Resilience of eucalypts to future droughts. This project aims to examine how resilient Eucalyptus species are to future droughts by combining data synthesis, manipulative experiments and modelling. Climate change is expected to increase the frequency, magnitude and duration of future droughts, with major environmental and socio-economic consequences for Australia. Current predictive capacity is extremely limited: experiments are limited in scale and cannot capture important global change interac ....Resilience of eucalypts to future droughts. This project aims to examine how resilient Eucalyptus species are to future droughts by combining data synthesis, manipulative experiments and modelling. Climate change is expected to increase the frequency, magnitude and duration of future droughts, with major environmental and socio-economic consequences for Australia. Current predictive capacity is extremely limited: experiments are limited in scale and cannot capture important global change interactions, whilst models do not represent the functional characteristics and adaptions of eucalypts. This project will develop a strong evidence- and process-based understanding to quantify the functional behaviour of drought-adapted Eucalyptus species and leverage this insight to make future model projections.Read moreRead less
Silicon: a novel solution to reduce water use and pest damage in wheat. The project aims to improve Australian wheat production by increasing drought resilience and reducing reliance on pesticides. This is achieved by incorporating amorphous silicon (Si), an abundant national resource. Si uptake by wheat has been proven to alleviate stress from drought and pests, but mechanisms and agronomic feasibility remain to be fully assessed. The project will deliver a mechanistic understanding of how Si a ....Silicon: a novel solution to reduce water use and pest damage in wheat. The project aims to improve Australian wheat production by increasing drought resilience and reducing reliance on pesticides. This is achieved by incorporating amorphous silicon (Si), an abundant national resource. Si uptake by wheat has been proven to alleviate stress from drought and pests, but mechanisms and agronomic feasibility remain to be fully assessed. The project will deliver a mechanistic understanding of how Si alleviates stress in wheat, from gene to farm scale, providing cost-benefit analysis and a best–practice toolbox for implementation by farmers. Outcomes are anticipated to provide a cheaper and more environmentally sustainable solution to issues of water scarcity and yield losses to pests in Australia’s leading crop.Read moreRead less
Does dynamic ecological change cause rapid evolution? This project aims to increase understanding of how Australia’s native biota responds to rapid environmental changes. Abrupt environmental change has the potential to drive rapid evolution, which may facilitate species persistence in the face of novel challenges. This project will use long-term genomic data to quantify rates of evolutionary change in species living in arid environments, whose populations fluctuate markedly in response to rainf ....Does dynamic ecological change cause rapid evolution? This project aims to increase understanding of how Australia’s native biota responds to rapid environmental changes. Abrupt environmental change has the potential to drive rapid evolution, which may facilitate species persistence in the face of novel challenges. This project will use long-term genomic data to quantify rates of evolutionary change in species living in arid environments, whose populations fluctuate markedly in response to rainfall variation. By measuring the pace of genomic change in these species, and the evolutionary processes driving that change, this project will reveal species’ evolutionary responses to major environmental fluctuations.Read moreRead less
Diatom silica production under future ocean conditions, genes to biomes. This project aims to quantify how ocean warming and acidification will alter natural diatom assemblages and silica production rates to predict changes in the cycling and transfer of carbon and silicon in the future ocean. This project expects to generate new knowledge of environmental controls on diatom silicification and their ocean-scale implications by integrating the disciplines of physiology, molecular biology and quan ....Diatom silica production under future ocean conditions, genes to biomes. This project aims to quantify how ocean warming and acidification will alter natural diatom assemblages and silica production rates to predict changes in the cycling and transfer of carbon and silicon in the future ocean. This project expects to generate new knowledge of environmental controls on diatom silicification and their ocean-scale implications by integrating the disciplines of physiology, molecular biology and quantitative modelling. Expected outcomes include essential advancements in future simulations of marine productivity and silicon cycling and a deeper understanding of threats to marine life from climate change. This should provide significant benefits such as improved valuations on the sustainability of ocean ecosystems.Read moreRead less
What determines plant sensitivity to heat?: Individual to lifetime impacts. Temperature is a major determinant of the distribution of species and yet the capacity to predict the thermal sensitivity of plants is extremely limited. How vulnerability varies as a plant grows from seed to adult and produces more seed is a key question. Whether chronic warming exacerbates or ameliorates effects of extreme events, e.g. triggering the plant to enlist defensive strategies, is also an open question. This ....What determines plant sensitivity to heat?: Individual to lifetime impacts. Temperature is a major determinant of the distribution of species and yet the capacity to predict the thermal sensitivity of plants is extremely limited. How vulnerability varies as a plant grows from seed to adult and produces more seed is a key question. Whether chronic warming exacerbates or ameliorates effects of extreme events, e.g. triggering the plant to enlist defensive strategies, is also an open question. This project will advance fundamental understanding of how thermal tolerance varies across species and over the plant life cycle and how it scales demographically to lifetime vulnerability. The work will yield a significant advance in our capacity to predict impacts of extreme heat events on plant performance and distribution.
