ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research. This Centre intends to generate crucial knowledge to inform social and economic responses to population ageing, one of the most important issues of the 21st century. Population ageing exerts unprecedented pressures on social norms and policy institutions, both in Australia and around the world. Leading researchers from a range of disciplines will undertake multidisciplinary research to help governments, businesses, and consumers prepare for ....ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research. This Centre intends to generate crucial knowledge to inform social and economic responses to population ageing, one of the most important issues of the 21st century. Population ageing exerts unprecedented pressures on social norms and policy institutions, both in Australia and around the world. Leading researchers from a range of disciplines will undertake multidisciplinary research to help governments, businesses, and consumers prepare for and make better decisions for an ageing world, with consequent social and economic benefits for families and communities expected to flow to Australia, the Asian region and the world.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE240100386
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$435,875.00
Summary
Anti-racist neuroethics for epistemic justice in mental health research. Racial/ethnic minorities are underrepresented in brain and mental health (BMH) research, risking inadequate healthcare for the 9.5 million minorities in Australia. With the $73 billion annual cost of BMH disorders to the country, all Australians should equally benefit from BMH research. This project aims to develop recommendations to make BMH research more diverse and inclusive. It will audit representation of minorities in ....Anti-racist neuroethics for epistemic justice in mental health research. Racial/ethnic minorities are underrepresented in brain and mental health (BMH) research, risking inadequate healthcare for the 9.5 million minorities in Australia. With the $73 billion annual cost of BMH disorders to the country, all Australians should equally benefit from BMH research. This project aims to develop recommendations to make BMH research more diverse and inclusive. It will audit representation of minorities in Australian BMH publications and will conduct surveys, interviews, and workshops with scientists to determine institutional barriers to the inclusion of and engagement with minorities in research. This project will draw from concepts of epistemic justice and anti-racism to develop ethical frameworks for BMH racial equity.Read moreRead less
Settling well in regional Australia: Experiences of people from refugee backgrounds. Regional humanitarian settlement is a key priority across all levels of government in Australia. This study aims to provide the first longitudinal assessment of the impacts of regional settlement for humanitarian migrants and destination communities. Its innovative, mixed-method and multi-sited approach will generate new knowledge of the opportunities and challenges for sustainable regional settlement. Expected ....Settling well in regional Australia: Experiences of people from refugee backgrounds. Regional humanitarian settlement is a key priority across all levels of government in Australia. This study aims to provide the first longitudinal assessment of the impacts of regional settlement for humanitarian migrants and destination communities. Its innovative, mixed-method and multi-sited approach will generate new knowledge of the opportunities and challenges for sustainable regional settlement. Expected outcomes include enhanced community, organisational and government decision-making capacity. By guiding end-users’ current and future actions, the study has strong potential to support the wellbeing of humanitarian migrants and to contribute to healthy and resilient regional communities.Read moreRead less
Counter-COVID public policies and the impacts on Australian children. This project aims to identify the causal effects of counter-COVID school closures, stay-at-home mandates and government support payments on the educational and developmental outcomes of Australian children. It will establish, for the first time, a comprehensive causal evidence base on the average and distributional impacts of these policies on children across the spectrum of schooling years from preschool to secondary school c ....Counter-COVID public policies and the impacts on Australian children. This project aims to identify the causal effects of counter-COVID school closures, stay-at-home mandates and government support payments on the educational and developmental outcomes of Australian children. It will establish, for the first time, a comprehensive causal evidence base on the average and distributional impacts of these policies on children across the spectrum of schooling years from preschool to secondary school completion. This project expects to advance our understanding of child skill accumulation and the relative importance of schools, parents, peers and government intervention. Anticipated benefits include providing policy recommendations to restore student learning outcomes and reduce educational inequality in Australia.Read moreRead less
Diatom silica production under future ocean conditions, genes to biomes. This project aims to quantify how ocean warming and acidification will alter natural diatom assemblages and silica production rates to predict changes in the cycling and transfer of carbon and silicon in the future ocean. This project expects to generate new knowledge of environmental controls on diatom silicification and their ocean-scale implications by integrating the disciplines of physiology, molecular biology and quan ....Diatom silica production under future ocean conditions, genes to biomes. This project aims to quantify how ocean warming and acidification will alter natural diatom assemblages and silica production rates to predict changes in the cycling and transfer of carbon and silicon in the future ocean. This project expects to generate new knowledge of environmental controls on diatom silicification and their ocean-scale implications by integrating the disciplines of physiology, molecular biology and quantitative modelling. Expected outcomes include essential advancements in future simulations of marine productivity and silicon cycling and a deeper understanding of threats to marine life from climate change. This should provide significant benefits such as improved valuations on the sustainability of ocean ecosystems.Read moreRead less
