Download Lab 531 Laboratory 531 - University of Technology Sydney

Lab 531
Laboratory 531
Marine - Freshwater
Marine - Freshwater - Terrestrial
Edition 1 | June 2015
A new look Lab
The lab is growing and as such, over the past few months it has been going
through some changes. First and foremost, as part of the new naming system
at UTS our lab is now 06.531 (formerly 5.20). The Fish Ecology Lab, run by
Prof. David Booth welcomes Dr. Edd Hammill, Dr. Simon Mitrovic and Dr. Anne
Colville who are now situated in Lab 531. With the new academics brings a
whole new range of studious students and exciting science to be done! A big
part of science is cross-disciplinary exchanges of ideas and collaborations. So
say hello to your fellow lab neighbours because whether you’re freshwater or
marine we’re all looking to understand different aspects of the world.
IN THIS ISSUE
• A new look lab
• Dates for diaries
• Meet the lab
• Lab 531 in media
• Recent publications
This issue of the newsletter is primarily to introduce to everyone who is in Lab
531 and what they’re doing. There will also be news on Lab 531 exposure in
the media, publications and upcoming conferences that may interest the Lab.
Thank you and enjoy!
Dates for diaries
July 5-9 - AMSA Conference, Geelong (amsa.asn.au/amsa-2015-geelong)
July 28-31 - ACRS Conference, Daydream Island (australiancoralreefsociety.
org/conference)
October 11-14 - ASFB Conference, Sydney (asfbconf.asnevents.com.au)
November 23-26 - Australian Society for Limnology Congress 2015, Wellington
NZ (nzawaterconference.com)
February 9-2 (2016) - Species on the Move International Conference, Tasmania
(speciesonthemove.com)
Student awards and subsidies are available for these conferences, please visit
the respective website for more information.
If you have any feedback please send it to [email protected] with the subject “Newsletter feedback”.
Professor David Booth
David Booth is Professor of Marine
Ecology at UTS, and president of the
Australian Coral Reef Society. He has
recently cracked the 100 paper mark
on a variety of topics including; reef-fish
ecology and climate change. He has
extensively looked at anthropogenic
impacts on fishes and fisheries, in the
Caribbean, Hawaii, the Great Barrier
Reef, and deep sea waters. He is also
doing an ongoing study looking at how
tropical fish travel down the East Australian Current past Sydney.
shows intriguing results and a manuscript for publication is
currently being written. Lastly, Selma is part of a vagrant species
population study with KAUST: Preliminary results suggest that
there is population structure for all loci among all populations. The
data is being prepared for publications and will be presented at the
upcoming ASFB conference in Sydney at UTS.
Jack O’Connor
• Ecology and genetics of weedy seadragons (since 2001)
Jack is a PhD student currently doing fieldwork while visiting the
Zoology Dept. of the University of Melbourne! Field work essentially
entails diving at sites around Port Phillip Bay to look for newly
recruiting Southern Hulafish (Trachinops caudimaculatus) which
he then takes back to the lab to run olfactory response behaviour
tests on to study the effects of polluted versus non-polluted sites.
He wants to use ICP-MS to investigate their developmental history.
However, at the moment there seems to be an unusually low level
of recruitment, so fingers crossed more fish will eventually show
up! He has a paper under review in Oecologia that details similar
sensory ecology dynamics with coral-reef larvae in Japan and he
is currently writing up the work that he did at the Port Stephens
Fisheries Institute, on the ontogeny of sensory ecology and
behaviour in estuarine-dependant fish.
• Estuarine fish ecology, role of artificial structures in urban
estuaries
Nikki Bramwell
Dave is currently working on a variety of projects:
• South East Australian marine coastal fish vagrancy and range
shifts under climate change (since 2001)
• Deep sea: links with oil and gas industry to understand ecology of
deeper water organisms and artificial infrastructure function
• Long term monitoring of southern GBR coral reefs and fishes
(since 1994)
• Demograpnhy/ageing of iconic elasmobranchs
Dave volunteers a lot of his time as an advocate of the
marine environment, as president of the Australian Coral Reef
Society and the Ocean Science Council of Australia (OSCA
oceansciencecouncil.org which aims to be the Wentworth group
of the oceans). He also hosts numerous public lectures, is an
adviser to NSW and Federal politicians and has extensive media
appearances to convey his work. Within UTS, he is on the steering
committee for Sustainability Central (sustainabilitycentral.com.au)
and a member of the ethics committee.
