Tracing the origins of stress in the symbionts of reef-building corals. Symbiotic dinoflagellates of corals are critical to the world's major tropical reef ecosystems. Recent work in our laboratories and others has revealed that these algae are sensitive to a wide array of stresses (including climate change) and hence may be the ?Achilles Heel? of reef ecosystems. This project will identify the key genes and processes in these algae using expressed sequence tags and microarray technology. On th ....Tracing the origins of stress in the symbionts of reef-building corals. Symbiotic dinoflagellates of corals are critical to the world's major tropical reef ecosystems. Recent work in our laboratories and others has revealed that these algae are sensitive to a wide array of stresses (including climate change) and hence may be the ?Achilles Heel? of reef ecosystems. This project will identify the key genes and processes in these algae using expressed sequence tags and microarray technology. On this basis, the underlying molecular mechanisms of these stress responses and their genetic diversity will be studied in order to better understand the differential susceptibility of reef-building corals to bleaching.Read moreRead less
Ageing wild vertebrates from their DNA: an investigation using Humpback Whales as an example. The aim of this project is to estimate the age of individually identified humpback whales and the age structure of humpback whale populations using non-lethal, innovative molecular techniques. Populations of humpback whales in the Southern Hemisphere are slowly recovering from intensive whaling during the 20th century. This project is significant because it will provide the first comparative information ....Ageing wild vertebrates from their DNA: an investigation using Humpback Whales as an example. The aim of this project is to estimate the age of individually identified humpback whales and the age structure of humpback whale populations using non-lethal, innovative molecular techniques. Populations of humpback whales in the Southern Hemisphere are slowly recovering from intensive whaling during the 20th century. This project is significant because it will provide the first comparative information on the age structure of these populations, resulting in improved estimation of recovery and population dynamics of long-lived vertebrates. The results of this project will revolutionise research on ageing in whales and dolphins, providing an important alternative to lethal scientific whaling.Read moreRead less