A Changing Climate on the Great Barrier Reef: Present and Future Implications. The Great Barrier Reef is fundamental to the economy of Australia. This national and international icon needs to be preserved in the face of a changing world to ensure on-going sustainability of our marine resources. Ocean acidification, warming water temperatures, increased freshwater disrupt the sensitive symbiotic association of corals the major structure building organisms of reefs. Understanding how these enviro ....A Changing Climate on the Great Barrier Reef: Present and Future Implications. The Great Barrier Reef is fundamental to the economy of Australia. This national and international icon needs to be preserved in the face of a changing world to ensure on-going sustainability of our marine resources. Ocean acidification, warming water temperatures, increased freshwater disrupt the sensitive symbiotic association of corals the major structure building organisms of reefs. Understanding how these environmental stressors result in the decrease in coral health is fundamental to prevent loss of our coral reefs and an important step towards preserving them for future generations.Read moreRead less
Coral-associated viruses: pathogens, mutualists and agents of evolution? Corals host numerous organisms, of which viruses are the least studied. The aim of this project is to characterise the viruses associated with corals and to obtain a detailed understanding of the critical roles that viruses play in coral health, coral bleaching and adaptation of corals to climate change.
An evolutionary landscape to better predict our future climate. Soil microbial communities are the most complicated and difficult to study on Earth, but their effects on our climate are profound. This project will examine the evolution of microorganisms and their viruses in soil using novel methods. It will uncover how the evolution of one microbial species influences the evolution of other community members. It will also apply a new model of evolution to the viruses that infect these microorgan ....An evolutionary landscape to better predict our future climate. Soil microbial communities are the most complicated and difficult to study on Earth, but their effects on our climate are profound. This project will examine the evolution of microorganisms and their viruses in soil using novel methods. It will uncover how the evolution of one microbial species influences the evolution of other community members. It will also apply a new model of evolution to the viruses that infect these microorganisms, constructing a viral ‘tree of life’. This improved fundamental understanding of soil communities will be used to study climate feedback from permafrost wetlands, a key and poorly constrained input of global climate models, improving predictions of our future climate.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE160100248
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$368,600.00
Summary
Annotating unknown microbial gene functions with organic matter change. This project intends to develop a new method for determining the function of microbial genomes. Microbes are all pervasive on Earth. It is now possible to routinely sequence microbial genomes. However, the function of most genes encoded on these genomes remains elusive, severely limiting our understanding of most ecosystems. This project seeks to develop new methods to assign function to uncharacterised genes, by correlating ....Annotating unknown microbial gene functions with organic matter change. This project intends to develop a new method for determining the function of microbial genomes. Microbes are all pervasive on Earth. It is now possible to routinely sequence microbial genomes. However, the function of most genes encoded on these genomes remains elusive, severely limiting our understanding of most ecosystems. This project seeks to develop new methods to assign function to uncharacterised genes, by correlating changes in metabolite abundance with gene expression in a model permafrost thaw peatland. Determining the function of uncharacterised genes has widespread implications for microbial ecology and its numerous real-world applications, from determining soil greenhouse gas emissions to understanding human intestinal flora.Read moreRead less
Climate-driven windblown dust and flood runoff can increase marine diseases by fungal pathogens. Determination of the role of fungal pathogens in marine disease outbreaks, and their linkages to climate-driven dust and flood events, have important applications for coastal fisheries and the Great Barrier Reef. This project will develop molecular tools and plankton recorder protocols to detect fungal outbreaks and assess ecosystem resilience.
