Manipulative mothers and family feuds: evolution of maternal effects under mother-offspring conflict. Can mothers shape the lives of their offspring and their grand-offspring? Can siblings shape the lives of their brothers and sisters? This project will address how mother and offspring strategies affect current and future generations. This is crucial for understanding how mothers will direct and accelerate evolutionary change in our changing world.
Understanding the survival of forests under drought . Droughts are predicted to become more extreme in the near future, with potentially devastating impacts on Australian forest ecosystems. This project aims to address key knowledge gaps in our understanding of how plants tolerate extreme drought stress and utilise this new knowledge to improve vegetation models suitable for assessing ecosystem vulnerability. We will use innovative experimental methodology to determine the processes by which wat ....Understanding the survival of forests under drought . Droughts are predicted to become more extreme in the near future, with potentially devastating impacts on Australian forest ecosystems. This project aims to address key knowledge gaps in our understanding of how plants tolerate extreme drought stress and utilise this new knowledge to improve vegetation models suitable for assessing ecosystem vulnerability. We will use innovative experimental methodology to determine the processes by which water transport breaks down in roots, stems and leaves and the mechanisms governing recovery from severe drought stress. The project will provide a deeper understanding of drought tolerance in trees, improved forecasting of risks to native vegetation, and enhanced management of native forest resources. Read moreRead less
The effect of native invasions on Australian fisheries species. This project aims to forecast climate-related changes in the diversity, distribution and abundance of fisheries species. In a changing world where many people depend on oceans for food and livelihood, predicting the future distribution of fisheries species is a challenge. Native invasions and ocean warming are stressing inshore fisheries species, but rigorous empirical data and models that can reliably forecast these effects are lac ....The effect of native invasions on Australian fisheries species. This project aims to forecast climate-related changes in the diversity, distribution and abundance of fisheries species. In a changing world where many people depend on oceans for food and livelihood, predicting the future distribution of fisheries species is a challenge. Native invasions and ocean warming are stressing inshore fisheries species, but rigorous empirical data and models that can reliably forecast these effects are lacking. This project intends to reveal the drivers of successful native invasions, evaluate their effect on fish diversity and productivity, and develop holistic models that forecast their effects on inshore fisheries species’ near-future distribution and stocks.Read moreRead less
Integrating biomechanics and ecology: moving from an individual- to population-level understanding of the effects of environmental change. Coral reefs, a key Australian resource, face an uncertain future due to environmental change. Up to now, environmental change research has focused on the individual level, severely limiting our predictive capacity. This project will develop a novel 'first principle' approach to solve this shortcoming and make population-level predictions possible.
Buffering the ecosystem impact of invasive cane toads. This project aims to address the devastating ecological problems caused by invasive species, by developing a novel approach that does not rely upon eradicating the invader through training vulnerable native predators not to eat toxic cane toads. Expected outcomes of this project include building a broad coalition of conservation-focused groups, from private land-owners and local businesses through to Indigenous groups and government and non- ....Buffering the ecosystem impact of invasive cane toads. This project aims to address the devastating ecological problems caused by invasive species, by developing a novel approach that does not rely upon eradicating the invader through training vulnerable native predators not to eat toxic cane toads. Expected outcomes of this project include building a broad coalition of conservation-focused groups, from private land-owners and local businesses through to Indigenous groups and government and non-government agencies across the entire Kimberley region. It will also result in the evaluation of methods for deployment of taste-aversion at a landscape scale. This should provide significant benefits by conserving vulnerable fauna and building a powerful network within a region of high biodiversity in tropical Australia.Read moreRead less