Jennifer Donelson
Jenni is currently in the final year of her research fellowship in the
Fish Ecology Lab at UTS. At the beginning of 2015 she travelled
to two international conferences to discuss her research. The
conferences were “Coral Reefs of Arabia” in Abu Dhabi UAE and
the “Association for the Science of Limnology and Oceanography”
in Granada Spain. The past few months have been spent writing
and invited review for Biology Letters on transgenerational
acclimation to climate change. Early in 2015 she had a publication
come out at Global Change Biology about transgenerational
acclimation to global warming. Donelson JM and Munday PL (2015)
Transgenerational plasticity mitigates the impact of global warming
to offspring sex ratios, doi: 10.1111/gcb.12912. There was some
media coverage for this research and an article in The Conversation
(https://theconversation.com/climate-change-can-tip-the-genderbalance-but-fish-can-tip-it-back-39053).
Selma Klanten
Selma is part of several research projects with groups of
researchers from Australia and Saudi Arabia. Her weedy seadragon
population study is a collaboration with the Underwater Research
Group and National Parks and Wildlife of southern NSW. Initial
results suggest that this species has very low genetic diversity. In
short, all individuals are exact copies of each other. This information
is of incredible significance for the resilience of the species, implying
the species may be prone to extinction. Preliminary results will be
presented in a poster at the 2015 ASFB conference in October.
Another population study looking at Rock cale, Aplodactylus
lopodon, is a collaboration with KAUST, Saudi Arabia. The research
cens
CENTRE FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL
SUSTAINABILITY
Nikki Bramwell is a final year PhD student in the Fish Ecology
Lab whose research aims to describe trends in seagrass fish
communities with distance from intertidal rocky reefs or platforms
in Jervis Bay. At the moment she is preparing data files for analysis
in PRIMER and PERMANOVA software packages. She has been
working hard on separating her data into separate chapters for
her thesis and piecing together the story. At the moment Nikki is
attending writing strategy workshops and boot camps that will
provide useful tips to help produce a thought provoking and concise
thesis. Nikki is also preparing to present at the annual Ecological
Society of America conference in August of this year in Baltimore,
Maryland, USA which, this year is having its 100th meeting! It
surely promises to be an exciting and relevant venture which will
portray Nikki’s work to the masses. Below are photos from Nikki’s
recent experiment, where habitat combination choices were offered
to individuals of four estuarine fish species. After the trials all
individuals were returned safely to their habitats.
Above: Pipefish in choice experiment.
Below: Returning pipefish to area where they were collected.
FISH ECOLOGY
Paloma Matis
Graeme Poleweski
Paloma is currently in her third year of a PhD. Her project
focuses on tropical fish-habitat associations across latitudes and
implications for range expansions. She has numerous study sites
along the east coast of Australia including; the northern Great
Barrier Reef, Southern Great Barrier Reef, Solitary Islands and
Sydney. So far she has completed extensive field work and lab
experiments and is now completing analysis and write up of some
of this data for publication. Paloma’s work will contribute to our
knowledge of how tropical reef fish species respond to different
reef environments and which species may be more likely to
succeed in a novel environment. Her findings will also further our
understanding of how these species may cope in a future ocean
with predicted impacts of climate change.
Graeme completed his Honours (First Class) at UTS last year
where he looked at the potential of tropical fish to persist year
round in South-East Australian waters. He found some interesting
results which he is now working on publishing and will be
presenting at the ASFB Conference in October. In the meantime he
is the Laboratory Technician for Dave Booth’s Fish Ecology Lab.
This entails making sure the lab is in order (or getting there!), going
on field work when necessary and putting together this newsletter.
Graeme is interested keenly interested in aquaculture and the
betterment of sustainable farming of fish. He is also volunteering
one-two days a week at the Sydney Institute of Marine Science
where he learns the ways of aquarium maintenance whilst having a
picturesque outlook.
Below: Paloma and her volunteer Davina collecting samples on
SCUBA at the Solitary Islands recently.
Alice Pidd
Alice Pidd graduated from her BSc in Marine Biology in 2015
and she is currently offering her time as a volunteer across many
project types (Honours, Masters, PhD) in the field and laboratory
within the Marine Biology field. She already has work lined up
with a few projects this year! Aside from volunteering she is in the
process of publishing her Undergraduate Research Project with
Professor David Booth and Dr. Edd Hammill, and is on the neverending hunt for employment as a Marine Biologist! Implications
of her work so far will result in a published note, loads of varied
volunteer experience, and a leg up in the direction of employment!
