Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE170101349
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$372,000.00
Summary
Mechanisms underlying crop pollinator effectiveness in agro-ecosystems. This project aims to understand how pollinators affect fruit quantity and quality. Worldwide, insect pollinators contribute to biodiversity and ecosystem services in production systems, but also cause yield variability in pollinator-dependent crops. Accounting for the combined outcomes of the amount, quality and timing of the pollen transferred by each pollinator visit is a critical but unexplored component of crop pollinati ....Mechanisms underlying crop pollinator effectiveness in agro-ecosystems. This project aims to understand how pollinators affect fruit quantity and quality. Worldwide, insect pollinators contribute to biodiversity and ecosystem services in production systems, but also cause yield variability in pollinator-dependent crops. Accounting for the combined outcomes of the amount, quality and timing of the pollen transferred by each pollinator visit is a critical but unexplored component of crop pollination ecology. This project will quantitatively assess the effectiveness of pollinator communities to determine the importance of pollinator community composition to maximising crop production. This project is expected to protect food resources and economically benefit Australia.Read moreRead less
Improved seasonal rainfall prediction for grain growers using farm level data and novel modelling. Successful grain production, a key export commodity for Australia, depends heavily on reliable seasonal forecasts. However, the highly variable climate means that for Australia’s 25,000 grain growers current forecasts lack detail in space and time. Using a combination of fuzzy classification and artificial neural networks, this project will develop a locally detailed continuously updating data-driv ....Improved seasonal rainfall prediction for grain growers using farm level data and novel modelling. Successful grain production, a key export commodity for Australia, depends heavily on reliable seasonal forecasts. However, the highly variable climate means that for Australia’s 25,000 grain growers current forecasts lack detail in space and time. Using a combination of fuzzy classification and artificial neural networks, this project will develop a locally detailed continuously updating data-driven seasonal forecast system using high density climate data from the 17,000 Grain Growers Association members and climate drivers such as sea surface temperature from the Bureau of Meteorology. After validation against observed data, the forecasts will be delivered via a web-based portal to users.Read moreRead less
Remotely sensed forest water use in space and time. Remotely sensed forest water use in space and time. This project aims to develop and apply new methods to scale forest water use from plot to catchment-level, using relationships between plot-level annual evapotranspiration and biophysical and biochemical properties of stands detectable by unmanned aircraft systems and other remote sensing platforms. Australia's water security depends on understanding how changes in forests from disturbance and ....Remotely sensed forest water use in space and time. Remotely sensed forest water use in space and time. This project aims to develop and apply new methods to scale forest water use from plot to catchment-level, using relationships between plot-level annual evapotranspiration and biophysical and biochemical properties of stands detectable by unmanned aircraft systems and other remote sensing platforms. Australia's water security depends on understanding how changes in forests from disturbance and climate change influence catchment water yields. This project will estimate water yields over time and space in ungauged catchments with disturbed eucalypt forests. This research is expected to enable more effective risk mitigation and planning for augmentations; improved fire management strategies; and better water management of the Murray Darling Basin.Read moreRead less
New methods for mapping variation in forest water use in time and space. Disturbance of eucalypt forests can have dramatic impacts on catchment water yields. In partnership with Melbourne Water Corporation, this project will develop and test new methods for accurate mapping of variation in water use across forested water supply catchments and for accurately determining the effects of this on water supplies.
