Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE130101453
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$364,015.00
Summary
Developing predictions of extinction risk for tropical arthropods in the face of global environmental change. Developing knowledge of the characteristics that make species especially at risk of extinction is critical in order to limit the extent of future biodiversity losses. This project uses the fossil record of extinctions on islands in order to develop a better understanding of the processes that drive species to extinction.
Assessment of past biodiversity through DNA preserved in bulk bone. This project aims to make a unique study of fossils to determine how the composition and biodiversity of ecosystems have changed in response to anthropogenic influences. Fossil bones provide a window through which to study past environments and how they have changed, and the stories these fossils tell can be further enhanced by ancient DNA analyses. This project plans to use bulk bone metabarcoding where hundreds of low-value (f ....Assessment of past biodiversity through DNA preserved in bulk bone. This project aims to make a unique study of fossils to determine how the composition and biodiversity of ecosystems have changed in response to anthropogenic influences. Fossil bones provide a window through which to study past environments and how they have changed, and the stories these fossils tell can be further enhanced by ancient DNA analyses. This project plans to use bulk bone metabarcoding where hundreds of low-value (fragmented) bones are collectively ground together to provide a cost-effective genetic audit of fossil assemblages. Working on bone from across Oceania and south-east Asia, this project aims to provide a historical perspective on biodiversity. Understanding former ecosystem composition and extinction may facilitate effective restoration and conservation initiatives.Read moreRead less
Transformation of vegetation by big herbivores, from the Pleistocene to now. The project aims to provide a coherent understanding of the effects of extinct and extant large herbivores on ecosystems over space and time. The structure and distribution of vegetation types is determined not only by climate and soils, but also by the impacts of herbivores and fire as consumers of plant biomass. Recent research has shown how fire shapes the large-scale distribution of vegetation types, but we do not h ....Transformation of vegetation by big herbivores, from the Pleistocene to now. The project aims to provide a coherent understanding of the effects of extinct and extant large herbivores on ecosystems over space and time. The structure and distribution of vegetation types is determined not only by climate and soils, but also by the impacts of herbivores and fire as consumers of plant biomass. Recent research has shown how fire shapes the large-scale distribution of vegetation types, but we do not have an equivalent understanding of the effects of large ground-dwelling herbivores. The project plans to test the effects of such animals on vegetation structure in the Pleistocene, when mega-herbivores were common, and today, and thus to compare the impacts of fire and herbivores on the distribution of vegetation types.Read moreRead less
Generalised methods for testing extinction dynamics across geological, near and modern time scales. The record of extinctions over deep time is patchy and incomplete, yet we must use it to determine how major changes in past environments have shaped life on Earth today. The project will develop cutting-edge mathematical tools to determine the patterns of extinctions and speciation over geological time to help predict our uncertain environmental future.
Resolving how five million years of dramatic climatic changes shaped Australia's unique fauna. Australia’s biota is a product of its unique heritage, tectonic history and most especially its climate. Over the past five million years it has been beset by a series of intense climatic shifts driven by a combination of global and regional factors. This project will be the first to track faunal responses to environmental changes across this critical interval. It will establish the dynamics of the ori ....Resolving how five million years of dramatic climatic changes shaped Australia's unique fauna. Australia’s biota is a product of its unique heritage, tectonic history and most especially its climate. Over the past five million years it has been beset by a series of intense climatic shifts driven by a combination of global and regional factors. This project will be the first to track faunal responses to environmental changes across this critical interval. It will establish the dynamics of the origin of the modern southern vertebrate fauna, analysing changes in diversity, diet and community structure. By exploring associations between phases of faunal turnover and key climatic transitions, it will bring a Southern Hemisphere perspective to evolutionary models of Cenozoic faunal change largely generated to date from Northern Hemisphere data.Read moreRead less
Faunal responses to past climatic and human impacts in eastern Australia. The Wellington Caves in central eastern New South Wales are Australia's most historically significant fossil locality and preserve one of the world's most complete records of vertebrate life spanning the past 4 million years. To date this unique archive has been vastly under-exploited as a source of information on how faunas respond to increased aridity and climatic variability, as well as human activities over the past 50 ....Faunal responses to past climatic and human impacts in eastern Australia. The Wellington Caves in central eastern New South Wales are Australia's most historically significant fossil locality and preserve one of the world's most complete records of vertebrate life spanning the past 4 million years. To date this unique archive has been vastly under-exploited as a source of information on how faunas respond to increased aridity and climatic variability, as well as human activities over the past 50 000 years. This project aims to elucidate how climate change drove the evolution of the modern fauna of eastern Australia by analysing changes in diversity, diet and community structure over time. It may also help break the 130-year climate-versus-humans deadlock over what drove the Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions.Read moreRead less
Evolution in tooth and claw: exploring the relationship between the radiation of marsupial herbivores and late Cenozoic climate change. Establishing how animals responded to past environmental changes is essential for understanding the ecology of modern species and managing them in light of contemporary climatic trends. By applying several novel analytical methods this project will unravel the links between the radiation of Australian marsupials and key stages in climatic evolution.
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.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE140101879
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$309,660.00
Summary
Dispersal, diversity and survival: lessons from the fossil record. The ability of organisms to spread their genes may be key to their long-term survival. For example, birds survived the mass extinction of 65 million years ago, but their non-flying dinosaurian relatives did not. This project will use the fossil record to establish whether swimming or flying are key traits in long-term survival. This will be done by producing the first family tree for all extinct terrestrial vertebrates onto which ....Dispersal, diversity and survival: lessons from the fossil record. The ability of organisms to spread their genes may be key to their long-term survival. For example, birds survived the mass extinction of 65 million years ago, but their non-flying dinosaurian relatives did not. This project will use the fossil record to establish whether swimming or flying are key traits in long-term survival. This will be done by producing the first family tree for all extinct terrestrial vertebrates onto which geographic data will be mapped before a novel computational analysis shows how species moved between continents over the last 400 million years. The results may inform modern conservation issues, as changing climate means an organism's survival could be dependent on its ability to physically track shifting environments.Read moreRead less
Managing fire and ecology in northern Australia. This project aims to understand how fire affects the northern Australian savannah. European arrival changed how fire was used in Australia. This project will use ecology, palaeoecology and model development to develop pre-European ecological baselines in northern Australia and to reconstruct changes in plant cover in response to changes in fire regime. By understanding the effect of fire, the project will support the effective maintenance of the e ....Managing fire and ecology in northern Australia. This project aims to understand how fire affects the northern Australian savannah. European arrival changed how fire was used in Australia. This project will use ecology, palaeoecology and model development to develop pre-European ecological baselines in northern Australia and to reconstruct changes in plant cover in response to changes in fire regime. By understanding the effect of fire, the project will support the effective maintenance of the ecological integrity and biodiversity of the savannah landscapes.Read moreRead less