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Spatial scale of influence of riparian and catchment land use on stream ecosystem health. Human activities at the landscape scale comprise one of the greatest threats to the ecological integrity of river ecosystems. Government and community groups across Australia are making significant efforts in riparian protection and rehabilitation in an attempt to improve the health of degraded waterways but are hampered in their goal to maximise the environmental gains for every dollar or unit effort inve ....Spatial scale of influence of riparian and catchment land use on stream ecosystem health. Human activities at the landscape scale comprise one of the greatest threats to the ecological integrity of river ecosystems. Government and community groups across Australia are making significant efforts in riparian protection and rehabilitation in an attempt to improve the health of degraded waterways but are hampered in their goal to maximise the environmental gains for every dollar or unit effort invested. The proposed research on understanding the spatial scale of influence of land use and the aggregative effects on stream ecosystems will provide a robust framework to assess various options and optimise benefits from management actions. Read moreRead less
Transformations of catchment nutrients in southeast Queensland. Human activity in catchments throughout southeast Queensland has increased nutrient loads in receiving waters. However, until recently there has been a lack of accurate quantification of these loads, and little understanding of their role in stimulating algal blooms. This proposal will examine the links between catchment nutrient inputs to waterways, their transformations and effects on stimulating algal growth in freshwater systems ....Transformations of catchment nutrients in southeast Queensland. Human activity in catchments throughout southeast Queensland has increased nutrient loads in receiving waters. However, until recently there has been a lack of accurate quantification of these loads, and little understanding of their role in stimulating algal blooms. This proposal will examine the links between catchment nutrient inputs to waterways, their transformations and effects on stimulating algal growth in freshwater systems. The outcomes from this research will be information on how catchment nutrients are affecting water quality, thus providing a vehicle for targeting management strategies designed to reduce nutrient loads.Read moreRead less
Restoring functional links between riparian zones and streams by enhancing structural retention. This project aims to test whether structural retention, whereby plant detritus (logs, bark, leaves) is trapped and retained within river channels, can offset the impacts caused by widespread clearance of vegetation along river banks, a widespread problem in Australia and the world. Theoretically, retention is a major environmental driver of ecosystem change in rivers, but this has rarely been tested, ....Restoring functional links between riparian zones and streams by enhancing structural retention. This project aims to test whether structural retention, whereby plant detritus (logs, bark, leaves) is trapped and retained within river channels, can offset the impacts caused by widespread clearance of vegetation along river banks, a widespread problem in Australia and the world. Theoretically, retention is a major environmental driver of ecosystem change in rivers, but this has rarely been tested, particularly in a restoration context. The aim of this project is to show that increasing retention results in higher species diversity, thus providing managers with a relatively straightforward method for improving the environmental conditions of rivers, while simultaneously testing three hypotheses about rectifying ecosystem degradation caused by human impacts.Read moreRead less
Understanding marine migratory connectivity for more sustainable oceans. Ocean basin-scale migrations of iconic sea turtles, marine mammals, seabirds, and fish expose them to multiple stressors and governance regimes, leading to gaps in management and population declines. The project aims to deliver the methods and evidence base of cross-taxa migratory connectivity that is essential to support the
conservation of these species. Expected outcomes include comprehensive and integrated models of mig ....Understanding marine migratory connectivity for more sustainable oceans. Ocean basin-scale migrations of iconic sea turtles, marine mammals, seabirds, and fish expose them to multiple stressors and governance regimes, leading to gaps in management and population declines. The project aims to deliver the methods and evidence base of cross-taxa migratory connectivity that is essential to support the
conservation of these species. Expected outcomes include comprehensive and integrated models of migratory connectivity, conservation theory development, and new methods that allow incorporation of migratory connectivity in conservation planning. Benefits include: a cross-taxa baseline that will enable Australia to measure environmental change in marine migratory connectivity for the first time.Read moreRead less
