Optimising the roles of online communities in rural resilience . This research will use data from online communities to identify roles they do, and could play, in rural resilience. It uses social media analytics and spatial methodology to taxonomise and map service topics and social resilience from online communities. Governments call for rural service innovation. To date, robust evidence about online versus local services needed, is lacking. This is partly due to lack of data about diverse cons ....Optimising the roles of online communities in rural resilience . This research will use data from online communities to identify roles they do, and could play, in rural resilience. It uses social media analytics and spatial methodology to taxonomise and map service topics and social resilience from online communities. Governments call for rural service innovation. To date, robust evidence about online versus local services needed, is lacking. This is partly due to lack of data about diverse consumers' priorities and gaps. Social media could offer latent insights, but ethical methodology producing useful de-identified policy insights has been lacking. This study exemplifies applying social media data analytics at scale to address policy problems and will produce up-to-date co-designed data use guidelines.Read moreRead less
Investigating the genetic basis for heterogeneous susceptibility of Tasmanian devils to a novel infectious cancer. This project will use genetics and modelling to reveal why Tasmanian devils in northwest Tasmania are not dying from facial tumour disease, a new, unusual infectious cancer threatening this iconic carnivore with extinction. This project will predict extinction risk, develop management options, and provide a new template for managing emerging wildlife diseases.
Ultrahigh-resolution remote sensing for assessing biodiversity hotspots. Robust indicators are central to the complex problem of conserving vegetation biodiversity. The project aims to address this by developing advanced techniques for interpreting data from ultrahigh-resolution remote sensing of essential indicators in Australian biodiversity hotspots. The expected benefit is to significantly advance international efforts in the large-scale validation of biodiversity indicators mapped from sate ....Ultrahigh-resolution remote sensing for assessing biodiversity hotspots. Robust indicators are central to the complex problem of conserving vegetation biodiversity. The project aims to address this by developing advanced techniques for interpreting data from ultrahigh-resolution remote sensing of essential indicators in Australian biodiversity hotspots. The expected benefit is to significantly advance international efforts in the large-scale validation of biodiversity indicators mapped from satellites.Read moreRead less
The contribution of human/marine herbivore interactions to reef degradation. This project aims to define how interactions between human society and herbivores influence marine ecosystem structure and function. It will analyse geographic patterns from recent systematic sampling of reef communities worldwide and study fish, macro-invertebrate and meso-grazer herbivory to identify herbivores’ role in the collapse and recovery of reef ecosystems. This project will examine the match between a critica ....The contribution of human/marine herbivore interactions to reef degradation. This project aims to define how interactions between human society and herbivores influence marine ecosystem structure and function. It will analyse geographic patterns from recent systematic sampling of reef communities worldwide and study fish, macro-invertebrate and meso-grazer herbivory to identify herbivores’ role in the collapse and recovery of reef ecosystems. This project will examine the match between a critical ecosystem function and community structure across local to global scales, including the identification of non-linearities and interactions involving human effects on this process. This research is expected to safeguard marine ecosystems from collapse.Read moreRead less