Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE170101116
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$370,159.00
Summary
Adaptations in Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease. This project aims to understand how defence mechanisms against infectious diseases arise and evolve in nature. Infectious diseases exert strong evolutionary pressures on populations, forcing the development of adaptive strategies to fight the costs of infection. The project aims to determine individual differences in response to infection and how these affect population-scale transmission and evolutionary dynamics under natural and managed sc ....Adaptations in Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease. This project aims to understand how defence mechanisms against infectious diseases arise and evolve in nature. Infectious diseases exert strong evolutionary pressures on populations, forcing the development of adaptive strategies to fight the costs of infection. The project aims to determine individual differences in response to infection and how these affect population-scale transmission and evolutionary dynamics under natural and managed scenarios. This is expected to reveal populations’ adaptive capability and resilience against diseases and the effects of management interventions in controlling disease outbreaks and preventing population declines or extinctions.Read moreRead less
Reconstructing the evolution of climatic tolerances in conifers. This project aims to trace the evolution of climate tolerance in conifers by combining evidence from fossils, phylogenies, physiology and mathematics. The project plans to use innovative methods to overcome the biases in methods currently used to trace evolutionary change. The project plans to integrate data from three sources: the global fossil record, new models of current climatic tolerances of conifers, and mathematical simulat ....Reconstructing the evolution of climatic tolerances in conifers. This project aims to trace the evolution of climate tolerance in conifers by combining evidence from fossils, phylogenies, physiology and mathematics. The project plans to use innovative methods to overcome the biases in methods currently used to trace evolutionary change. The project plans to integrate data from three sources: the global fossil record, new models of current climatic tolerances of conifers, and mathematical simulations of how and when methods of reconstructing ancestral ecology fail. The combined results should show how this important group of organisms has responded to past climate change and how they will respond in the future. It should also provide improved estimates of past terrestrial climates.Read moreRead less
Global differentiation of the conifer flora. Conifers are among the most widely recognised and well-loved group of plants. This project will place a global perspective on the evolutionary significance of the southern conifers. Furthermore conifers such as the Wollemi Pine, bunyas, kauris and huon pine are of considerable ecotourism value, and this project will provide a basis for interpretation of these important plants.
Fire, air, water and earth: Using fossils to discover the evolution of Australia’s open vegetation. How Australia came to be dominated by open, tough-leaved vegetation is an old but still highly controversial question, especially with recent developments in molecular biology that challenge paradigms established from the fossil record. The project will test this new molecular paradigm with innovative use of characteristics of fossil leaves to identify the timing and drivers of the evolution of Au ....Fire, air, water and earth: Using fossils to discover the evolution of Australia’s open vegetation. How Australia came to be dominated by open, tough-leaved vegetation is an old but still highly controversial question, especially with recent developments in molecular biology that challenge paradigms established from the fossil record. The project will test this new molecular paradigm with innovative use of characteristics of fossil leaves to identify the timing and drivers of the evolution of Australia’s open vegetation. The integration of new and rigorous evidence derived from living and fossil plants will provide the clearest evidence yet for the origins of Australian environments. This has ramifications for understanding plant responses to past and future climate changes.Read moreRead less
The role of leaf veins in vascular plant evolution. Leaves are continuously irrigated by a system of internal plumbing that defines their maximum photosynthetic output, and angiosperms are the most productive plants on earth largely by virtue of a uniquely efficient system of leaf plumbing. This project will identify how such an important modification of leaf water transport came to evolve.
Evolutionary, macroecological and phylogenetic patterns in Australasian freshwater crayfish. This project connects Australian systematists to a worldwide project that involves all of the world's living experts on freshwater crayfish evolution in a coordinated effort to answer some very important evolutionary questions. It involves a group of invertebrate animals that are not only readily recognisable, but which in Australia includes the world's largest and the world's most terrestrial crayfish s ....Evolutionary, macroecological and phylogenetic patterns in Australasian freshwater crayfish. This project connects Australian systematists to a worldwide project that involves all of the world's living experts on freshwater crayfish evolution in a coordinated effort to answer some very important evolutionary questions. It involves a group of invertebrate animals that are not only readily recognisable, but which in Australia includes the world's largest and the world's most terrestrial crayfish species. Information gained from the project will contribute to the management of crayfish biodiversity, identification of threatened species and tools to identify these prominent and important members of Australian freshwater ecosystems.Read moreRead less
Capturing Proteus: 65 million years of ecosystem change revealed through evolution of Proteaceae in Australasia. By assessing past changes in the iconic Australian plant family Proteaceae, this research will show how the Australasian vegetation has responded to 65 million years of profound landscape and climate changes. This knowledge from the past will give important insights into how ecosystems can be expected to change under future climate scenarios.
Community-level selection: Empirical tests in a microbial system. Given the profile of the question of community-level selection as a long-running controversy, the main benefit of the proposed work, which will critically test the idea in an empirical system, will be to increase recognition of Australia's position as a research nation in evolutionary biology. In exploring mechanisms of floc formation, a key component of wastewater treatment, the work will establish important foundations for impro ....Community-level selection: Empirical tests in a microbial system. Given the profile of the question of community-level selection as a long-running controversy, the main benefit of the proposed work, which will critically test the idea in an empirical system, will be to increase recognition of Australia's position as a research nation in evolutionary biology. In exploring mechanisms of floc formation, a key component of wastewater treatment, the work will establish important foundations for improving the efficiency of wastewater treatment. Improvement in performance of only a few percent will bring important economic savings. This is evidenced by recent commitment of >$US 230 billion to improving the efficiency of wastewater treatment in Germany, Italy and Spain over 5 years.Read moreRead less
Lamarckian lizards: novel integration of telomere epigenetics, free radicals and innate antioxidants in condition-dependant sexual signal evolution. In 2009, the Nobel Prize in physiology was awarded Drs. Blackburn, Greider and Szostak for discoveries on telomeres. This project will investigate how telomeres not only cap chromosomes from destruction by free radicals, but also have a key role in life itself, in their influence on ageing, longevity, ornaments and lifetime reproductive success.
Maternal effects and sex allocation: an integrated approach. This project will produce research of a high international standard combining a number of key fields in evolution and ecology. The team we have assembled provides a link between Australian-based researchers and leading overseas theoreticians facilitating integration between evolutionary theory and empirical research on the unique Australian fauna. Furthermore, while climate change is identified as a priority area for research, Australi ....Maternal effects and sex allocation: an integrated approach. This project will produce research of a high international standard combining a number of key fields in evolution and ecology. The team we have assembled provides a link between Australian-based researchers and leading overseas theoreticians facilitating integration between evolutionary theory and empirical research on the unique Australian fauna. Furthermore, while climate change is identified as a priority area for research, Australia typically lacks the history of long-term phenological monitoring that is required to understand climate change impacts. This project takes an important step towards addressing this shortcoming.Read moreRead less