The basis of oyster resilience to global environmental change. This project aims to investigate the impact of global environmental change on the survival of Australia’s oyster industry, by combining the science of genetics, physiology and ecology to identify already resilient oysters. Through the first complete understanding of resilience in oysters, including the trade-offs they have made in other fitness traits, the project develops new capacities to 'climate and future-proof' our natural oyst ....The basis of oyster resilience to global environmental change. This project aims to investigate the impact of global environmental change on the survival of Australia’s oyster industry, by combining the science of genetics, physiology and ecology to identify already resilient oysters. Through the first complete understanding of resilience in oysters, including the trade-offs they have made in other fitness traits, the project develops new capacities to 'climate and future-proof' our natural oyster populations and the Australian oyster industry, to enable the restoration of degraded oyster habitats. This project will ensure the future of an iconic and economically important national industry and food source and contribute to preserving the critical cultural links of Indigenous Australians with their lands.Read moreRead less
Who's calling? Understanding and exploiting signalling system ecology to improve success in trapping cane toads. This project has five major national and community benefits for Australia. It will: 1. provide a much-needed control option for a major pest, 2. actually remove many toads during the course of the study, through trapping at various locations around Australia, 3. support an Australian small business by providing research outcomes that will enable it to develop and market a highly desi ....Who's calling? Understanding and exploiting signalling system ecology to improve success in trapping cane toads. This project has five major national and community benefits for Australia. It will: 1. provide a much-needed control option for a major pest, 2. actually remove many toads during the course of the study, through trapping at various locations around Australia, 3. support an Australian small business by providing research outcomes that will enable it to develop and market a highly desired product, and 4. provide high level, postgraduate training in science. This project directly addresses the National Research Priority goal safeguarding Australia, protecting Australia from invasive … pests, because it will generate new technologies useful for controlling an invasive species.Read moreRead less
Sex and bottlenecks: understanding the evolutionary dynamics of bacterial adaptation. Bacteria can rapidly adapt to changing environments, often with devastating consequences for humans. However, this adaptive evolution is often limited by strong reductions in population size, in particular during transmission from one host to another. This project aims to investigate whether recombination in bacteria can overcome the limits that such bottlenecks impose on the rate of adaptation. To this end, it ....Sex and bottlenecks: understanding the evolutionary dynamics of bacterial adaptation. Bacteria can rapidly adapt to changing environments, often with devastating consequences for humans. However, this adaptive evolution is often limited by strong reductions in population size, in particular during transmission from one host to another. This project aims to investigate whether recombination in bacteria can overcome the limits that such bottlenecks impose on the rate of adaptation. To this end, it will construct mathematical models and complement them with evolution experiments in bacterial populations. Results from this research aim to generate fundamental insights into the role of recombination in bacterial evolution and will provide guidance for developing management strategies for bacterial pathogens.Read moreRead less
Predicting the evolutionary dynamics of adaptation. This project aims to address the question of how we can predict adaptive evolution. The project aims to probe the limits of evolutionary predictions by using a model system of bacterial populations that adapt to the presence of multiple stressors. This will be combined with high-throughput fitness measurements, whole genome sequencing and computer simulations. Anticipated outcomes include novel insights into deep questions regarding the structu ....Predicting the evolutionary dynamics of adaptation. This project aims to address the question of how we can predict adaptive evolution. The project aims to probe the limits of evolutionary predictions by using a model system of bacterial populations that adapt to the presence of multiple stressors. This will be combined with high-throughput fitness measurements, whole genome sequencing and computer simulations. Anticipated outcomes include novel insights into deep questions regarding the structure of fitness landscapes and the repeatability, predictability and contingency of adaptive evolution. The project is expected to provide significant benefits, informing the development of improved strategies for managing pathogen resistance to antimicrobial drugs.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE170100354
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$372,000.00
Summary
