Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE140101389
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$318,898.00
Summary
Impacts on wildlife populations of infection by multiple, interacting pathogens and the implications for disease management. Simultaneous infection by multiple pathogens is common in nature and interactions among pathogens within a host can profoundly alter the susceptibility of hosts to infection, disease severity and the probability of further transmission. This project aims to understand the consequences of these interactions on both wildlife populations and the communities of pathogens that ....Impacts on wildlife populations of infection by multiple, interacting pathogens and the implications for disease management. Simultaneous infection by multiple pathogens is common in nature and interactions among pathogens within a host can profoundly alter the susceptibility of hosts to infection, disease severity and the probability of further transmission. This project aims to understand the consequences of these interactions on both wildlife populations and the communities of pathogens that infect them. This knowledge will improve our ability to manage disease in wild populations, which is critical for protecting people, livestock and species of conservation concern from emerging disease threats. The application of these findings to koalas will enhance the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of disease management and improve long term population persistence.Read moreRead less
Population fluctuations: models, mechanisms and management. Changes in plant populations lead to extinctions and invasions in Australia and globally. The project will determine the drivers of plant population change and provide new tools to enable better population management.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE160100904
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$360,000.00
Summary
Connections between imperfect detection and ecological inference. This project is designed to resolve whether or when it is important to account for imperfect detection when modelling communities of species. Robust conservation and environmental decisions require reliable estimates of biodiversity, yet current modelling methods may be biased because they fail to account for the imperfect detection of species. Improving the models requires good understanding about levels and patterns of species d ....Connections between imperfect detection and ecological inference. This project is designed to resolve whether or when it is important to account for imperfect detection when modelling communities of species. Robust conservation and environmental decisions require reliable estimates of biodiversity, yet current modelling methods may be biased because they fail to account for the imperfect detection of species. Improving the models requires good understanding about levels and patterns of species detectability, which is currently lacking. The project intends to bridge this gap by producing a global synthesis of species detectability across taxa, geographical regions and survey methods. The project then aims to evaluate the performance and limitations of existing and emerging community modelling methods in ecology to enable better biodiversity conservation decisions.Read moreRead less
Determining how plant populations will respond to climate change. It is widely predicted that global climate change will result in extinctions, invasions and disruption of the ecosystem services plants provide. In order to manage or adapt to these consequences of changing climate we need accurate forecasts of where suitable conditions for sustainable plant populations will occur. This project will enable better forecasts of where and how fast plant populations will expand or contract in response ....Determining how plant populations will respond to climate change. It is widely predicted that global climate change will result in extinctions, invasions and disruption of the ecosystem services plants provide. In order to manage or adapt to these consequences of changing climate we need accurate forecasts of where suitable conditions for sustainable plant populations will occur. This project will enable better forecasts of where and how fast plant populations will expand or contract in response to climate change. New population modelling methods which integrate plant survival, growth and reproduction along environmental gradients, together with field studies at unprecedented national and international scales, will enable better forecasts of future locations for plant dependent industries and environmental services.Read moreRead less
Cascading effects of Australia's ecological extinctions on biodiversity and ecosystem function. The current rate of species extinctions is so extensive that it has been described as the “sixth mass extinction”. In Australian ecosystems, extinctions and declines of mammals have been dramatic, with formerly abundant species now “ecologically extinct”, meaning they are too rare to continue to play important ecological roles. The loss of entire functional guilds may have cascading effects on biodive ....Cascading effects of Australia's ecological extinctions on biodiversity and ecosystem function. The current rate of species extinctions is so extensive that it has been described as the “sixth mass extinction”. In Australian ecosystems, extinctions and declines of mammals have been dramatic, with formerly abundant species now “ecologically extinct”, meaning they are too rare to continue to play important ecological roles. The loss of entire functional guilds may have cascading effects on biodiversity and ecosystem function. This project uses a multi-scalar experimental approach to investigate the broader impacts of mammal declines on Australian ecosystems, accounting for interactions with climate. The outcomes will include new insights into the pre-European state of Australian ecosystems and more realistic targets for ecosystem restoration.Read moreRead less
A predictive framework for invaded communities. Australian native and agricultural landscapes are under threat from introduced plant species. Over $1.5 billion per year is spent on subsequent land management. However it is not clear that this is money is well spent. This project aims to determine the importance of the two major factors (dispersal and habitat) that drive the invasion of Australian native plant communities by surveying native Australian plant communities with different levels of d ....A predictive framework for invaded communities. Australian native and agricultural landscapes are under threat from introduced plant species. Over $1.5 billion per year is spent on subsequent land management. However it is not clear that this is money is well spent. This project aims to determine the importance of the two major factors (dispersal and habitat) that drive the invasion of Australian native plant communities by surveying native Australian plant communities with different levels of disturbance and numbers of introduced species. The results could enable the building and testing of an innovative model for predicting the establishment and spread of invasive species. This critical research could help target money towards better management of invasive species in native environments.Read moreRead less
Answering longstanding plant ecology questions with new technology: the effects of changes in leaf proteins with age. Total leaf nitrogen is important for major processes in ecosystems. It is used as a predictor for carbon fixation because photosynthesis proteins are a large fraction of leaf nitrogen. Yet leaf nitrogen may also be allocated to stress-response and defense-related proteins at the expense of photosynthesis proteins. Our working hypothesis might explain two important ecological patt ....Answering longstanding plant ecology questions with new technology: the effects of changes in leaf proteins with age. Total leaf nitrogen is important for major processes in ecosystems. It is used as a predictor for carbon fixation because photosynthesis proteins are a large fraction of leaf nitrogen. Yet leaf nitrogen may also be allocated to stress-response and defense-related proteins at the expense of photosynthesis proteins. Our working hypothesis might explain two important ecological patterns: the decline of photosynthetic nitrogen use efficiency with leaf age; and, low and variable nitrogen recovery levels from senescent leaves across species and habitats. New quantitative proteomics methods together with protein functional categorisation can answer these questions across dozens of Australian native plant species.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
Cane toads as a model system for demographic analysis and invasive-species control. How do impacts on juvenile stages within a population affect later ages? This project will exploit recently developed methods to control early life-history stages of cane toads to provide a better understanding of population ecology and develop more effective ways to control invasive cane toads.
Cane toads in southern Australia: invasion dynamics and options for control. This project aims to investigate the spread of cane toads through southern Australia, an invasion front that has attracted far less research than the same species’ expansion through tropical regions, even though toads severely impact native wildlife in both areas. This project expects to generate new knowledge to determine why the rate of toad invasion is so much slower in New South Wales than in the tropics, and how be ....Cane toads in southern Australia: invasion dynamics and options for control. This project aims to investigate the spread of cane toads through southern Australia, an invasion front that has attracted far less research than the same species’ expansion through tropical regions, even though toads severely impact native wildlife in both areas. This project expects to generate new knowledge to determine why the rate of toad invasion is so much slower in New South Wales than in the tropics, and how best to modify newly-developed approaches to toad control to the conditions in southern Australia. Expected outcomes include predicting future trajectories of expansion, and identifying optimal approaches to toad control and impact mitigation. This should provide significant benefits for biodiversity conservation.Read moreRead less