Hybridisation leading to lost sex: genomic and experimental insights. The project intends to apply advanced genomics to two classic Australian systems and quantitative genetics to one to address long-standing questions about why asexual reproduction is rare. It aims to test for rapid changes in genomes accompanying hybrid-origins of asexuals and whether this new diversity enables their ongoing evolution. The significance is that support for this hypothesis would challenge current theory for why ....Hybridisation leading to lost sex: genomic and experimental insights. The project intends to apply advanced genomics to two classic Australian systems and quantitative genetics to one to address long-standing questions about why asexual reproduction is rare. It aims to test for rapid changes in genomes accompanying hybrid-origins of asexuals and whether this new diversity enables their ongoing evolution. The significance is that support for this hypothesis would challenge current theory for why sex is so common. The expected outcome is to understand how variation is generated in natural populations with different ways of reproducing. Benefits would include significant contributions to global science, evolutionary training and potential applications in using hybridisation to manage threatened species or pests.Read moreRead less
The intensity of sexual selection with density and age and its importance in the evolution of animal populations. Australia is internationally highly regarded for the quality of its research into the basic biology of its fauna. This study will provide information on the breeding biology of an endemic marine species distributed across the Northern tropics of Australia. It addresses a pure research question of great theoretical interest. However, it also provides valuable training opportunities fo ....The intensity of sexual selection with density and age and its importance in the evolution of animal populations. Australia is internationally highly regarded for the quality of its research into the basic biology of its fauna. This study will provide information on the breeding biology of an endemic marine species distributed across the Northern tropics of Australia. It addresses a pure research question of great theoretical interest. However, it also provides valuable training opportunities for postgraduate students in the practicalities of conducting tropical field biology and the execution of field experiments. These are essential skills that can readily be transferred to applied biological problems. Maintaining a pool of skilled field biologists is essential for the on-going success of programmes in conservation and ecosystem management. Read moreRead less
Fighting for space: How do weaker individuals compete? Animals fight for territories and larger, stronger individuals usually win. How then, in fiddler crabs, do small males and weaponless females defend their territories against larger males? I will investigate four contexts in which strength alone may not determine fighting success. I predict that: (a) positional and motivational advantages allow territory owners to repel intruders; (b) weak individuals compete with stronger neighbours by 'nag ....Fighting for space: How do weaker individuals compete? Animals fight for territories and larger, stronger individuals usually win. How then, in fiddler crabs, do small males and weaponless females defend their territories against larger males? I will investigate four contexts in which strength alone may not determine fighting success. I predict that: (a) positional and motivational advantages allow territory owners to repel intruders; (b) weak individuals compete with stronger neighbours by 'nagging' rather than by winning fights; (c) residents form coalitions to fend off intruders; and d) females, who lack the large claws of males, employ novel alternative tactics to maintain territories.This study will test important theories of territoriality and in so doing make a major contribution to behavioural ecology.
Read moreRead less
Moving between day and night: Navigational strategies and foraging costs of temporal niche partitioning. This study involves fundamental research to identify the navigational strategies and the foraging cost in animals that occupy different temporal niches. It will make use of the unique research opportunities in Australia, by working with endemic fauna that allows scientists to address questions that would otherwise be hard to answer. The project will introduce the novel technique of differenti ....Moving between day and night: Navigational strategies and foraging costs of temporal niche partitioning. This study involves fundamental research to identify the navigational strategies and the foraging cost in animals that occupy different temporal niches. It will make use of the unique research opportunities in Australia, by working with endemic fauna that allows scientists to address questions that would otherwise be hard to answer. The project will introduce the novel technique of differential GPS to track the paths of ants which has the potential to revolutionise the field of insect navigation. Salience-dependent navigational strategies analysed in this study will be of great interest in the field of engineering and robotics.Read moreRead less
Moving to be seen: a comprehensive analysis of movement-based signal design. Papers on visual motion processing and animal signal design regularly feature in major journals, and the programs of international conferences. We can thus be confident that theoretical advances will attract international attention. We will develop further state-of-the-art methods in motion analysis, with our overall approach likely to serve as a framework for future research programs, although our techniques will have ....Moving to be seen: a comprehensive analysis of movement-based signal design. Papers on visual motion processing and animal signal design regularly feature in major journals, and the programs of international conferences. We can thus be confident that theoretical advances will attract international attention. We will develop further state-of-the-art methods in motion analysis, with our overall approach likely to serve as a framework for future research programs, although our techniques will have applications outside of biology. In addition, we will learn much about the social behaviour of a group of native reptiles about which relatively little is known. Research on the social behaviour of animals is readily comprehended by non-specialists and plays an important role in attracting young people to careers in science.Read moreRead less
