Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE160100146
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$320,000.00
Summary
The marine productivity buoy: a multi-parametric underwater profiler . The marine productivity buoy: a multi-parametric underwater profiler:
The marine productivity buoy is an innovative multi-parametric moored underwater profiler that would provide key information on phytoplankton primary productivity (PP), phytoplankton blooms, and water quality in coastal waters around Australia. The aim is to better understand changes in phytoplankton PP and abundance by synergistically using observations ....The marine productivity buoy: a multi-parametric underwater profiler . The marine productivity buoy: a multi-parametric underwater profiler:
The marine productivity buoy is an innovative multi-parametric moored underwater profiler that would provide key information on phytoplankton primary productivity (PP), phytoplankton blooms, and water quality in coastal waters around Australia. The aim is to better understand changes in phytoplankton PP and abundance by synergistically using observations from the new facility made several times a day from the surface to the seafloor, and spatially extended surface observations from Earth-orbiting ocean colour satellites. Anticipated outcomes are more accurate phytoplankton PP estimates and water quality parameters in Australian coastal waters in support to research and to monitoring of these critical environments.Read moreRead less
Environmental DNA: Integration of new methods to enhance marine management. Environmental DNA: Integration of new methods to enhance marine management. This project aims to develop new environmental DNA (eDNA)-based methods of managing humanity’s impact on valuable marine resources. eDNA preserved in seawater provides a lens to study and monitor marine biota and ecosystems. This project will work with fisheries managers and the environmental consulting sector, and focus on sites in the Kimberley ....Environmental DNA: Integration of new methods to enhance marine management. Environmental DNA: Integration of new methods to enhance marine management. This project aims to develop new environmental DNA (eDNA)-based methods of managing humanity’s impact on valuable marine resources. eDNA preserved in seawater provides a lens to study and monitor marine biota and ecosystems. This project will work with fisheries managers and the environmental consulting sector, and focus on sites in the Kimberley, Cocos-Keeling Islands, Fremantle and Deep-sea oil/gas sites to demonstrate the value of eDNA methods in best-practice monitoring. A multi-proxy toolkit (including eDNA) that can audit and baseline marine biota could make balancing conservation and sustainable exploitation achievable. Anticipated outcomes are improved management and monitoring of fisheries, ports and offshore oil/gas sites.Read moreRead less
Diagnosing river health using invertebrate traits and DNA barcodes. Diagnosing river health using invertebrate traits and DNA barcodes. This project aims to develop indices that link change in invertebrate communities to specific environmental stressors, and combine these indices with innovative, low cost molecular approaches to species identification to rapidly identify the causes of decline. River health assessment methods, usually based on aquatic invertebrates, identify if rivers are impaire ....Diagnosing river health using invertebrate traits and DNA barcodes. Diagnosing river health using invertebrate traits and DNA barcodes. This project aims to develop indices that link change in invertebrate communities to specific environmental stressors, and combine these indices with innovative, low cost molecular approaches to species identification to rapidly identify the causes of decline. River health assessment methods, usually based on aquatic invertebrates, identify if rivers are impaired but must be developed to identify the causes of decline. The intended outcomes are improved sustainable water resource management within and among states, and improved natural resource policy development.Read moreRead less
Advancing vegetation classification and mapping to meet conservation needs. The project aims to develop advanced statistical and modelling techniques to classify and map vegetation over very large areas, using the most extensive and detailed vegetation data set in Australia and new methods to evaluate these classifications. Such classifications and maps provide the data needed to make biodiversity conservation decisions, yet current operational methods are limited over very large areas, and cann ....Advancing vegetation classification and mapping to meet conservation needs. The project aims to develop advanced statistical and modelling techniques to classify and map vegetation over very large areas, using the most extensive and detailed vegetation data set in Australia and new methods to evaluate these classifications. Such classifications and maps provide the data needed to make biodiversity conservation decisions, yet current operational methods are limited over very large areas, and cannot deal with varied sources of uncertainty. Expected outcomes and benefits include a fine-scale vegetation classification and map for almost a million square kilometres, and associated analytical tools and guidelines for large-scale vegetation classification and global mapping.Read moreRead less
Impacts of extreme hydro-meteorological conditions on ecosystem functioning and productivity patterns across Australia. As Earth’s climate continues to change, the frequency and intensity of warm droughts, extreme precipitation patterns, and heat waves will alter in potentially different ways, ecosystem functioning and productivity with major impacts on carbon and water balance, and food security. The extreme hydro-meteorological conditions that are presently afflicting Australia provide excepti ....Impacts of extreme hydro-meteorological conditions on ecosystem functioning and productivity patterns across Australia. As Earth’s climate continues to change, the frequency and intensity of warm droughts, extreme precipitation patterns, and heat waves will alter in potentially different ways, ecosystem functioning and productivity with major impacts on carbon and water balance, and food security. The extreme hydro-meteorological conditions that are presently afflicting Australia provide exceptional opportunities to study ecosystem-level functional responses using contemporary, in-situ and satellite observational datasets. This project aims to analyse cross-biome and site-level functional responses across contrasting hydroclimatic periods to better understand climate change impacts on ecosystem productivity, resilience, and potential collapse.Read moreRead less
Unravelling how aquatic coastal networks regulate nitrogen removal . The aim of this project is to determine the nitrogen removal pathways of the coastal zone using a number of innovative field and modelling approaches. Little is known about how the complex coastal landscape controls trade-offs that maximise nitrogen removal but minimise nitrous oxide (a potent greenhouse gas) emissions. The outcomes of this study will significantly advance our understanding of the coastal zone in regional and g ....Unravelling how aquatic coastal networks regulate nitrogen removal . The aim of this project is to determine the nitrogen removal pathways of the coastal zone using a number of innovative field and modelling approaches. Little is known about how the complex coastal landscape controls trade-offs that maximise nitrogen removal but minimise nitrous oxide (a potent greenhouse gas) emissions. The outcomes of this study will significantly advance our understanding of the coastal zone in regional and global nitrogen budgets. This will provide significant benefits such as a new science-based quantitative framework to facilitate best practice management to reduce terrestrial nitrogen loads and associated downstream impacts such as eutrophication, and reduce nitrous oxide emissions and associated global warming.