Post-parental housing transitions among adults with intellectual disability. This project aims to address the urgent issue of growing numbers of older people with intellectual disability (ID) outliving their parent carers who have not put future care plans in place. This project expects to generate a national evidence-based framework for ensuring successful post-parental housing and care transitions. By using a three-phase mixed methodology design in three Australian cities, expected outcomes of ....Post-parental housing transitions among adults with intellectual disability. This project aims to address the urgent issue of growing numbers of older people with intellectual disability (ID) outliving their parent carers who have not put future care plans in place. This project expects to generate a national evidence-based framework for ensuring successful post-parental housing and care transitions. By using a three-phase mixed methodology design in three Australian cities, expected outcomes of the project include the development of an Australian-first evidence-based resource kit which should provide significant benefits for older people with ID, their family carers and the disability sector, in terms of planning for post-parental housing and care transitions.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE170100017
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$1,231,000.00
Summary
Networked knowledge for repatriation communities. This project aims to build a digital facility that supports the repatriation of Indigenous human remains. Repatriation contributes to reconciliation and Indigenous healing and wellbeing, and has been the most important agent of change in the relationship between Indigenous peoples, museums and the academy over the past 40 years. Successful repatriation requires and produces research materials diverse in type, geography and accessibility. Within a ....Networked knowledge for repatriation communities. This project aims to build a digital facility that supports the repatriation of Indigenous human remains. Repatriation contributes to reconciliation and Indigenous healing and wellbeing, and has been the most important agent of change in the relationship between Indigenous peoples, museums and the academy over the past 40 years. Successful repatriation requires and produces research materials diverse in type, geography and accessibility. Within an Indigenous data-governance framework, this project will gather, preserve and make accessible a critical and extensive record of repatriation information worldwide. The project is expected to support repatriation practice and scholarship and improve the opportunities of repatriation for social good.Read moreRead less
Towers of Terabytes: utilising Indigenous digital knowledge resources . This project aims to advance understanding of how Indigenous cultural knowledge databases can be integrated with ecological information management systems to enhance the ability of Indigenous rangers to care for country. The project expects to generate new knowledge about the challenges and solutions of data linkage between cultural heritage and natural resource management platforms. Expected outcomes include an integrated I ....Towers of Terabytes: utilising Indigenous digital knowledge resources . This project aims to advance understanding of how Indigenous cultural knowledge databases can be integrated with ecological information management systems to enhance the ability of Indigenous rangers to care for country. The project expects to generate new knowledge about the challenges and solutions of data linkage between cultural heritage and natural resource management platforms. Expected outcomes include an integrated Information Management System for the Wadeye ranger group and museum, and the formation of a working model for ranger groups nationally. Benefits include delivery of data-linkage solutions and a significant contribution to research and practice in the use of information technologies by and for Indigenous peoples. Read moreRead less
Developing And Validating Novel Methods To Estimate Age- And Size-at-maturity In South Eastern Australian Fisheries
Funder
Fisheries Research and Development Corporation
Funding Amount
$348,420.00
Summary
We submit this EOI to the priority ‘Biological parameters for stock assessments in South Eastern Australia – a information and capacity uplift’
Empirical observations from around the world have shown that intense fisheries harvest and oceanic warming can both lead to individuals reaching sexual maturity at younger ages and smaller sizes (Waples and Audzijonyte 2016). We know that younger and smaller mothers produce fewer eggs that may be of poorer quality than those from older and lar ....We submit this EOI to the priority ‘Biological parameters for stock assessments in South Eastern Australia – a information and capacity uplift’
Empirical observations from around the world have shown that intense fisheries harvest and oceanic warming can both lead to individuals reaching sexual maturity at younger ages and smaller sizes (Waples and Audzijonyte 2016). We know that younger and smaller mothers produce fewer eggs that may be of poorer quality than those from older and larger mothers (Barneche et al. 2018). Further, young mothers often need to build up their energy reserves before spawning each year, meaning that they experience a constrained spawning season. A shorter spawning window reduces the likelihood that their offspring will encounter an environment favourable for growth and survival (Wright and Gibb 2005). Harvest-induced declines in age and size at maturity have, for example, been implicated as one of the main drivers underpinning the collapse of Canadian Atlantic cod stocks (Hutchings and Rangeley 2011).
Environmental stress can also lead to poorer conditioned fish that lack the resources to spawn at all. The prevalence of ‘skip spawning’, as it is known, is hard to ascertain in wild populations but could be as high as 30% of the sexually mature biomass in some years (Rideout and Tomkiewicz 2011). Earlier maturity and skip spawning both have the potential to significantly impact on the biomass of sexually mature individuals in a stock and overall levels of recruitment success. Failure to properly account for these reproductive phenomena can lead to significant under- or over-estimation of SSB, which in turn leads to ineffective management advice that may heighten the risk of stock decline, unnecessarily limit catches, or impede stock recovery.
