Influence of Marine Protected Areas on ecosystem resilience and ecological processes. Australia is implementing a national representative system of marine protected areas (MPAs). The aims of the MPAs include ensuring ecological viability, maintaining ecological processes, and protecting biodiversity. The ability of MPAs to achieve these aims, however, is based largely on theory rather than empirical evidence. Implementation of MPAs is often controversial as it may cause economic hardship to comm ....Influence of Marine Protected Areas on ecosystem resilience and ecological processes. Australia is implementing a national representative system of marine protected areas (MPAs). The aims of the MPAs include ensuring ecological viability, maintaining ecological processes, and protecting biodiversity. The ability of MPAs to achieve these aims, however, is based largely on theory rather than empirical evidence. Implementation of MPAs is often controversial as it may cause economic hardship to communities dependent on fishing. Our project will benefit environmental managers by determining if and how MPAs influence biodiversity, ecological processes, and ecosystem services and resilience. It will benefit the wider community by providing the rigorous scientific evidence in favour of MPAs that is demanded by stakeholders.Read moreRead less
Warming up predator-prey interactions. Predator-prey interactions are the building blocks of communities, but these will change with shifts in distribution due to carbon dioxide (CO2)-induced increases in temperature. Coral reefs are particularly vulnerable and the project will explore how temperature elevation will influence the physiological performance and ecology of fish to alter these fundamental interactions.
Resolving the role of kelp in blue carbon cycles to enable management. We aim to uncover how kelp forests contribute to carbon storage, biodiversity enhancement and nutrient mitigation in Australia. We will combine mapping and modelling to identify local variation in kelp carbon stocks and sequestration potential and verify kelp carbon export to deep ocean sinks through genetic tracing in seawater and sediments. Co-benefits will be identified through nutrient experiments and reef surveys. We wil ....Resolving the role of kelp in blue carbon cycles to enable management. We aim to uncover how kelp forests contribute to carbon storage, biodiversity enhancement and nutrient mitigation in Australia. We will combine mapping and modelling to identify local variation in kelp carbon stocks and sequestration potential and verify kelp carbon export to deep ocean sinks through genetic tracing in seawater and sediments. Co-benefits will be identified through nutrient experiments and reef surveys. We will also assess the risk that calcification and production of halogenic gas within the kelp forest could offset its climate mitigation potential. Project outcomes will enable management to consider kelp ecosystem services broadly and optimize our capacity to meet current emission reduction and biodiversity commitments.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE240100398
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$349,886.00
Summary
Advancing detection and understanding of anomalous ecological change. Human impacts are driving ecosystems into new, anomalous states. Reliably detecting these ecological anomalies is essential to better understand how ecosystems change over time, and effectively manage natural resources. This project aims to advance ecological anomaly detection using techniques from complex fields such as banking fraud, cybersecurity and video surveillance. Expected project outcomes will improve understanding o ....Advancing detection and understanding of anomalous ecological change. Human impacts are driving ecosystems into new, anomalous states. Reliably detecting these ecological anomalies is essential to better understand how ecosystems change over time, and effectively manage natural resources. This project aims to advance ecological anomaly detection using techniques from complex fields such as banking fraud, cybersecurity and video surveillance. Expected project outcomes will improve understanding of patterns and drivers of both biodiversity and ecosystem change. Tools to reliably detect anomalous changes in complex ecological systems will provide significant benefits to ecosystem management, conservation decision-making and environmental remediation.Read moreRead less
The effect of native invasions on Australian fisheries species. This project aims to forecast climate-related changes in the diversity, distribution and abundance of fisheries species. In a changing world where many people depend on oceans for food and livelihood, predicting the future distribution of fisheries species is a challenge. Native invasions and ocean warming are stressing inshore fisheries species, but rigorous empirical data and models that can reliably forecast these effects are lac ....The effect of native invasions on Australian fisheries species. This project aims to forecast climate-related changes in the diversity, distribution and abundance of fisheries species. In a changing world where many people depend on oceans for food and livelihood, predicting the future distribution of fisheries species is a challenge. Native invasions and ocean warming are stressing inshore fisheries species, but rigorous empirical data and models that can reliably forecast these effects are lacking. This project intends to reveal the drivers of successful native invasions, evaluate their effect on fish diversity and productivity, and develop holistic models that forecast their effects on inshore fisheries species’ near-future distribution and stocks.Read moreRead less
Climate change, larval dispersal and patterns of connectivity in coral metapopulations. Patterns of connectivity among coral populations are virtually unknown and these patterns are likely to change with changing climate. This project will test how temperature and pH will change patterns of coral dispersal in order to assist the design of an effective marine reserve network throughout the Great Barrier Reef.