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Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE150100009
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$389,476.00
Summary
Toxic Oceans: How do anthropogenic pollutants impact vital marine microbes? Environmental pollution threatens the sustainability of the world's oceans. However, we still do not understand how pollution affects primary producers at the base of oceanic food chains. This project aims to provide the first account of how common chemical pollutants (herbicides, plastic leachates and crude oil) affect key groups of marine photosynthetic bacteria. As these microbes underpin entire marine food webs, unde ....Toxic Oceans: How do anthropogenic pollutants impact vital marine microbes? Environmental pollution threatens the sustainability of the world's oceans. However, we still do not understand how pollution affects primary producers at the base of oceanic food chains. This project aims to provide the first account of how common chemical pollutants (herbicides, plastic leachates and crude oil) affect key groups of marine photosynthetic bacteria. As these microbes underpin entire marine food webs, understanding their responses is crucial to monitoring and mitigating the impact of pollutants on ocean ecosystems. The aim is to design and validate novel, rapid environmental stress assays, based on gene expression profiling. This represents a pioneering new application of gene monitoring techniques to ocean conservation.Read moreRead less
How effective are environmental flows? Novel approaches for monitoring and assessing ecological responses to large-scale flow alteration. Australia has begun a multi-billion dollar program to return water to stressed rivers as environmental flows. However, during times of unprecedented water scarcity, such an investment in the environment can be controversial because the ecological benefits of released water are mostly poorly understood. This project will demonstrate the effectiveness of environ ....How effective are environmental flows? Novel approaches for monitoring and assessing ecological responses to large-scale flow alteration. Australia has begun a multi-billion dollar program to return water to stressed rivers as environmental flows. However, during times of unprecedented water scarcity, such an investment in the environment can be controversial because the ecological benefits of released water are mostly poorly understood. This project will demonstrate the effectiveness of environmental flows, and promote greater understanding of the links between flow patterns and river health. The project will build upon existing knowledge to create a sound framework for planning, monitoring, and evaluation of environmental watering decisions across regional Australia, greatly improving our ability to sustainably manage rivers into the future.Read moreRead less
A Photometric Imaging Model for Mobile Underwater Camera Design. This project aims to develop the first photometric model of computational image formation from a mobile underwater platform, allowing the prediction of performance for conventional and computational cameras in physically grounded scenarios. The model is expected to include sufficient detail to predict key performance metrics relevant to targeted underwater imaging applications, including three-dimensional structure recovery, surfac ....A Photometric Imaging Model for Mobile Underwater Camera Design. This project aims to develop the first photometric model of computational image formation from a mobile underwater platform, allowing the prediction of performance for conventional and computational cameras in physically grounded scenarios. The model is expected to include sufficient detail to predict key performance metrics relevant to targeted underwater imaging applications, including three-dimensional structure recovery, surface reflectance characterisation, and discrimination for automated and human-driven classification of benthic habitats. Novel imaging systems optimised for the requirements of specific marine imaging tasks are intended to be designed and constructed, exploiting the imaging model to rapidly explore the camera design space.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE100100141
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$420,000.00
Summary
High-resolution ITRAX XRF core scanning facility for global change research. This facility will enable researchers to obtain high-resolution geochemical profiles in the study of environmental change and climate variability. It will provide archive data on the variation of density and chemical element composition along sediment and soil cores, rock cores, wood samples, speleothems and corals. These archives contain important information such as human activity, climate variability, water quality c ....High-resolution ITRAX XRF core scanning facility for global change research. This facility will enable researchers to obtain high-resolution geochemical profiles in the study of environmental change and climate variability. It will provide archive data on the variation of density and chemical element composition along sediment and soil cores, rock cores, wood samples, speleothems and corals. These archives contain important information such as human activity, climate variability, water quality changes, pollution histories, recent geomorphological change, land-use change, introduction of invasive species and the occurrence of bushfires. A better understanding of the occurrence and timing of these major environmental issues is of national and regional importance.Read moreRead less