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Evolutionary origins of sexual parasitism in an Australian freshwater fish. Carp gudgeons are the most abundant, widespread and biodiverse freshwater fishes in southeastern Australia. The unacknowledged presence of many cryptic species and sexually-parasitic lineages severely taints all research on this cornerstone group. This project aims to provide unrivalled evolutionary, genomic, and taxonomic insights into this new instance of vertebrate sexual parasitism, which offers a unique mix of resea ....Evolutionary origins of sexual parasitism in an Australian freshwater fish. Carp gudgeons are the most abundant, widespread and biodiverse freshwater fishes in southeastern Australia. The unacknowledged presence of many cryptic species and sexually-parasitic lineages severely taints all research on this cornerstone group. This project aims to provide unrivalled evolutionary, genomic, and taxonomic insights into this new instance of vertebrate sexual parasitism, which offers a unique mix of research advantages not displayed by any other sexual/unisexual complex. The knowledge gained could impact many research fields, including evolutionary theory addressing the unexplainable prevalence of sex, native fish ecology, and environmental monitoring of the Murray-Darling Basin, an ecosystem of world significance.Read moreRead less
Restoring amphibian populations in chytrid-impacted landscapes. This project aims to address an outstanding problem in wildlife disease ecology: how can we enable susceptible amphibians to persist in the face of the chytrid pathogen, which has devastated amphibian biodiversity? This project expects to generate new knowledge by experimentally trialling two highly promising interventions: immunising animals and creating disease refugia through simple habitat manipulations. Outcomes of this project ....Restoring amphibian populations in chytrid-impacted landscapes. This project aims to address an outstanding problem in wildlife disease ecology: how can we enable susceptible amphibians to persist in the face of the chytrid pathogen, which has devastated amphibian biodiversity? This project expects to generate new knowledge by experimentally trialling two highly promising interventions: immunising animals and creating disease refugia through simple habitat manipulations. Outcomes of this project include a framework for predicting how interventions might enable host-pathogen coexistence. This project should provide significant benefits including enhanced understanding of wildlife disease dynamics that will pave the way for interventions to restore amphibian biodiversity in chytrid-impacted landscapes.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
How arid zone wetlands persist: linking ecological dynamics with hydrological regimes . This project will investigate how aquatic food webs assemble and persist in mound springs, relict streams and river pools in the Australian arid zone. Knowing how aquatic systems respond to wet and dry phases is the first step towards ‘climate proofing ’ these systems against future extreme events.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE130100777
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
New technology for accurate freshwater biodiversity assessment using environmental DNA. This project will develop a new biodiversity monitoring tool for identifying freshwater fish species without their capture or observation, using environmental DNA (faeces, urine and skin cells) extracted from water samples. This new tool will be used to survey for all fish species in freshwater ecosystems in southwestern Australia, a biodiversity hotspot.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210100032
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$456,645.00
Summary
Unravelling how ecosystems function through time and space. This project aims to build a whole-of-ecosystem model to trace the biological capture of energy and cycling of matter as it moves through entire river catchments. It is expected to generate new knowledge about ecological responses to environmental streamflow through the novel integration of all major food-web compartments – from dissolved molecules to predatory fish – in a single framework. The expected outcome of this project is an enh ....Unravelling how ecosystems function through time and space. This project aims to build a whole-of-ecosystem model to trace the biological capture of energy and cycling of matter as it moves through entire river catchments. It is expected to generate new knowledge about ecological responses to environmental streamflow through the novel integration of all major food-web compartments – from dissolved molecules to predatory fish – in a single framework. The expected outcome of this project is an enhanced capacity to predict the ecological consequences of future water management scenarios, facilitating more precise management of river systems. This should provide considerable benefits to the health of Australia’s rivers and the contributions these ecosystems make to society, environment, and agriculture.Read moreRead less
Investigating movement, distribution, abundance and diet to support management objectives for threatened riverine predators in Northern Australia. The rivers and estuaries of northern Australia are highly productive environments, containing an exceptional diversity and abundance of large predatory aquatic species. This project aims to monitor the movements, habitat preferences and diet in eight large predatory species in a northern Queensland river over the next three years. Movement data will b ....Investigating movement, distribution, abundance and diet to support management objectives for threatened riverine predators in Northern Australia. The rivers and estuaries of northern Australia are highly productive environments, containing an exceptional diversity and abundance of large predatory aquatic species. This project aims to monitor the movements, habitat preferences and diet in eight large predatory species in a northern Queensland river over the next three years. Movement data will be combined with isotopic analysis to reveal how environmental and biological factors drive animal movements and impact habitat connectivity. In a world of vanishing top predators, it is imperative to understand system dynamics before we can evaluate the impact of species removal on ecosystem function.Read moreRead less
Have we already lost the Australian lungfish? This project aims to use radiocarbon ageing, conservation genetics and modelling to identify threats to the long-term survival of the Australian lungfish, the world's oldest living vertebrate. This project will provide managers with a powerful tool to prioritise management interventions to ensure the conservation of the species and to pull it back from extinction.
Drivers of fine scale genetic spatial structuring in aquatic organisms. Understanding factors that influence genetic spatial structure of species is essential for conserving biodiversity. Movement of freshwater organisms in riverine environments is severely constrained by dendritic structure of streams, variation in aridity, and geomorphology. The project aims to test hypotheses of how these factors impact genetic patterns across east-west climatic gradients in eastern Australia. For most aquati ....Drivers of fine scale genetic spatial structuring in aquatic organisms. Understanding factors that influence genetic spatial structure of species is essential for conserving biodiversity. Movement of freshwater organisms in riverine environments is severely constrained by dendritic structure of streams, variation in aridity, and geomorphology. The project aims to test hypotheses of how these factors impact genetic patterns across east-west climatic gradients in eastern Australia. For most aquatic species, research is limited on genetic patterns across spatial scales with varying riverine dendritic structure and rarely incorporates historical data. Uncovering genetic spatial structure in aquatic ecosystems is necessary for conservation management and predicting species movements in the current changing climate.Read moreRead less
Reducing flood loss - A data-assimilation framework for improving forecasting capability in sparsely gauged regions. Floods are the biggest and severest natural disaster we face year after year. Furthermore, there has been little improvement in our capability to prevent flood damage over past decades. This research proposes a paradigm shift in the way flood forecasting, warning and evacuation proceeds, using 21st century technologies for collecting and incorporating flood related data into exist ....Reducing flood loss - A data-assimilation framework for improving forecasting capability in sparsely gauged regions. Floods are the biggest and severest natural disaster we face year after year. Furthermore, there has been little improvement in our capability to prevent flood damage over past decades. This research proposes a paradigm shift in the way flood forecasting, warning and evacuation proceeds, using 21st century technologies for collecting and incorporating flood related data into existing modelling platforms. It is argued that assimilating real-time satellite soil moisture data into flood models can increase accuracy manifold, even if the images are uncertain. The understanding gained in course of the proposed project has the potential to significantly reduce the damage caused year after year, especially in the data poor regions of the world.Read moreRead less