Understanding diet designs that break life history trade-offs. The aim of this project is to understand the mechanisms by which organisms use nutrition to enhance fitness. Food availability is a key predictor of evolutionary fitness. Surprisingly, recent data shows that some key assumptions informing how these predictions are realised are not strictly correct, thus exposing a lack of important mechanistic knowledge. This project seeks to understand these mechanisms. The project plans to use nove ....Understanding diet designs that break life history trade-offs. The aim of this project is to understand the mechanisms by which organisms use nutrition to enhance fitness. Food availability is a key predictor of evolutionary fitness. Surprisingly, recent data shows that some key assumptions informing how these predictions are realised are not strictly correct, thus exposing a lack of important mechanistic knowledge. This project seeks to understand these mechanisms. The project plans to use novel genomics techniques to develop diets that support or improve fitness under circumstances such as stress or ageing, and to understand the molecular underpinnings of these improvements. Project outcomes may expand academic knowledge of fundamental nutritional biochemistry, and improve predictions of species’ responses to environmental change.Read moreRead less
Characterisation of tumour variants of Devil Facial Tumour Disease. This project will take a new approach to cancer research by studying the evolution of Devil Facial Tumour Disease. The results will directly contribute to the conservation management of the Tasmanian devil, as well as generating new information on tumour growth, metastasis and emergence of resistance.