Dr. Edd Hammill
Abigail Irwin
Abigail is a current Masters/Honours student from India! Apart
from grumbling about the cold Australian winters, she is working
on her project that involves structural enhancement of pontoons
in Pittwater. She’s testing the effects of said enhancement by
attaching two designs of artificial structures under the pontoons
and monitoring changes in fish assemblages over time. She’s using
private pontoons for her research and says one of the most difficult
but interesting aspects so far has been getting the pontoon owners
on board! She’ll be starting laboratory experiments at SIMS next
month, testing for preference in habitat design along with specific
component choices among different species of fish. She hopes
this will help to model a cost-effective artificial structure that can be
attached to established and/or new marine infrastructure thereby
helping to enhance fish populations around Sydney.
Shannen Smith
Shannen is an honours student working with Dr. Jennifer Donelson,
Dr. Rebecca Fox and Professor David Booth looking at competitive
interactions between tropical vagrant species and temperate
resident species. She is particularly interested in how behavioural
strategies of tropical species change as temperature drops into
winter and potential benefits of shoaling with temperate species in
terms of body size, boldness and survival. Her study is focussed
on two tropical species Abudefduf vaigiensis and Pomacentrus
coelestis as they display different behavioural strategies in their
native coral reefs. She is using behaviour and habitat information
to work out their niche in the temperate ecosystems. This data will
be used to make significant predictions about the impact of tropical
species on their temperate counterparts if winter sea temperatures
are consistently warm enough for over winter survival and
population establishment.
FISH ECOLOGY
Before Dr. Edd Hammill arrived
at UTS School of Life Sciences,
he was a research fellow in the
Hugh Possingham Environmental
Decisions Group at the UQ. He
remains associated with the Centre
of Excellence for Environmental
Decisions as well as the National
Environmental Research Program’s
Environmental Decisions Hub. Edd has a diverse area of research
addressing fundamental questions in community ecology and
ecosystem function. Edd adopts a holistic approach in his empirical
research in order to obtain an overall measure of the state of an
ecosystem. Currently, Edd is leading a project incorporating risk
of military and civil conflict into reserve planning which is showing
that smart decisions allow effective conservation under difficult
circumstances.
Quinn Ollivier
Quinn’s research is focussing on sedimentary carbon storage
within the GBR and how predator presence can shape sedimentary
carbon distribution. Recent literature has identified reduced
foraging distances in herbivorous fish species with presence of
a predator, subsequently increasing the biomass of filamentous
algae with distance away from fish refugia. Quinn’s thesis aims to
identify the importance of predatory presence in the carbon storage
of coral reefs by quantifying the sedimentary carbon along a
transect moving away from reef edge. He hypothesises that areas
outside fish foraging distances have higher carbon concentrations.
Complimentary to this, he is currently identifying the community
composition of bioturbatory species within the same distance from
reef transects. This will help to identify how algal carbon is being
transferred into deeper sediments, and which species in particular
may be responsible for these variations in sedimentary carbon.
cens
CENTRE FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL
SUSTAINABILITY
Ellery Johnson
Ellery is the long haired yahoo you may have seen enjoying himself around the lab. He is
currently typing up the undergraduate research project he has been undertaking with Dr. Edd
Hammill. This has involved investigating the effects of ocean acidification on zooplankton
communities in custom built Kriesel tanks (see pictures, right) at SIMS, with the report hopefully
finished by late June. He has just signed on with Dr. Simon Mitrovic to begin Honours starting
in the Spring 2015 semester. His project will investigate the influence of allocthonous carbon
delivered by environmental flows to estuaries and its importance to estuarine zooplankton
communities. This will hopefully help to promote the importance of environmental flows across
NSW. Feel free to tell him to turn his music down in the labs if it annoys you or make a song
request!
Above: Close up view of Kriesel tank
Right: Series of Kriesel tanks on racks at SIMS.