Drivers and consequences of novel marine ecological communities. Marine ecological communities are exhibiting rapid change in response to human actions. This project aims to apply a newly developed statistical framework, and expects to uncover historical patterns in the emergence and persistence of new community states of two sets of marine taxa: reef-building coral, and marine plankton. Understanding how often marine communities shifted into these novel states in the absence of human activities ....Drivers and consequences of novel marine ecological communities. Marine ecological communities are exhibiting rapid change in response to human actions. This project aims to apply a newly developed statistical framework, and expects to uncover historical patterns in the emergence and persistence of new community states of two sets of marine taxa: reef-building coral, and marine plankton. Understanding how often marine communities shifted into these novel states in the absence of human activities, as well as the relative contribution of environmental and biological factors, will provide significant foundational knowledge. In addition, this project aims to provide flow-on benefits to environmental management to ensure ecosystems continue to provide beneficial services, which include fisheries and tourism.Read moreRead less
Resolving the threat of ocean deoxygenation to coral resilience. This project aims to uncover the role low oxygen plays in shaping healthy corals over space and time. Climate change and land use development are rapidly deoxygenating shallow water coral reefs, yet we have no knowledge of how less oxygen availability affects critical life history factors that govern coral resilience: growth, reproduction, and stress tolerance. This project unites a multidisciplinary team of experts to, for the fir ....Resolving the threat of ocean deoxygenation to coral resilience. This project aims to uncover the role low oxygen plays in shaping healthy corals over space and time. Climate change and land use development are rapidly deoxygenating shallow water coral reefs, yet we have no knowledge of how less oxygen availability affects critical life history factors that govern coral resilience: growth, reproduction, and stress tolerance. This project unites a multidisciplinary team of experts to, for the first time, couple advanced oxygen sensing, metabolic physiology, coral reproductive and stress biology to transform our understanding of oxygen thresholds that are diagnostic of reduced coral competitive fitness across life stages (adults, juveniles, larvae), needed to improve coral reef ecosystem management.Read moreRead less
A paradigm shift for predictions of freshwater harmful cyanobacteria blooms. This project aims to advance model predictions to generate novel insights into the triggers of freshwater harmful cyanobacteria blooms. Current models are poorly adapted for this purpose because they fail to account for antecedent environmental forcing. The project is expected to create new knowledge of cyanobacteria dynamics from simulating the adaptive responses of individual cyanobacteria cells, colonies or filaments ....A paradigm shift for predictions of freshwater harmful cyanobacteria blooms. This project aims to advance model predictions to generate novel insights into the triggers of freshwater harmful cyanobacteria blooms. Current models are poorly adapted for this purpose because they fail to account for antecedent environmental forcing. The project is expected to create new knowledge of cyanobacteria dynamics from simulating the adaptive responses of individual cyanobacteria cells, colonies or filaments to temperature, light and nutrient history. Three field studies will be used to validate a new individual based model. The outcomes of this project will be valuable for managing freshwater ecosystems that are increasingly subject to blooms in a warming climate, and for testing suitable mitigation and control strategies.Read moreRead less
Habitat fragmentation: critical role in the decline and recovery of coral reef fish biodiversity. Preserving biodiversity in the face of environmental degradation and climate change is the greatest challenge of our time. Although habitat fragmentation is considered a key cause of the current extinction crisis, the effects of changing habitat configuration on species persistence and recovery is almost completely unknown. Coral reefs are among the most diverse and threatened ecosystems on the plan ....Habitat fragmentation: critical role in the decline and recovery of coral reef fish biodiversity. Preserving biodiversity in the face of environmental degradation and climate change is the greatest challenge of our time. Although habitat fragmentation is considered a key cause of the current extinction crisis, the effects of changing habitat configuration on species persistence and recovery is almost completely unknown. Coral reefs are among the most diverse and threatened ecosystems on the planet and this project will provide the first insights into how coral reef fish diversity responds to increased subdivision and isolation of reef habitat. It will identify critical aspects of habitat change that either enhance local diversity or threaten populations with extinction and provide new ecological data to refine conservation strategies.Read moreRead less