Understanding climate and harvest induced changes in fish life histories. This project aims to quantify the cumulative impacts of harvest and climate change across marine fishes and ecosystems. The project expects to generate new knowledge in this area by coupling the rich biological information archived in fish ear bones, with targeted multi-generation experiments and predictive modelling. Expected outcomes include fundamental insights into how human-induced environmental change affects fish gr ....Understanding climate and harvest induced changes in fish life histories. This project aims to quantify the cumulative impacts of harvest and climate change across marine fishes and ecosystems. The project expects to generate new knowledge in this area by coupling the rich biological information archived in fish ear bones, with targeted multi-generation experiments and predictive modelling. Expected outcomes include fundamental insights into how human-induced environmental change affects fish growth and maturation, and a subsequent critical evaluation of the sensitivity of fisheries models to trends in these life-history traits. This should provide significant benefits to fisheries and ecosystem management, ensuring they remain productive and resilient in a time of rapid environmental change.Read moreRead less
Does dynamic ecological change cause rapid evolution? This project aims to increase understanding of how Australia’s native biota responds to rapid environmental changes. Abrupt environmental change has the potential to drive rapid evolution, which may facilitate species persistence in the face of novel challenges. This project will use long-term genomic data to quantify rates of evolutionary change in species living in arid environments, whose populations fluctuate markedly in response to rainf ....Does dynamic ecological change cause rapid evolution? This project aims to increase understanding of how Australia’s native biota responds to rapid environmental changes. Abrupt environmental change has the potential to drive rapid evolution, which may facilitate species persistence in the face of novel challenges. This project will use long-term genomic data to quantify rates of evolutionary change in species living in arid environments, whose populations fluctuate markedly in response to rainfall variation. By measuring the pace of genomic change in these species, and the evolutionary processes driving that change, this project will reveal species’ evolutionary responses to major environmental fluctuations.Read moreRead less
Efficient phylogenetic methods that manage the curse of genomic complexity. This project aims to develop new methods and software to infer the evolutionary history of organisms using genomic data. These new phylogenomic methods need to take account of the complexity of evolutionary processes and/or patterns in time (along the evolutionary tree) and space (along the genome). This project is significant because these methods must merge mathematics and statistics with High-Performance Computing to ....Efficient phylogenetic methods that manage the curse of genomic complexity. This project aims to develop new methods and software to infer the evolutionary history of organisms using genomic data. These new phylogenomic methods need to take account of the complexity of evolutionary processes and/or patterns in time (along the evolutionary tree) and space (along the genome). This project is significant because these methods must merge mathematics and statistics with High-Performance Computing to handle the huge quantities of genetic data and the complexity of evolution itself. An important expected outcome of this project will be the development and release of freely-available software that incorporates these new methods. This project expects to benefit scientists who need to infer phylogenies from genomic data. Read moreRead less
New Molecular Approaches to Comparative Phylogeography. Funds are requested to gather data to test new molecular and analytical approaches in the field of molecular phylogeography. We will generate phylogeographic hypotheses from mitochondrial and microsatellite DNA for six species and evaluate the utility of microsatellite data for the reconstruction of phylogeographic history. We will borrow powerful analytical techniques from the field of evolutionary ecology and use them in a completely nove ....New Molecular Approaches to Comparative Phylogeography. Funds are requested to gather data to test new molecular and analytical approaches in the field of molecular phylogeography. We will generate phylogeographic hypotheses from mitochondrial and microsatellite DNA for six species and evaluate the utility of microsatellite data for the reconstruction of phylogeographic history. We will borrow powerful analytical techniques from the field of evolutionary ecology and use them in a completely novel way to test hypotheses of microsatellite diversity. Our research is inter-disciplinary in that we will bridge the gap between molecular phylogenetics and molecular evolution and in so doing make a major advancement in this emerging field.Read moreRead less
Integrating theory and data to model evolution under a changing climate. This project aims to develop an innovative approach that integrates diverse data sources, from genetic sequences to geographic distributions, to improve inference of evolutionary dynamics. This will provide a powerful and efficient new method for understanding species’ responses to climate change, demonstrated by inferring past, current and future climate adaptability in a diverse and ecologically important Australian plant ....Integrating theory and data to model evolution under a changing climate. This project aims to develop an innovative approach that integrates diverse data sources, from genetic sequences to geographic distributions, to improve inference of evolutionary dynamics. This will provide a powerful and efficient new method for understanding species’ responses to climate change, demonstrated by inferring past, current and future climate adaptability in a diverse and ecologically important Australian plant family. Expected outcomes include enrichment of evolutionary theory and software tools to assess species' vulnerability to climate change. These outcomes will bring significant benefits to improve knowledge and protection of Australian biota and maximise returns on Australia's investment in biodiversity databases.Read moreRead less