Horizontal ecological networks for understanding biodiversity maintenance. The project aims to develop new ecological theory on local diversity maintenance based on an innovative interaction network model, tested on Western Australian wildflower communities. It is novel in its focus on the complexity of species interactions and their importance to diversity maintenance in nature. This project aims to explore links between plant interaction networks and coexistence theory to provide theoretical e ....Horizontal ecological networks for understanding biodiversity maintenance. The project aims to develop new ecological theory on local diversity maintenance based on an innovative interaction network model, tested on Western Australian wildflower communities. It is novel in its focus on the complexity of species interactions and their importance to diversity maintenance in nature. This project aims to explore links between plant interaction networks and coexistence theory to provide theoretical expectations for how changes to the environment are expected to alter natural plant communities. It aims to fill theory-gap about mechanisms of multi-species coexistence, advance community ecology, and provide the theoretical foundations necessary for translating ecological theory to restoration and conservation in practice.Read moreRead less
Improving the success of hybrid living shorelines for coastal protection. This project aims to improve the success of hybrid living shorelines that combine the restoration of mangroves and oysters with engineered structures to enhance restoration outcomes and coastal hazard resilience. It expects to generate new knowledge on the effectiveness of innovative coastal-manager-led solutions that have not yet been robustly evaluated. Expected outcomes of this project include delivery of the technical ....Improving the success of hybrid living shorelines for coastal protection. This project aims to improve the success of hybrid living shorelines that combine the restoration of mangroves and oysters with engineered structures to enhance restoration outcomes and coastal hazard resilience. It expects to generate new knowledge on the effectiveness of innovative coastal-manager-led solutions that have not yet been robustly evaluated. Expected outcomes of this project include delivery of the technical guidelines needed to practically design and implement nature-based coastal protection at scale. This should provide significant socio-economic and environmental benefits through improving Australia’s capacity to adapt to increased erosion and flood risk caused by climate change and coastal urbanisation.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.
Influence of Marine Protected Areas on ecosystem resilience and ecological processes. Australia is implementing a national representative system of marine protected areas (MPAs). The aims of the MPAs include ensuring ecological viability, maintaining ecological processes, and protecting biodiversity. The ability of MPAs to achieve these aims, however, is based largely on theory rather than empirical evidence. Implementation of MPAs is often controversial as it may cause economic hardship to comm ....Influence of Marine Protected Areas on ecosystem resilience and ecological processes. Australia is implementing a national representative system of marine protected areas (MPAs). The aims of the MPAs include ensuring ecological viability, maintaining ecological processes, and protecting biodiversity. The ability of MPAs to achieve these aims, however, is based largely on theory rather than empirical evidence. Implementation of MPAs is often controversial as it may cause economic hardship to communities dependent on fishing. Our project will benefit environmental managers by determining if and how MPAs influence biodiversity, ecological processes, and ecosystem services and resilience. It will benefit the wider community by providing the rigorous scientific evidence in favour of MPAs that is demanded by stakeholders.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE160100429
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$367,000.00
Summary
Unravelling nickel biopathways in tropical hyperaccumulator plants. This project aims to unravel the ways in which hyperaccumulators work. Hyperaccumulators are plants that have the remarkable ability to concentrate up to six per cent nickel in their leaves and up to 25 per cent in their sap. These plants can be used in phytomining – a new technology to recover nickel from mining waste or contaminated land by growing and harvesting these plants and extracting nickel from their biomass. This proj ....Unravelling nickel biopathways in tropical hyperaccumulator plants. This project aims to unravel the ways in which hyperaccumulators work. Hyperaccumulators are plants that have the remarkable ability to concentrate up to six per cent nickel in their leaves and up to 25 per cent in their sap. These plants can be used in phytomining – a new technology to recover nickel from mining waste or contaminated land by growing and harvesting these plants and extracting nickel from their biomass. This project seeks to understand how the plants accumulate nickel by using tracers and synchrotron techniques to follow the pathways of nickel from the soil into the plants. This knowledge may help us to optimise agronomic processes affecting nickel uptake to enable successful phytomining.Read moreRead less