Biodiversity indicators for better conservation decisions. This project aims to test, design and select biodiversity indicators to support conservation. Reliable and sensitive biodiversity indicators are critical to track progress towards conservation targets, but the ability of most biodiversity indicators to reveal trends needed by decision-makers is untested. This project will test indicators to monitor biodiversity change at local to global scales, by sampling ecosystem models to evaluate ho ....Biodiversity indicators for better conservation decisions. This project aims to test, design and select biodiversity indicators to support conservation. Reliable and sensitive biodiversity indicators are critical to track progress towards conservation targets, but the ability of most biodiversity indicators to reveal trends needed by decision-makers is untested. This project will test indicators to monitor biodiversity change at local to global scales, by sampling ecosystem models to evaluate how indicator design, data bias and environmental variability affect performance. Project outcomes are expected to ensure that that data collected to monitor and assess the state of Australia’s environment are informative, cost-effective and robust. This is expected to have implications for predicting and measuring effects of policy such as the Convention on Biological Diversity.Read moreRead less
Australian Laureate Fellowships - Grant ID: FL120100108
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$2,849,770.00
Summary
Surrogate ecology: when and where can it work to improve environmental management? New empirical analyses and new ecological theory will be used to discover where, when and how to best apply surrogates. New capacity will be built in surrogate ecology and the results used to significantly enhance the effective management and monitoring of environments and biodiversity both in Australia and worldwide.
ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions. Despite facing the sixth global mass extinction of species, most conservation management is unevaluated and inefficient. The ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions will provide international research leadership in tackling the complex problems of environmental management and monitoring in an uncertain world. Working through six Australian universities and six international organisations, the Centre will forge new approaches and ....ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions. Despite facing the sixth global mass extinction of species, most conservation management is unevaluated and inefficient. The ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions will provide international research leadership in tackling the complex problems of environmental management and monitoring in an uncertain world. Working through six Australian universities and six international organisations, the Centre will forge new approaches and tools from ecology, mathematics, statistics, economics and the social sciences. It will lead the world in developing and delivering predictive models and decision-making approaches to improve outcomes in conservation.Read moreRead less
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.
New tools to detect ecological effects of contaminants in estuaries. Identifying risks to estuarine environments from pollutants is difficult for environmental managers, who must choose between laboratory toxicity testing that is precise, but hard to generalise to field situations, and more realistic field-based monitoring, which is expensive, with a high signal to noise ratio. New molecular techniques may provide more options. Metabolomics can provide insights into the health of animals, and ec ....New tools to detect ecological effects of contaminants in estuaries. Identifying risks to estuarine environments from pollutants is difficult for environmental managers, who must choose between laboratory toxicity testing that is precise, but hard to generalise to field situations, and more realistic field-based monitoring, which is expensive, with a high signal to noise ratio. New molecular techniques may provide more options. Metabolomics can provide insights into the health of animals, and ecogenomics offers a way to rapidly assess the composition of an ecological community. These techniques offer great promise, but they must be cross-validated against existing methods to derive the best ’toolbox’. Working with Melbourne Water and CSIRO the investigators aim to do this using demonstration estuaries in Victoria.Read moreRead less
Best practice temperate woodland assessment, management and monitoring. This ARC proposal is central to the goals of National Research Priority #1 – An environmentally sustainable Australia. The loss of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes in rural Australia is a major social, economic and ecological issue. Australian governments and local communities invest considerable money restoring temperate woodlands in agricultural landscapes. However, there remains considerable uncertainty about the e ....Best practice temperate woodland assessment, management and monitoring. This ARC proposal is central to the goals of National Research Priority #1 – An environmentally sustainable Australia. The loss of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes in rural Australia is a major social, economic and ecological issue. Australian governments and local communities invest considerable money restoring temperate woodlands in agricultural landscapes. However, there remains considerable uncertainty about the effectiveness of this investment. This project will produce an unparalleled evidence-base for individuals and organisations that make long-term investments in these landscapes for conservation.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
From environmental monitoring to management: extracting knowledge about environmental events from sensor data. New, high-detail sources of environmental sensor data are useless without new methods for identifying patterns and extracting knowledge from that data. This project will develop improved techniques for interacting with environmental sensor data to assist environmental scientists and manager in understand the important events that are occurring.