The recovery of life recorded at the end-cretaceous impact crater. This project aims to provide new insights into how the Earth and its ecosystems respond to catastrophic events and dramatic shifts in climate. Sharp changes in climate and ocean circulation can place ecosystems under severe stress. The unique data stemming from this multidisciplinary characterisation of the fluxes of organisms recorded at the Chicxulub impact crater could be used to model the fate of life, and the potential to re ....The recovery of life recorded at the end-cretaceous impact crater. This project aims to provide new insights into how the Earth and its ecosystems respond to catastrophic events and dramatic shifts in climate. Sharp changes in climate and ocean circulation can place ecosystems under severe stress. The unique data stemming from this multidisciplinary characterisation of the fluxes of organisms recorded at the Chicxulub impact crater could be used to model the fate of life, and the potential to recover from future ecologically turbulent events.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE120100107
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
Eggshells: genetic and biochemical information encapsulated. Tough, waterproof and impervious to decay, extraordinary eggshell can do more than just project baby birds: DNA from eggshells helps wildlife officers to bust wildlife criminals, scientists to investigate the role of humans and climate change in bird extinctions, and conservationists to save our endangered birds.
Faunal responses to environmental change and isolation on an Australian land-bridge island. Establishing how faunas responded to past isolation and environmental changes offers great potential for predicting long-term impacts of habitat fragmentation. By combining novel methods we will track extinction rates, diet and body-size shifts on Kangaroo Island, the only known land-bridge island with a fossil record spanning the past 100,000 years.
Illuminating the evolutionary history of Australia’s most iconic animals. This project aims to pinpoint the nature and timing of key steps in macropod history and to test how these link with major climatic and biotic changes. Macropods (kangaroos and relatives) are widely considered the marsupial equivalents to hoofed mammals on other continents, but we have a weaker understanding of how their evolution was shaped by environmental change. This project will combine palaeontology, anatomy and gene ....Illuminating the evolutionary history of Australia’s most iconic animals. This project aims to pinpoint the nature and timing of key steps in macropod history and to test how these link with major climatic and biotic changes. Macropods (kangaroos and relatives) are widely considered the marsupial equivalents to hoofed mammals on other continents, but we have a weaker understanding of how their evolution was shaped by environmental change. This project will combine palaeontology, anatomy and genetics to address questions such as how and why ancestral macropods descended from the trees and evolved bipedal hopping, and the upper size limits of the kangaroo “body plan”. This should improve our understanding of the long-term effects of climate change on marsupials, and provide a test of key placental-based evolutionary models.Read moreRead less