Enhanced coral stress tolerance via manipulation of prokaryotic symbionts. The project aims to develop a novel approach to improve environmental stress tolerance in corals. Coral reefs are under threat from a range of stressors that have led to massive declines in coral cover and health worldwide. There is now great concern that the rate of environmental change is outpacing the natural capacity of corals to acclimatise, adapt and survive. Although it is important to address the root causes of cl ....Enhanced coral stress tolerance via manipulation of prokaryotic symbionts. The project aims to develop a novel approach to improve environmental stress tolerance in corals. Coral reefs are under threat from a range of stressors that have led to massive declines in coral cover and health worldwide. There is now great concern that the rate of environmental change is outpacing the natural capacity of corals to acclimatise, adapt and survive. Although it is important to address the root causes of climate change, a focus on strategies to mitigate its impacts is also required. This project explores the potential to augment the capacity of corals to tolerate stress through the manipulation of their associated prokaryotic communities. This project may result in novel coral reef restoration approaches.Read moreRead less
Global integration of microbial community and climate data. Microbial communities in the environment control the cycling of carbon and nutrients on Earth, but climate models do not directly incorporate microbial inputs. This interdisciplinary project will link planetary-scale climate modelling data with novel large-scale microbial community analysis, using climate information to provide insight into the fantastic diversity of microbial processes on our planet. The interdisciplinary approach will ....Global integration of microbial community and climate data. Microbial communities in the environment control the cycling of carbon and nutrients on Earth, but climate models do not directly incorporate microbial inputs. This interdisciplinary project will link planetary-scale climate modelling data with novel large-scale microbial community analysis, using climate information to provide insight into the fantastic diversity of microbial processes on our planet. The interdisciplinary approach will inform the next generation of climate models and better predict our future climate’s feedbacks. Conversely, it will make progress on the grand challenge of understanding microbial community function by enabling microbial ecology to be treated as a data-intensive machine learning problem.Read moreRead less
Genome-level insight into the dynamics of a model coral microbiome. The aim of the project is to examine structural and functional microbiome dynamics in an ecologically important coral on the Great Barrier Reef along a natural temperature gradient. Microorganisms form an intimate symbiotic relationship with corals and are critical to their health. However, the microbiome can be disrupted by environmental perturbations, including higher-than-normal ocean temperatures, leaving the coral susceptib ....Genome-level insight into the dynamics of a model coral microbiome. The aim of the project is to examine structural and functional microbiome dynamics in an ecologically important coral on the Great Barrier Reef along a natural temperature gradient. Microorganisms form an intimate symbiotic relationship with corals and are critical to their health. However, the microbiome can be disrupted by environmental perturbations, including higher-than-normal ocean temperatures, leaving the coral susceptible to disease and bleaching. Currently, our understanding of how the microbiome composition and metabolic function change in response to seasonal temperature variation and disease is limited. This project is designed to provide insight into the role the microbiome plays in maintaining coral health and may aid in the long-term preservation of the reefs.Read moreRead less
EXTRACELLULAR ELECTRON TRANSFER IN BIO-ELECTROCHEMICAL SYSTEMS. Water quality and supply are critical issues in Australia. This project investigates the role of bacteria in maintaining a good freshwater quality, and the influence of environmental parameters on this. It will enable us to assess the role of bacteria on greenhouse gas emissions in a variety of environments. As a result, processes can be developed to alleviate high emissions while simultaneously producing green energy. The proteomic ....EXTRACELLULAR ELECTRON TRANSFER IN BIO-ELECTROCHEMICAL SYSTEMS. Water quality and supply are critical issues in Australia. This project investigates the role of bacteria in maintaining a good freshwater quality, and the influence of environmental parameters on this. It will enable us to assess the role of bacteria on greenhouse gas emissions in a variety of environments. As a result, processes can be developed to alleviate high emissions while simultaneously producing green energy. The proteomics study will deliver, aside from knowledge, redox proteins which find their way to diagnostics and fuel cells. This project substantiates Australia based research at the forefront and enables international anchoring of our expertise.Read moreRead less
The mobilome of the anaerobic methanotrophic archaea Methanoperedenaceae. Microorganisms play a critical role in regulating Earth’s climate, but how they are affected by our rapidly changing environment is not well understood. This Discovery project will study a group of microorganisms found in freshwater sediment that can consume the potent greenhouse gas methane before it is released into the atmosphere. We have developed new methods to investigate how genetic material is exchanged between mic ....The mobilome of the anaerobic methanotrophic archaea Methanoperedenaceae. Microorganisms play a critical role in regulating Earth’s climate, but how they are affected by our rapidly changing environment is not well understood. This Discovery project will study a group of microorganisms found in freshwater sediment that can consume the potent greenhouse gas methane before it is released into the atmosphere. We have developed new methods to investigate how genetic material is exchanged between microorganisms, and how this helps them adapt to environmental changes. Together, this will ultimately help us develop better climate change prediction models and contribute to our understanding of microbial communities that are crucial for environmental health.Read moreRead less