PAST PROJECTS

Indian Myna Ecology and Management

Perception vs Reality of the Impacts of Domestic Pet Cats

This project is working with several local government authorities to evaluate the impact of Indian Mynas on native animals. The project is taking a triple bottom line approach to evaluate their social, economic and environmental impacts. We are also evaluating Myna behaviour and ecology.

Project Investigator- Dr Ricky Spencer

This project will integrate traditional, social and citizen science to expose the secret life of pet cats. The project has two main foci. Firstly, to explore movement patterns of pet cats on urban fringes. The project combines traditional home range studies with innovative new technologies that will allow home owners to report the movement patterns via apps and community mapping technologies. The second aspect of the study to guage pet owner percetion on the movement patterns of their cats, as well as their impact. Impact will also be measured through a Citizen Science campaign for pet owner to report dead animals that their cats bring home.

Project Investigator- Tim Finter

Ecosystem Function of Freshwater Turtles

Hot Chicks and Cool Dudes !!

Ecosystem Function and Cats

This project is determining trophic plasticity and ecosystem function of each turtle species in the Murray River. The project is part of an ARC Linkage project investigating Murray River Turtle declines. Turtle abundance and broad trophic engagement indicates that freshwater turtles are major contributors to ecosystem processes and services. Nutrient cycling and energy flow are critical ecosystem processes that are altered by human activities. Freshwater turtles play a major role in these processes through ingestion and egestion at multiple trophic levels. The project is using stable isotope analysis that combines both δ13C and δ15N to estimate both trophic position in a food web and sources of energy and nutrients.

Project Investigator- Kristen Petrov

Revealing the mechanisms that determine an individual’s sex is a major challenge for evolutionary biologists. The adaptive significance of Environmental Sex Determination (ESD) remains largely unsolved in vertebrates despite 40 years of research. Theoretical models predict that natural selection should favour ESD over genotypic sex determination (GSD) when the developmental environment differentially influences male and female fitness (Charnov and Bull, 1977). In amniotes, the clade in which ESD is common, empirical support for the Charnov-Bull model remains elusive. Temperature-dependent Sex Determination (TSD) is one form of ESD that is the basal Sex-Determining Mechanism (SDM) in reptiles; however, GSD has subsequently evolved at least 5 times in turtles, resulting in pairs of closely-related taxa with different SDMs (TSD vs. GSD). It is clear that systematic investigations of species in these phylogenetic nodes are required because historically, empirical tests of the Charnov-Bull model have concentrated on species from taxanomic groups where TSD remains entrenched, and phylogenetic inertia may cloud results. This project is systematically test predictions of the Charnov-Bull model for the evolution of SDMs, using sister taxa that display different SDMs (TSD vs. GSD).

Project Investigator- Lisa Robertson