Brains frozen in time: vertebrate neural adaptations to invading land . The evolution of terrestrial animals from fish was one of the most significant events in our evolution, yet little is known about how the brain evolved during this transition. This project aims to investigate the major novelties acquired in the evolution of the early vertebrate brain in order to determine the functional reasons for such changes, as well as identifying the timing and environmental factors driving such changes ....Brains frozen in time: vertebrate neural adaptations to invading land . The evolution of terrestrial animals from fish was one of the most significant events in our evolution, yet little is known about how the brain evolved during this transition. This project aims to investigate the major novelties acquired in the evolution of the early vertebrate brain in order to determine the functional reasons for such changes, as well as identifying the timing and environmental factors driving such changes. This project expects to generate new knowledge on the anatomy of the vertebrate brain with improved methods for reconstructing fossil brains to better understand our own neurological evolution. Expected outcomes include enhanced institutional collaborations within Australia, and between Australia, Canada and the USA.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE220101409
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$432,447.00
Summary
Quantifying trophic niches to measure the resilience of marine predators. This project aims to pair global movement with feeding ecology datasets to characterise relationships between space use and diet breadth, and tests the effects of marine industries on functional roles of marine predators. This expects to generate knowledge about population and individual specalisation using innovative biochemical approaches and shark’s unique dental anatomy. Expected outcomes include a biochemical database ....Quantifying trophic niches to measure the resilience of marine predators. This project aims to pair global movement with feeding ecology datasets to characterise relationships between space use and diet breadth, and tests the effects of marine industries on functional roles of marine predators. This expects to generate knowledge about population and individual specalisation using innovative biochemical approaches and shark’s unique dental anatomy. Expected outcomes include a biochemical database facilitating global collaborations, and a vulnerability scale to rank resilience to impacts based on relative specalisation. This should benefit managers by accounting for previously unknown effects of marine industries on specialists at elevated extinction risk, with limited resilience to local impacts and global change.Read moreRead less
Establishing a global framework to trace the provenance of seafood. The global importance and demand for seafood is higher than ever; yet, sustainable seafood production is threatened by seafood fraud. This research will develop a new technology that will trace the geographic origins of seafood from catch to table and empower authorities to combat fraud. In doing so, this research will use natural chemical variation in biominerals to build maps of ocean chemistry and create universal markers of ....Establishing a global framework to trace the provenance of seafood. The global importance and demand for seafood is higher than ever; yet, sustainable seafood production is threatened by seafood fraud. This research will develop a new technology that will trace the geographic origins of seafood from catch to table and empower authorities to combat fraud. In doing so, this research will use natural chemical variation in biominerals to build maps of ocean chemistry and create universal markers of seafood provenance. These markers will be intrinsically tamper-proof: enabling the chemical geolocation of seafood across international trade routes. The outcome of this research will address a global environmental challenge and, in doing so, deliver benefits to the Australian economy, consumer and environment. Read moreRead less
Investing in ecological portfolios: retaining migratory strategies of fish. In finance, investors minimize risk and optimize long term returns by building stock portfolios with different attributes. This contingency strategy also occurs in ecological systems. We will use portfolio effects as a conceptual model to characterise the poorly known sub-population variations in migratory strategies of estuarine fish and their response to environmental conditions. In doing so, we will determine how envi ....Investing in ecological portfolios: retaining migratory strategies of fish. In finance, investors minimize risk and optimize long term returns by building stock portfolios with different attributes. This contingency strategy also occurs in ecological systems. We will use portfolio effects as a conceptual model to characterise the poorly known sub-population variations in migratory strategies of estuarine fish and their response to environmental conditions. In doing so, we will determine how environmental change drives variations in migratory strategies, impacts long-term growth and population trophic web dynamics. Outcomes will foster novel and dynamic management frameworks that enhance population stability despite the predicted volatility of environmental conditions.Read moreRead less