Functional links between estuaries and their catchments: How does land use change affect estuarine ecological and bio-geochemical function? Estuaries are iconic recreational areas of high ecological and socio-economic value. Estuarine health is strongly linked to the catchments that feed them, yet we have no detailed understanding of these links. This project will use a number of state of the art approaches to better understand how land use affects estuarine health.
Unravelling the drivers of greenhouse gas emissions in estuaries. The aim of this project is to understand and quantify the factors controlling the emission of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide from estuaries. Coastal systems play a disproportionately large role in the global emissions of greenhouse gases, but this is poorly quantified. The project plans to use a combination of continuous concentration and stable isotope measurements, process measurements and advanced numerical modelling ....Unravelling the drivers of greenhouse gas emissions in estuaries. The aim of this project is to understand and quantify the factors controlling the emission of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide from estuaries. Coastal systems play a disproportionately large role in the global emissions of greenhouse gases, but this is poorly quantified. The project plans to use a combination of continuous concentration and stable isotope measurements, process measurements and advanced numerical modelling across a range of undisturbed to disturbed systems. It is intended that this project will provide information for conceptualising, calibrating and verifying models, including green-house gas production. Good models, and the data that support them, such as that provided by this study, are critical for the efficient allocation of management resources in Australian coastal systems, including by our partners. The findings from this project will have direct implications to the management, rehabilitation and protection of waterways (including biodiversity) in Australia.Read moreRead less
Assessing the ecosystem-wide risks of threatened species translocation. Assessing the ecosystem-wide risks of threatened species translocation. This project aims to develop the first quantitative risk assessment framework to improve decisions about moving threatened species to new places. Moving threatened plants and animals to new environments, or reintroducing them where they previously persisted, is a growing focus of conservation. Moving species can have unanticipated effects on other specie ....Assessing the ecosystem-wide risks of threatened species translocation. Assessing the ecosystem-wide risks of threatened species translocation. This project aims to develop the first quantitative risk assessment framework to improve decisions about moving threatened species to new places. Moving threatened plants and animals to new environments, or reintroducing them where they previously persisted, is a growing focus of conservation. Moving species can have unanticipated effects on other species in the ecosystem. Although the International Union for Conservation of Nature deems ecosystem-wide risk assessments essential for conservation translocations, no framework exists to assess these risks and inform these decisions. New tools for assessing the risks of conservation translocations are expected to improve global and local conservation outcomes.Read moreRead less
Ecosystem resilience of Shark Bay under changing ocean climate. This project aims to investigate the resilience of the Shark Bay World Heritage Site to projected climate change. This project will generate new knowledge for marine conservation through analyses of habitat loss on nutrient budgets and productivity in seagrass and microbialite ecosystems. Expected outcomes are an improved understanding of climate-driven shifts on ecosystem processes in Shark Bay, incorporating science-based evidence ....Ecosystem resilience of Shark Bay under changing ocean climate. This project aims to investigate the resilience of the Shark Bay World Heritage Site to projected climate change. This project will generate new knowledge for marine conservation through analyses of habitat loss on nutrient budgets and productivity in seagrass and microbialite ecosystems. Expected outcomes are an improved understanding of climate-driven shifts on ecosystem processes in Shark Bay, incorporating science-based evidence for better conservation and management. This will provide significant benefits by contributing to the future-proofing of Shark Bay’s World Heritage values to climate change, and more broadly by demonstrating the consequences of the continued tropicalisation of Australia’s coastline.Read moreRead less
Unravelling the cycling of nitrogen along a subtropical freshwater-marine continuum using a multi-isotope, multi-tracer and modelling approach. This project will significantly advance our understanding of the sources, cycling and pathways of nitrogen along a sub-tropical catchment-river-estuary. As such, the findings from this research will have direct implications to the management, rehabilitation and protection of waterways (including biodiversity) in Australia.
Development of technologies to monitor multimolecular complexes. Development of technologies to monitor multimolecular complexes. This project aims to develop technologies to monitor how proteins and their interacting molecules (such as hormones) form multi-component complexes, and how these complexes function in the cell, including movement from the cell surface, into different cellular compartments and back up to the surface. These technologies are expected to enable monitoring in live cells i ....Development of technologies to monitor multimolecular complexes. Development of technologies to monitor multimolecular complexes. This project aims to develop technologies to monitor how proteins and their interacting molecules (such as hormones) form multi-component complexes, and how these complexes function in the cell, including movement from the cell surface, into different cellular compartments and back up to the surface. These technologies are expected to enable monitoring in live cells in real-time with high sensitivity. This project could have broad benefits for and affect study of all aspects of the life sciences at the cellular and molecular levels. How these protein complexes function in cells underpins much of our understanding of biology, and technological tools.Read moreRead less
Digging deeper to improve yield stability. This project aims to provide innovative breeding solutions that harness the ‘hidden’ part of the plant, roots, to support the development of more productive crops in the face of climate variability. The project expects to generate new insights into the biology and genetics of root development in barley, a model cereal crop, by applying cutting-edge genome editing, phenotyping and genomics technologies. Anticipated outcomes include novel methodologies to ....Digging deeper to improve yield stability. This project aims to provide innovative breeding solutions that harness the ‘hidden’ part of the plant, roots, to support the development of more productive crops in the face of climate variability. The project expects to generate new insights into the biology and genetics of root development in barley, a model cereal crop, by applying cutting-edge genome editing, phenotyping and genomics technologies. Anticipated outcomes include novel methodologies to accelerate breeding for diverse production environments, with direct applications in barley, and other major cereals including wheat and oats. This should provide significant economic and social benefits to the Australian grains industry through yield stability amidst climate variability.Read moreRead less
In vitro expression of macrocyclic peptides. This project aims to develop a novel strategy for the production of polypeptides with unnatural chemical groups using a sense codon reassignment approach. Novel peptides could be used in a range of pharmaceutical applications. Peptides made of 20 natural amino acids cover only a very small fraction of the available chemical and functional space. While a peptide’s functionality can be extended with unnatural amino acids, the methods for their site-sele ....In vitro expression of macrocyclic peptides. This project aims to develop a novel strategy for the production of polypeptides with unnatural chemical groups using a sense codon reassignment approach. Novel peptides could be used in a range of pharmaceutical applications. Peptides made of 20 natural amino acids cover only a very small fraction of the available chemical and functional space. While a peptide’s functionality can be extended with unnatural amino acids, the methods for their site-selective incorporation are inefficient. The project’s strategy relies on the depletion of selected tRNAs from an in vitro protein translation system and their replacement with synthetic tRNAs, charged with unnatural amino acids. It is expected that the developed technology could be used to rapidly generate and screen highly diversified macrocyclic peptide libraries.Read moreRead less
Towards genome methylation based crop improvement. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) methylation is a form of genetic control that regulates crop performance and the crop's response to the environment. Improving understanding of the inheritance of methylation in relation to crop performance will provide the basis for methylation based breeding for climate resilient crops.