studying small-brained animals, like the honey bee. This project aims to use microscopy and pharmacology to analyse the neural mechanisms by which bees learn and classify complex things. This will enable the construction of a computational model of decision making in the bee brain. Analysing this model will test what is understood about the operation of the animal brain, and what simulates it. This project aims to reveal how neural circuits make complex decisions; establish key principles and foundational studies for comprehending larger more complex brains, and yield new approaches to machine learning.Read moreRead less
The causes and effects of mortality in tropical Australian trees. Drought can cause the widespread death of tropical trees resulting in large emissions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, but predictions of tree death during drought remain rudimentary. This project will combine new data and modelling on how Australian tropical trees respond to drought to improve estimates of tree mortality risk and its impacts.
Dynamics of the Southern Ocean. The Southern Ocean is critically important to future global climate: it controls the natural global carbon cycle and the distribution of heat and nutrients around the ocean. This project will investigate key uncertainties in the Southern Ocean's response to climate change, and thereby improve our capacity to predict future climate.
Quantifying the impact of phenotypic plasticity on population persistence. This project aims to understand how environmental sensitivity in growth, survival and reproduction of individuals in a population influence population dynamics using terrestrial ectotherms. It will provide significant new insights into whether phenotypic plasticity promotes population persistence in the face of environmental change. Expected outcomes include approaches for incorporating environmental effects in population ....Quantifying the impact of phenotypic plasticity on population persistence. This project aims to understand how environmental sensitivity in growth, survival and reproduction of individuals in a population influence population dynamics using terrestrial ectotherms. It will provide significant new insights into whether phenotypic plasticity promotes population persistence in the face of environmental change. Expected outcomes include approaches for incorporating environmental effects in population models for threatened species, open databases that can be used to estimate demographic information for species lacking data, and an assessment of what characteristics make some species more sensitive to the environment than others. Benefits include quantitative training and tools for managing Australia's rich biodiversity.Read moreRead less
Growing up to be supersonic: bat echolocation origins and mechanics. This project aims to address the unresolved evolutionary origins of bat echolocation. Using a unique combination of development, evolution and novel engineering testing, this project expects to generate new insights into how features of the skull have evolved to allow bats to use their senses to interact with the environment. Expected outcomes include the identification of skull features that are unique to echolocating bats and ....Growing up to be supersonic: bat echolocation origins and mechanics. This project aims to address the unresolved evolutionary origins of bat echolocation. Using a unique combination of development, evolution and novel engineering testing, this project expects to generate new insights into how features of the skull have evolved to allow bats to use their senses to interact with the environment. Expected outcomes include the identification of skull features that are unique to echolocating bats and tests of how these relate to the frequency and detection range of sounds produced. Benefits include improved conservation planning for urban and rural bat populations, and potential commercial advances through engineering applications that mimic the biological process of echolocation. Read moreRead less
The role of the innate immune response in the asymptomatic nature of viral infections in bats. Bats are natural reservoirs to a variety of viruses, including many that are lethal in humans and other mammals. This project will generate fundamental information on the mechanisms involved in the asymptomatic nature of viral infections in bats and contribute towards the development of new antiviral strategies for other susceptible species.
Anticipating, Combating and Exploiting the Evolution of Pesticide Resistance in Australian Agricultural Pests and Disease Vectors. Synthetic insecticides have resulted in an explosion in food production through effective insect control. However, insects have begun to evolve resistance against one of the most widely used classes of insecticides (organophosphates) via mutations in carboxylesterases (CBEs). To address this problem, the ability to anticipate further evolution, combat it and exploit ....Anticipating, Combating and Exploiting the Evolution of Pesticide Resistance in Australian Agricultural Pests and Disease Vectors. Synthetic insecticides have resulted in an explosion in food production through effective insect control. However, insects have begun to evolve resistance against one of the most widely used classes of insecticides (organophosphates) via mutations in carboxylesterases (CBEs). To address this problem, the ability to anticipate further evolution, combat it and exploit it for our own benefit is needed. This project aims to anticipate evolution by simulating it in the laboratory, allowing for the best preparation for change. New pesticides will be designed to combat insecticide resistance based upon the molecular structure of an insect CBE. This project aims to exploit these newly evolved enzymes to create biosensors and decontamination agents.Read moreRead less
Spanning ten billion scales from millimetre turbulence to global circulation. This project aims to explain the role of convection in the ocean. Convection is a key climate process yet it remains one of the most poorly understood mechanisms in the ocean and is crudely represented in climate models, leading to uncertainties in predictions of heat transport, climate change, polar ice loss and sea level rise. Using a unique turbulence-resolving approach and high-performance computing, the project wi ....Spanning ten billion scales from millimetre turbulence to global circulation. This project aims to explain the role of convection in the ocean. Convection is a key climate process yet it remains one of the most poorly understood mechanisms in the ocean and is crudely represented in climate models, leading to uncertainties in predictions of heat transport, climate change, polar ice loss and sea level rise. Using a unique turbulence-resolving approach and high-performance computing, the project will determine both the global role of buoyancy-driven convection in the broad ocean circulation and the local turbulence controls on melting rates of Antarctic ice-shelves. This will contribute to the formulation of better climate models and keep Australia at the forefront of oceanography and environmental fluid dynamics.Read moreRead less
Psyllids as biosecurity threats to plantation and native eucalypts in Australia and internationally. Psyllids are tiny cicada-like insects that are economic pests of forestry and horticulture because the saliva injected when feeding causes leaf death and some vector plant diseases. Advanced technologies and procedures will be used to determine what makes plants susceptible to psyllids and to improve Australian preparedness ahead of an incursion.