Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE200100157
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$426,343.00
Summary
Breaking the link between predators and bushfire for fauna conservation. This project aims to quantify how bushfires amplify the impacts of invasive predators (feral cats and foxes) on native fauna. Through innovative field experiments and empirical modelling, this project expects to generate new knowledge in the key areas of wildlife conservation, fire ecology and invasive species management. Expected outcomes of this project include transformative insights into how threats interact to influenc ....Breaking the link between predators and bushfire for fauna conservation. This project aims to quantify how bushfires amplify the impacts of invasive predators (feral cats and foxes) on native fauna. Through innovative field experiments and empirical modelling, this project expects to generate new knowledge in the key areas of wildlife conservation, fire ecology and invasive species management. Expected outcomes of this project include transformative insights into how threats interact to influence biodiversity and greatly enhanced capacity to manage bushfires and invasive predators. These advances should provide significant benefits, including improved conservation of threatened species, advances in ecological theory and improved capacity to predict and respond to environmental change.Read moreRead less
Ecological forecasts of species response to fire, drought and heatwaves. This project will advance ecosystem forecasting by accounting for how legacy effects from extreme environmental events – prolonged droughts, floods, heatwaves and fires – persist into future years in vulnerable dryland ecosystems. As highly stressed environments are expected to leave increasingly large impacts on flora and fauna and exacerbate desertification, answers are urgently needed to understand and mitigate these imp ....Ecological forecasts of species response to fire, drought and heatwaves. This project will advance ecosystem forecasting by accounting for how legacy effects from extreme environmental events – prolonged droughts, floods, heatwaves and fires – persist into future years in vulnerable dryland ecosystems. As highly stressed environments are expected to leave increasingly large impacts on flora and fauna and exacerbate desertification, answers are urgently needed to understand and mitigate these impacts. This project will foster new appreciation of ecosystem features that build resilience to change, or that lead to collapse. Benefits include better forecasting tools to manage ecosystems at risk, improved security of biodiversity and food production in Australian rangelands, and training of early career researchers.Read moreRead less
Are kangaroos jeopardizing conservation outcomes? There is concern that grazing by over-abundant kangaroos is jeopardising the goals of arid conservation reserves, but there is little evidence about the extent of their impacts. The goal of this proposal is to quantify kangaroos' grazing effects on biodiversity within arid conservation reserves. The results will provide a whole ecosystem understanding of how overgrazing by kangaroos influences the biodiversity conservation value of the vast lands ....Are kangaroos jeopardizing conservation outcomes? There is concern that grazing by over-abundant kangaroos is jeopardising the goals of arid conservation reserves, but there is little evidence about the extent of their impacts. The goal of this proposal is to quantify kangaroos' grazing effects on biodiversity within arid conservation reserves. The results will provide a whole ecosystem understanding of how overgrazing by kangaroos influences the biodiversity conservation value of the vast landscapes of arid Australia. Managers of many conservation reserves, including our project partners, and policy-makers need the information that our experiments will provide to inform the development of strategies to optimise biodiversity conservation and manage the impacts of kangaroos.Read moreRead less
Genomics and mixed source populations in wildlife translocations. Translocation is a conservation strategy to help the plight of endangered species, and is becoming increasing important to mitigate against climate change. However translocations often fail. Theory suggests mixing individuals from different source populations would benefit species' genomic diversity and potentially success rates, however this is untested in animals. Also unclear is what parts of the genome are important for mitiga ....Genomics and mixed source populations in wildlife translocations. Translocation is a conservation strategy to help the plight of endangered species, and is becoming increasing important to mitigate against climate change. However translocations often fail. Theory suggests mixing individuals from different source populations would benefit species' genomic diversity and potentially success rates, however this is untested in animals. Also unclear is what parts of the genome are important for mitigating against climate change. Using an endangered lizard model, this project aims to understand how to best start new populations by 1) providing the first empirical test in terrestrial vertebrates of using mixed source populations; and 2) uncovering regions of the genome important for considering in translocations.Read moreRead less
Extreme Heat: A new driver of desert mammal assemblages . Heat waves cause more deaths than any other severe weather event and are becoming longer, more frequent and more intense. Consequently, extreme heat may soon rival predation and rainfall as a major driver of desert mammal assemblages. This project will investigate how heat wave attributes (duration, intensity, frequency), species attributes (physiology, behaviour, plasticity) and landscape features (refuges, fire, grazing) interact and co ....Extreme Heat: A new driver of desert mammal assemblages . Heat waves cause more deaths than any other severe weather event and are becoming longer, more frequent and more intense. Consequently, extreme heat may soon rival predation and rainfall as a major driver of desert mammal assemblages. This project will investigate how heat wave attributes (duration, intensity, frequency), species attributes (physiology, behaviour, plasticity) and landscape features (refuges, fire, grazing) interact and contribute to lethal and sublethal effects of extreme heat on desert mammals. Modelling will predict changes in desert mammal assemblages under different climatic and land management scenarios. Results will inform fire and grazing management, threatened species recovery programs and arid zone restoration. Read moreRead less
Improving the anti-predator responses of native mammals . Predation by introduced cats and foxes causes extinction and decline in Australian mammals. Protecting threatened mammals inside fenced sanctuaries is effective but they can become overpopulated, inbred and more naive to predators over time. This leads to a dwindling hope of ever restoring them to their natural habitat. Previous research has shown that exposing threatened mammals to low levels of cat predation in large fenced paddocks i ....Improving the anti-predator responses of native mammals . Predation by introduced cats and foxes causes extinction and decline in Australian mammals. Protecting threatened mammals inside fenced sanctuaries is effective but they can become overpopulated, inbred and more naive to predators over time. This leads to a dwindling hope of ever restoring them to their natural habitat. Previous research has shown that exposing threatened mammals to low levels of cat predation in large fenced paddocks improves their anti-predator behaviour, changes their physical appearance and improves survival. This grant seeks to understand the mechanisms (genetic/learning) behind these changes in order to harness and upscale our results and facilitate co-existence between native mammals and introduced predators. Read moreRead less