The rapid warming of southeast Australian waters has already been implicated in driving significant increases in the juvenile growth rates of harvested species, including tiger flathead, redfish and jackass morwong (Thresher et al. 2007, Morrongiello and Thresher 2015). It is plausible that these growth changes (predicted by eco-physiological theory, Atkinson 1994) are linked to commensurate, yet unknown, declines in age and size at maturity. Further, warmer waters may be stressing spawning adults (Portner and Farrell 2008), leading to an increased prevalence of skip spawning in southeast Australian fishes. Importantly, in recent times the biomass of several SESSF species has failed to recover despite significant management intervention. There is a real and pressing need to update the maturity parameters used in assessment models to reduce uncertainty in stock projections.
Our two-part project will refine and validate novel otolith-based methods to estimate an individual’s age at maturity and spawning dynamics from information naturally recorded in its otolith, and then apply this to existing otolith collections. AFMA already invests significant resources into the routine collection of otoliths for ageing purposes. In Part One of our project, we propose to value-add to these existing monitoring programs by developing new maturity and spawning assays that can be readily integrated into stock assessments to reduce model uncertainty and improve harvest strategies (FRDC strategic outcome 2 & 4), in turn bolstering community trust in projections (FRDC strategic outcome 5). In Part Two of our project, we will develop unprecedented insight into the reproductive history of SESSF stocks by recreating time series of maturity using archived otoliths that are currently sitting idle in storage.
Postgraduate students and early career researchers will play a central role in the development and delivery of our project. This experience will help provide a clear pathway for graduates into fisheries science. Our project will bolster the capacity and capability of fish ageing laboratories across Australia to deliver improved monitoring services to fisheries managers (FRDC enabling strategy IV).
More generally, we believe that our novel maturity and spawning assays have the potential to impact on fisheries assessment in other jurisdictions across the world that experience the same time and cost impediments we face here in Australia. Perhaps most excitingly, our assays have the potential to provide much needed maturity information to data poor and emerging fisheries across the Info-Pacific region using information in already collected otoliths.
References Atkinson, D. 1994. Temperature and organism size: a biological law for ectotherms? Advances in ecological research 25:1-58. Barneche, D. R., D. R. Robertson, C. R. White, and D. J. Marshall. 2018. Fish reproductive-energy output increases disproportionately with body size. Science 360:642-645. Hutchings, J. A., and R. W. Rangeley. 2011. Correlates of recovery for Canadian Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua). Canadian Journal of Zoology 89:386-400. Morrongiello, J. R., and R. E. Thresher. 2015. A statistical framework to explore ontogenetic growth variation among individuals and populations: a marine fish example. Ecological Monographs 85:93-115. Portner, H. O., and A. P. Farrell. 2008. Physiology and climate change. Science 322:690-692. Rideout, R. M., and J. Tomkiewicz. 2011. Skipped spawning in fishes: more common than you might think. Marine and Coastal Fisheries 3:176-189. Thresher, R. E., J. A. Koslow, A. K. Morison, and D. C. Smith. 2007. Depth-mediated reversal of the effects of climate change on long-term growth rates of exploited marine fish. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 104:7461-7465. Waples, R. S., and A. Audzijonyte. 2016. Fishery-induced evolution provides insights into adaptive responses of marine species to climate change. Front. Ecol. Environ. 14:217-224. Wright, P. J., and F. M. Gibb. 2005. Selection for birth date in North Sea haddock and its relation to maternal age. Journal of Animal Ecology 74:303-312.
Objectives: 1. Refinement and validation of three methods to estimate the maturity and spawning history of SESSF species, using information naturally archived in fish otoliths 2. Identification of an accurate and cost-effective method to estimate fish age at maturity and spawning history from their otoliths 3. Recreation of the maturity and spawning history of a SESSF species using one of our three novel assays 4. Quantification of how rapid ocean warming and harvest have affected the expression of age at maturity and the propensity of a SESSF species to skip spawn Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE170100078
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
Strengthening parent-child relationships to promote child adjustment. This project aims to provide new insight into how biological and foster parents can support their children during periods of heightened vulnerability when they transition to high school or a new foster care placement. It aims to address the shortage of relationally-focused prevention strategies tailored to both biological and foster parents’ needs and delivered at critical transitions in children’s lives. Outcomes are expected ....Strengthening parent-child relationships to promote child adjustment. This project aims to provide new insight into how biological and foster parents can support their children during periods of heightened vulnerability when they transition to high school or a new foster care placement. It aims to address the shortage of relationally-focused prevention strategies tailored to both biological and foster parents’ needs and delivered at critical transitions in children’s lives. Outcomes are expected to shed light on the effects of attachment quality and to advance evidence-based psychological practice in enhancing child adjustment.Read moreRead less