Dr. Anne Colville
Doctor Anne Colville has collected a pretty varied background over the years, including an Honours degree in Zoology
and Biochemistry, with a project looking at pigmentation in fruit flies, followed by a Masters looking at neurophysiology
of gut. She worked in pathology for several years (clinical chemistry, haematology and blood transfusion), and then
came to work at the UTS Gore Hill campus (NSWIT as it was), running the Biochem labs. But she gave that up
when she had kids, and taught at TAFE for some years. She then returned to UTS to do a Masters in Environmental
Toxicology and finally discovered what she wanted to do when she grew up!
Since her toxicology masters she has done a lot of work with Professor Richard Lim, doing toxicity testing on all sorts
of things (pulp mill effluents, commercial preparations, hormones and endocrine disruptors on fish, and pesticides on
macroinvertebrates), and some large ARC projects looking at endocrine disruptor effects in sewage outfalls and rivers.
Anne did her PhD working with Richard Lim , and Ross Hyne from the EPA, looking at an insect growth regulator
pesticide on macroinvertebrates.
Lately Anne has been doing casual work on several projects, partly hands-on doing experimental stuff, partly assisting
and supervising students, plus a certain amount of keeping the lab functioning and doing risk assessments etc. She
also works with Simon Mitrovic and his group on cyanobacteria, looking at cyanobacterial toxins and their effects
on plants and freshwater communities. Anne also works with Vigi Vigneswaran and his group in Engineering, who are looking at pollution
assessment and water cleanup methods. Anne assists students to do toxicity testing on their polluted samples, and to confirm that their
cleanup methods actually work.
Anne has had a pretty busy career and is now looking forward to getting work happening with everyone in the new labs!
Thuy Chung Nguyen
Thuy Chung Nguyen is a PhD student from FEIT, UTS, doing part of her research in the Faculty of Science, under the supervisor of
Professor Richard Lim and Doctor Anne Colville. Her research is looking at road-deposited sediment (RDS) pollutants and investigating
different analytical techniques for mobility, bioavailability and remediation. This work is significant as RDSs can have major impacts on
aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, through the volume of sediments transported into these environments and the potential for high levels
of pollutants associated with the sediments. Thuy believes that this is a key element of urban pollution management - levels and potential
mobility of the pollutants in RDSs are both monitored and actively managed to minimise their impacts.
cens
CENTRE FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL
SUSTAINABILITY
Dr. Simon Mitrovic
Doctor Simon Mitrovic does a range of work from algal bloom research, river management, food webs,
allochthonous carbon and some ecotoxicology (especially with algal toxins). He is a Senior Lecturer at UTS but
also works for the Office of Water as a Principal Research Scientist. Simon is constantly striving to bridge the gap
between UTS and industry – hence he develops projects that are important for industry. Simon is also supervising
about 7 post grads and 2 new honours students! Check out some of their work below.
Rebecca Wood
Rebecca’s PhD research focuses on assessing herbicide toxicity in rivers flowing into the GBR. Herbicides have
been used extensively in GBR catchments resulting in widespread contamination that poses a potential threat to
aquatic ecosystems, especially photosynthetic organisms such as benthic diatoms. Benthic diatoms have the potential to be used as
bioindicators of herbicide toxicity in rivers. They are important primary producers in aquatic ecosystems, are widespread and diverse
and highly responsive to changes in environmental conditions. For these reasons they are excellent indicators of ecosystem health.
She is using a novel method called rapid toxicity testing, to shed light on the herbicide sensitivity of many local freshwater benthic
diatom species. Her overall goal is to improve the management of herbicide pollution and produce a new biomonitoring tool capable of
identifying herbicide toxicity in rivers. Rebecca’s supervisors are Simon Mitrovic (UTS), Richard Lim (UTS) & Ben Kefford (UC).
Anne-Marie Rohlfs
Ann-Marie’s PhD examines linkages between environmental flows, the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) regime and microbial structural
and functional responses in the Snowy River below Jindabyne Dam. In particular she is focusing on the potential contribution of
tributaries to the recovery of regulated rivers through supplying DOC. This study is a collaboration between UTS, Snowy Hydro Ltd, the
NSW Office of Water and the Murray-Darling Freshwater Research Centre, and will inform management on the implications of using
tributary versus dam water for environmental flows.