Reproductive plasticity and climate change: insights from a region of opportunistic birds. Understanding how animal species respond behaviourally and physiologically to climatic variability is key to predicting how they will adapt to a changing climate. Australasia is home to a number of native and introduced species that breed across a range of climates and seasons. This project will establish collaborative infrastructure and a research network to systematically study and identify the constrain ....Reproductive plasticity and climate change: insights from a region of opportunistic birds. Understanding how animal species respond behaviourally and physiologically to climatic variability is key to predicting how they will adapt to a changing climate. Australasia is home to a number of native and introduced species that breed across a range of climates and seasons. This project will establish collaborative infrastructure and a research network to systematically study and identify the constraints and adaptations that birds have to adjust to a variable climate across Australasia. This large-scale comparative project will provide important insight into the globally observed patterns of reproductive failure and changes in breeding and migration times in birds, which have been related to a changing climate and pose a threat to biodiversity.Read moreRead less
Reproductive plasticity and climate change: insights from an opportunistic breeder. Across the globe, birds are struggling to optimise their reproductive timing and investment in a changing and unpredictable climate. This project will use the highly adaptable and opportunistic Australian zebra finch to develop an understanding of how birds tailor their behaviour and physiology to breed across a range of conditions.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE200100884
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$426,691.00
Summary
Do novel diets reshape wildlife microbiomes and resilience to stressors? This project aims to investigate how bacteria can assist wildlife in adapting to the accelerating threat of environmental change. Using an innovative, interdisciplinary approach this project expects to identify interactions between environmental change and the diet, microbial communities and stress resilience of wildlife, using the threatened Grey-headed flying fox as a model system. Expected outcomes include detailed under ....Do novel diets reshape wildlife microbiomes and resilience to stressors? This project aims to investigate how bacteria can assist wildlife in adapting to the accelerating threat of environmental change. Using an innovative, interdisciplinary approach this project expects to identify interactions between environmental change and the diet, microbial communities and stress resilience of wildlife, using the threatened Grey-headed flying fox as a model system. Expected outcomes include detailed understanding of the role of microbial communities in shaping wildlife adaptations and development of ecological interventions to enhance wildlife resilience in Australia and globally. Such outcomes may reveal opportunities for management strategies that safeguard threatened species and reduce human-wildlife conflicts.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE220100096
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$436,032.00
Summary
Understanding the relationship between the social environment and cognition. The predominant theory for the evolution of intelligence, the social intelligence hypothesis (SIH), posits that within-group social interactions drive cognitive evolution. But the SIH overlooks a major component of social life: interactions with outsiders of the same species. Using a unique combination of meta-analytical and experimental approaches, the DECRA project will test the predictions of an expanded SIH, incorpo ....Understanding the relationship between the social environment and cognition. The predominant theory for the evolution of intelligence, the social intelligence hypothesis (SIH), posits that within-group social interactions drive cognitive evolution. But the SIH overlooks a major component of social life: interactions with outsiders of the same species. Using a unique combination of meta-analytical and experimental approaches, the DECRA project will test the predictions of an expanded SIH, incorporating the “Napoleonic” cognitive challenges posed by outsiders. The expected outcome is to gain a new understanding of which factors govern cognitive evolution – one of the longest-running debates in evolutionary biology.Read moreRead less
Making Green Guard® greener: enhancing the efficacy of a biopesticide. The project aims to identify naturally occurring micro-organisms to increase the effectiveness of Green Guard ®, which is a biopesticide used against the Australian plague locust. The project will use next-generation sequencing and other molecular techniques to potentially identify candidate microbes or combinations of microbes that can be added to Green Guard to enhance locust susceptibility. The project also aims to quantif ....Making Green Guard® greener: enhancing the efficacy of a biopesticide. The project aims to identify naturally occurring micro-organisms to increase the effectiveness of Green Guard ®, which is a biopesticide used against the Australian plague locust. The project will use next-generation sequencing and other molecular techniques to potentially identify candidate microbes or combinations of microbes that can be added to Green Guard to enhance locust susceptibility. The project also aims to quantify the interactive impact of temperature and nutrition on immune function, disease resistance and host-plant quality of plague locusts; and to explore the combined effects of temperature, habitat and Green Guard, in combination with candidate microbes or pathogens, on the behaviour and collective movement of locusts. It is anticipated that this will have implications for management and control strategies.Read moreRead less