How adaptation increases the intensity of sexual conflict. This project aims to test a theory that a species’ adaptation to its environment may cause sexual conflicts where gene variants increase the fitness of one sex but decrease it in the other. When populations harbour large numbers of these sexually antagonistic genes, adaptation is hampered and extinction becomes more likely. This project will fuse experimental evolution with quantitative genetic approaches to test this theory. Understandi ....How adaptation increases the intensity of sexual conflict. This project aims to test a theory that a species’ adaptation to its environment may cause sexual conflicts where gene variants increase the fitness of one sex but decrease it in the other. When populations harbour large numbers of these sexually antagonistic genes, adaptation is hampered and extinction becomes more likely. This project will fuse experimental evolution with quantitative genetic approaches to test this theory. Understanding sex differences in adaptation and the evolution of sexual dimorphism could enable scientists to predict levels of sexually deleterious variation under changing environmental conditions. Its findings are expected to provide new insights into sex differences in adaptation.Read moreRead less
Detecting sex differences in natural selection. This project aims to develop new genomic approaches for understanding how genetic mutations can differentially affect reproductive success in males and females. Applying novel tests, this project aims to uncover previously hidden genetic conflicts between the sexes. This will provide significant benefits, such as new tools that will be broadly applicable to the wider research community, and help to answer key questions in genetics and evolutionary ....Detecting sex differences in natural selection. This project aims to develop new genomic approaches for understanding how genetic mutations can differentially affect reproductive success in males and females. Applying novel tests, this project aims to uncover previously hidden genetic conflicts between the sexes. This will provide significant benefits, such as new tools that will be broadly applicable to the wider research community, and help to answer key questions in genetics and evolutionary biology in the current genomic era.Read moreRead less
Understanding phenotypes: contributions from studying mutations in a model organism. The distribution of fish across aquatic habitats will be determined jointly by the swimming speed and endurance requirements imposed by features of the environment, such as water flow, and by the swimming capacity of the fish. This project will use zebrafish to characterise how body shape and physiology interact to determine swimming capacity.
The nature of standing genetic variation. This project aims to expand understanding of the genetic variation underlying phenotypic differences among individuals. The nature of genetic variation has broad consequences across biology, from the detection of causal genetic variants to the adaptation of natural populations. This project will take a novel experimental approach to test several long-standing assumptions about the effects of new mutations on individual traits and their joint pleiotropic ....The nature of standing genetic variation. This project aims to expand understanding of the genetic variation underlying phenotypic differences among individuals. The nature of genetic variation has broad consequences across biology, from the detection of causal genetic variants to the adaptation of natural populations. This project will take a novel experimental approach to test several long-standing assumptions about the effects of new mutations on individual traits and their joint pleiotropic effect on fitness. By expanding our understanding of how mutation, selection and drift interact, this project could provide significant improvements in our understanding of the genetic basis of phenotypes, and our ability to predict phenotypic evolution.Read moreRead less
Understanding rapid adaptation to new environments. This project aims to improve understanding of the process of rapid adaptation. Through both in situ changes and movement of individuals, populations are increasingly encountering new environments, where they risk extinction or become invasive. The fate of populations is determined by how rapidly they adapt to their new environmental conditions. Recent theory predicts adaptation to novel environments is fastest when selection acts on environment ....Understanding rapid adaptation to new environments. This project aims to improve understanding of the process of rapid adaptation. Through both in situ changes and movement of individuals, populations are increasingly encountering new environments, where they risk extinction or become invasive. The fate of populations is determined by how rapidly they adapt to their new environmental conditions. Recent theory predicts adaptation to novel environments is fastest when selection acts on environment-specific genetic variation. This project will test this prediction using novel manipulations. Better understanding of adaptation will allow better prediction of the risks of both extinction and invasiveness of natural populations.Read moreRead less
Exposing the complex and flexible genetic basis to polygenic adaptation: integrating population and quantitative genomic approaches. Using leading-edge genomic approaches, the project will dissect the genetic basis to adaptation across an entire species range. The results will highlight the complex nature of adaptation to environmental change and will deliver new approaches to study it in natural populations.