Tree-mediated methane fluxes: A new frontier in the global carbon cycle. Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas. Recent evidence suggests that tree-mediated fluxes may be a significant, but overlooked source of methane to the atmosphere. This project aims to quantify the magnitude and drivers of tree-mediated methane fluxes from Australia’s dominant forest types. Innovatively, we will be using a novel combination of empirical field based measurements, gas tracer experiments, microbial ana ....Tree-mediated methane fluxes: A new frontier in the global carbon cycle. Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas. Recent evidence suggests that tree-mediated fluxes may be a significant, but overlooked source of methane to the atmosphere. This project aims to quantify the magnitude and drivers of tree-mediated methane fluxes from Australia’s dominant forest types. Innovatively, we will be using a novel combination of empirical field based measurements, gas tracer experiments, microbial analysis and modelling methods. Expected outcomes are a mechanistic understanding of tree-mediated methane fluxes, helping to constrain regional, national and global methane budgets. The results of this study will help inform publicly funded greenhouse gas abatement strategies, ensuring a maximal return on investment.Read moreRead less
Can eco-evolutionary theories explain outcomes of microbiome coalescence . Environmental microbial communities are among the most abundant and diverse natural communities, responsible for many ecologically and economically important ecosystem functions, including primary productivity and climate regulation. This project aims to identify the biotic and abiotic factors that regulate community and functional outcomes of microbiome coalescence (the mixing of two different communities) caused by natu ....Can eco-evolutionary theories explain outcomes of microbiome coalescence . Environmental microbial communities are among the most abundant and diverse natural communities, responsible for many ecologically and economically important ecosystem functions, including primary productivity and climate regulation. This project aims to identify the biotic and abiotic factors that regulate community and functional outcomes of microbiome coalescence (the mixing of two different communities) caused by natural and anthropogenic activities. The outcomes will provide a unifying ecological framework to predict variation in microbiomes across different scales, ecosystem types and disturbances, and will generate critical knowledge for the development of effective microbiome products, a rapidly growing industryRead moreRead less
The nature and consequences of environmentally-generated phenotypic variation in natural populations. The ambient environment can generate both heritable and non-heritable variation in individual traits, but the role of such variation in evolution is poorly understood. This project will use a powerful model organism, the Australian neriid flies, to elucidate the evolutionary implications of environmentally-generated variation.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210101822
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$438,428.00
Summary
Small but bold: harnessing microbes to boost drought tolerance in grasses . Drought threats grasslands worldwide, and new adaptation and resilience building approaches are required to protect the wealth of ecosystem services provided by grasslands. Soil microbes offer an untapped opportunity to enhance drought survival in grasses. Yet, to harness this potential, we first need to identify the key microbial functions that contribute to plant tolerance to drought. This project aims to determine the ....Small but bold: harnessing microbes to boost drought tolerance in grasses . Drought threats grasslands worldwide, and new adaptation and resilience building approaches are required to protect the wealth of ecosystem services provided by grasslands. Soil microbes offer an untapped opportunity to enhance drought survival in grasses. Yet, to harness this potential, we first need to identify the key microbial functions that contribute to plant tolerance to drought. This project aims to determine the microbe-mediated ecological and functional mechanisms that underpin grass performance under drought. This knowledge will lay the foundation to accelerate the design and implementation of effective microbial manipulations and management strategies, and thus increase our success in protecting this important ecosystem.Read moreRead less
Placental nutrient transport shows how complex traits evolve. This project aims to use amino acid transport in the vertebrate placenta as a model to demonstrate how genes are recruited and modified to produce a major organ. Using an innovative combination of a new technology, selected reaction monitoring, and transcriptomic and molecular approaches, plus carefully selected Australian species pairs, this project will study the evolution of a complex trait (placental amino acid transport). The pr ....Placental nutrient transport shows how complex traits evolve. This project aims to use amino acid transport in the vertebrate placenta as a model to demonstrate how genes are recruited and modified to produce a major organ. Using an innovative combination of a new technology, selected reaction monitoring, and transcriptomic and molecular approaches, plus carefully selected Australian species pairs, this project will study the evolution of a complex trait (placental amino acid transport). The project will provide fundamental advances in our knowledge of the nutrient transport during pregnancy that is required to produce a healthy baby.Read moreRead less
Multitrophic interactions drive diversity-ecosystem function relationships. Soil communities, among the most abundant and diverse in nature are responsible for many critical ecosystem functions, including nutrient cycling and climate regulation. This project will determine whether consideration and quantification of interactions between different biotic communities – specifically among plants, soil microbes and animals, within and across trophic levels - can address underlying shortcomings in pr ....Multitrophic interactions drive diversity-ecosystem function relationships. Soil communities, among the most abundant and diverse in nature are responsible for many critical ecosystem functions, including nutrient cycling and climate regulation. This project will determine whether consideration and quantification of interactions between different biotic communities – specifically among plants, soil microbes and animals, within and across trophic levels - can address underlying shortcomings in predictions from classical biodiversity-ecosystem function theory. By advancing understanding of biological complexity and its impacts on ecosystem functions, the project will provide a unifying framework for understanding variation in ecosystem functions across scales, ecosystem types and multiple environmental disturbances.Read moreRead less