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Unravelling soil carbon response to warming in fire-affected ecosystems. This project aims to reveal the continental pattern of soil carbon (C) response to warming in fire-affected ecosystems across Australia and to unravel the biogeochemical mechanisms underlying fire’s role in shaping the temperature sensitivity of soil respiration. Fire has modified over 40% of the Earth’s land surface and wildfire frequency is predicted to increase under global warming. This project expects to generate new k ....Unravelling soil carbon response to warming in fire-affected ecosystems. This project aims to reveal the continental pattern of soil carbon (C) response to warming in fire-affected ecosystems across Australia and to unravel the biogeochemical mechanisms underlying fire’s role in shaping the temperature sensitivity of soil respiration. Fire has modified over 40% of the Earth’s land surface and wildfire frequency is predicted to increase under global warming. This project expects to generate new knowledge on how fire influences soil-to-atmosphere C fluxes in a warmer climate using a multi-disciplinary approach. Expected outcomes include an enhanced capacity to predict the terrestrial ecosystem-to-atmosphere C fluxes and their feedbacks to climate under increasing frequency of fire using Earth-system models. Read moreRead less
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
Ecosystem resilience of Shark Bay under changing ocean climate. This project aims to investigate the resilience of the Shark Bay World Heritage Site to projected climate change. This project will generate new knowledge for marine conservation through analyses of habitat loss on nutrient budgets and productivity in seagrass and microbialite ecosystems. Expected outcomes are an improved understanding of climate-driven shifts on ecosystem processes in Shark Bay, incorporating science-based evidence ....Ecosystem resilience of Shark Bay under changing ocean climate. This project aims to investigate the resilience of the Shark Bay World Heritage Site to projected climate change. This project will generate new knowledge for marine conservation through analyses of habitat loss on nutrient budgets and productivity in seagrass and microbialite ecosystems. Expected outcomes are an improved understanding of climate-driven shifts on ecosystem processes in Shark Bay, incorporating science-based evidence for better conservation and management. This will provide significant benefits by contributing to the future-proofing of Shark Bay’s World Heritage values to climate change, and more broadly by demonstrating the consequences of the continued tropicalisation of Australia’s coastline.Read moreRead less
Maximising accuracy and reliability of carbonate climate proxy archives. This project brings together expertise and cutting-edge methodology from different disciplines to identify the controls on the compositions of the shells and skeletons of marine organisms. The compositions of these materials are essential tools to reconstruct environmental conditions before modern climate records began. However, recent insights into how they form profoundly complicate and affect their interpretations.
The r ....Maximising accuracy and reliability of carbonate climate proxy archives. This project brings together expertise and cutting-edge methodology from different disciplines to identify the controls on the compositions of the shells and skeletons of marine organisms. The compositions of these materials are essential tools to reconstruct environmental conditions before modern climate records began. However, recent insights into how they form profoundly complicate and affect their interpretations.
The results will enable us to develop new, realistic models for the behaviour of chemical elements in these materials. This will significantly improve paleoclimate interpretations and provide critical benefit for protecting Australia’s marine resources in the future. Read moreRead less
The mighty ape’s last stand. This project aims to study the fate of primates in southern Asia, where evidence for megafaunal extinction is rare. Why Gigantopithecus blacki, the largest ever primate, disappeared is unknown, while humans in the region survived. This project will model dating techniques across sites to identify a precise extinction window and compare behaviour and past environmental conditions to determine why the ape failed and man persevered. Outcomes will generate a new understa ....The mighty ape’s last stand. This project aims to study the fate of primates in southern Asia, where evidence for megafaunal extinction is rare. Why Gigantopithecus blacki, the largest ever primate, disappeared is unknown, while humans in the region survived. This project will model dating techniques across sites to identify a precise extinction window and compare behaviour and past environmental conditions to determine why the ape failed and man persevered. Outcomes will generate a new understanding of past environmental change as a driver of megafaunal extinction in comparison with human adaption and survival.Read moreRead less