The costs and consequences of resistance to stress in microbial systems. The coexistence of antibiotic resistant and sensitive bacteria in microbial communities represents a paradox. Combining novel ecological models and competition experiments, this project aims to investigate how the pulsing of antibiotics and resources affects the coexistence of resistant and sensitive bacteria. This project expects to generate new knowledge into how the complex non-equilibrium dynamics of natural systems fee ....The costs and consequences of resistance to stress in microbial systems. The coexistence of antibiotic resistant and sensitive bacteria in microbial communities represents a paradox. Combining novel ecological models and competition experiments, this project aims to investigate how the pulsing of antibiotics and resources affects the coexistence of resistant and sensitive bacteria. This project expects to generate new knowledge into how the complex non-equilibrium dynamics of natural systems feeds back to regulate the spread of antibiotic resistance in microbial communities. This should advance our fundamental understanding of microbial competition, and provide a foundation for the development of new ecologically-aware strategies for managing resistance.Read moreRead less
The legacy of rainfall patterns in dryland ecosystems. This project aims to use an experimental approach to determine how rainfall regime structures dryland communities and ecosystem properties and potential responses to altered rainfall regime. Ecosystem functioning in drylands is governed by complex interactions between microbes, invertebrates and plants. Biological activity however is constrained by the availability of water and altered rainfall regimes that could moderate how organisms inter ....The legacy of rainfall patterns in dryland ecosystems. This project aims to use an experimental approach to determine how rainfall regime structures dryland communities and ecosystem properties and potential responses to altered rainfall regime. Ecosystem functioning in drylands is governed by complex interactions between microbes, invertebrates and plants. Biological activity however is constrained by the availability of water and altered rainfall regimes that could moderate how organisms interact, potentially causing trophic cascades and even ecosystem state changes. By linking observed responses with soil microbial functional attributes using newly developed molecular techniques the project seeks to provide a mechanistic insight into ecosystem responses to climate variability and extreme climatic events.Read moreRead less
How positive interactions improve predictions of plant community diversity. Though common in nature, the importance of plant-plant facilitation to coexistence and the maintenance of plant diversity at community scales is poorly understood. This project aims to advance understanding of how positive interactions (facilitation) impact on coexistence among plant species as well as local patterns of diversity. To achieve these aims the project will use a combination of field experiments and a compara ....How positive interactions improve predictions of plant community diversity. Though common in nature, the importance of plant-plant facilitation to coexistence and the maintenance of plant diversity at community scales is poorly understood. This project aims to advance understanding of how positive interactions (facilitation) impact on coexistence among plant species as well as local patterns of diversity. To achieve these aims the project will use a combination of field experiments and a comparative analysis of competition and facilitation in Australian, Californian and Spanish annual plant communities with a novel modelling approach for predicting coexistence across variable environments. Outcomes are expected to include an innovative predictive framework of use for plant conservation in Australia and beyond.Read moreRead less
Rapid evolution, and the dynamics and stability of ecological communities. Population sizes of species go up and down and often we do not know why. This is a problem because changes in population size underpin more complex ecological change, and understanding why population sizes change affects our ability to manage environmental impacts, and threatened, harvested and pest species. The aim of this project is to discover how rapid evolution – evolution occurring over just a few generations – driv ....Rapid evolution, and the dynamics and stability of ecological communities. Population sizes of species go up and down and often we do not know why. This is a problem because changes in population size underpin more complex ecological change, and understanding why population sizes change affects our ability to manage environmental impacts, and threatened, harvested and pest species. The aim of this project is to discover how rapid evolution – evolution occurring over just a few generations – drives changes in population sizes of plants in Australian freshwater ecosystems. By focusing on this fundamental yet poorly understood process, our results promise to rewrite our understanding of the causes of change in ecological communities, while highlighting a unique and little studied component of Australia’s biota.Read moreRead less
Testing the importance of large-scale climate factors to plant community assembly following land-use change. This project will examine the native plant species and functional diversity of Australia's rain forest communities to create a predictive framework of how plant communities recover following deforestation. Such a framework is key to focusing conservation efforts in degraded and multi-use landscapes.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210101439
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$445,009.00
Summary
Towards reliable and explainable models for anticipating ecological change. This project aims to develop a quantitative framework for multivariate ecological prediction. This will allow us to better anticipate how ecosystems respond to environmental change. Recent modelling advances now make it possible to use the complexity of community ecology data to deliver better predictions. The project intends to use long-term ecological datasets to build and test novel multivariate prediction models, usi ....Towards reliable and explainable models for anticipating ecological change. This project aims to develop a quantitative framework for multivariate ecological prediction. This will allow us to better anticipate how ecosystems respond to environmental change. Recent modelling advances now make it possible to use the complexity of community ecology data to deliver better predictions. The project intends to use long-term ecological datasets to build and test novel multivariate prediction models, using tick paralysis rates in Australian dogs as a case study. Expected outcomes are better tools for studying ecosystem change and new hypotheses about how ecological communities are shaped. Application of these models should provide significant benefits, such as prediction of paralysis tick burdens to improve risk mitigation.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE190100660
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$409,805.00
Summary
Unravelling the impacts of global warming on whole ecological communities. This project aims to resolve how entire ecological communities respond to global warming and identify the mechanisms that underpin these responses. Combining manipulations of marine invertebrate communities with assays of energy use, the project expects to reveal emergent effects that cannot be predicted from responses of individual species. The expected outcome is a mechanistic understanding of how warming affects resour ....Unravelling the impacts of global warming on whole ecological communities. This project aims to resolve how entire ecological communities respond to global warming and identify the mechanisms that underpin these responses. Combining manipulations of marine invertebrate communities with assays of energy use, the project expects to reveal emergent effects that cannot be predicted from responses of individual species. The expected outcome is a mechanistic understanding of how warming affects resource use of entire communities that will increase our capacity to predict the consequences of climate change on food-web stability and productivity. These findings should reveal how species interactions alter energy use and invasion risk which is vital to manage ecosystems in a warmer world.Read moreRead less
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
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
Consequences of temporal community turnover. This project aims to understand how environmental change affects compensatory dynamics of species. Species numbers do not change over time in local ecological communities, but species composition is changing at an unprecedented level across the globe. The implications of these compensatory dynamics for the resilience of ecological communities and how they affect ecosystems are important for community ecology and conservation. This project could reveal ....Consequences of temporal community turnover. This project aims to understand how environmental change affects compensatory dynamics of species. Species numbers do not change over time in local ecological communities, but species composition is changing at an unprecedented level across the globe. The implications of these compensatory dynamics for the resilience of ecological communities and how they affect ecosystems are important for community ecology and conservation. This project could reveal the functional consequences of temporal community change, contributing new insights into the effects of environmental change especially on soil ecosystems.Read moreRead less