Christian Moore
Christian is a Masters student investigating the mitigation of cold-water pollution within the Murray-Darling Basin. In particular, he will
be monitoring the effectiveness of the thermal curtain installed at Burrendong Dam in preventing the release of cold-water from the
dam. The monitoring was formerly carried out by Masters student Rachel Gray (who is currently writing up). The purpose of the thermal
curtain is to improve the thermal regime of the river downstream of the dam by returning it to a more natural state. This will improve
the habitat quality of native fish for which the colder, dam altered thermal regimes are inappropriate. Proof of the effectiveness of the
thermal curtain may lead to the installation of curtains at other large, cold-water releasing dams. The mitigation of cold-water pollution
below a number of large dams within the Murray-Darling Basin could potentially restore nearly 3000 kilometres of river habitat for native
fish.
Lloyd Werry
Lloyd is also working in the Snowy River looking at how climate change may influence macroinvertebrate communities of the Snowies.
Sarah Meoli
Sarah Meoli completed her Bachelor of Science in Environmental Biology and Environmental Protection last year and begins her
honours mid-year with supervisor Dr. Simon Mitrovic and co-supervisor Dr. Anne Colville. Sarah’s honours project will examine the
effects of lysates of toxin-producing and non-toxin-producing strains of cyanobacteria on various plants and zooplankton. If lysates are
found to be much more toxic than a pure toxin in a sample it will mean the guidelines which are based on one toxin may not be adequate
to protect humans.
The Lab in the Media
Hammill - “Global seabird decline greater than expected”, ABC Science News and a radio spot (17/06/2015).
abc.net.au/science/articles/2015/06/17/4253305.htm
Donelson - “Climate change can tip the gender balance, but fish can tip it back”, The Conversation and 2SER Radio (10/04/2015)
theconversation.com/climate-change-can-tip-the-gender-balance-but-fish-can-tip-it-back-39053
2ser.com/terms-a-conditions/item/14397-spiny-chromis-fish-adapts-to-climate-change
Booth - Dave appeared on a segment of Channel 7’s nightly 6pm news to discuss the warming ocean’s, in particular around Sydney and what this could mean for the ecology of marine habitats around Sydney. And it wouldn’t be a TV spot about tropical fish without come clips of Finding Nemo thrown into the mix (14/06/2015).
CENTRE
CENTRE
FOR FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL
ENVIRONMENTAL
SUSTAINABILITY
SUSTAINABILITY
cens
cens
Marine - Freshwater
Laboratory 531
Recent Publications
Booth Lab
Liggins, L., Booth, D. J., Figueira, W. F., Treml, E. A., Tonk, L., Ridgway, T., Harris, D. A. and Riginos, C. (2015). Latitude-wide
genetic patterns reveal historical effects and contrasting patterns of turnover and nestedness at the range peripheries of a tropical marine
fish. Ecography. doi: 10.1111/ecog.01398
Poulos, D. E., Gallen, C., Davis, T., Booth, D. J., and Harasti, D. (2015). Distribution and spatial modelling of a soft coral habitat in
the Port Stephens–Great Lakes Marine Park: implications for management. Marine and Freshwater Research. doi.org/10.1071/MF14059
Booth D., Gribben P. and Parkinson K. (2015). Impact of cigarette butt leachate on tidepool snails. Marine Pollution Bulletin.
doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2015.04.004
Donelson J. and Munday P. (2015). Transgenerational plasticity mitigates the impact of global warming to offspring sex ratios.
Global Change Biology. doi: 10.1111/gcb.12912
Hammill Lab
Hammill, E., Atwood, T. B., Corvalan, P. and Srivastava, D. S. (2015). Behavioural responses to predation may explain shifts in
community structure. Freshwater Biology, 60: 125–135. doi: 10.1111/fwb.12475
Runge, C. A., Tulloch, A., Hammill, E., Possingham, H. P. and Fuller, R. A. (2015). Geographic range size and extinction risk
assessment in nomadic species. Conservation Biology, 29: 865–876. doi: 10.1111/cobi.12440
Hammill E., Kratina P., Vos M., Petchey O. and Anholt B. (2015). Food web persistence is enhanced by non-trophic interactions.
Oecologia 178(2):549-556. doi: 10.1007/s00442-015-3244-3
Hammill E., Fitzjohn R. and Srivastava D. (2015). Conspecific density modulates the effect of predation on dispersal rates.
Oecologia:1-10. doi:10.1007/s00442-015-3303-9
Hammill E., Atwood T. and Srivastava D. (2015). Predation Threat Alters Composition and Functioning of Bromeliad Ecosystems.
Ecosystems:1-10. doi: 10.1007/s10021-015-9866-9
Mitrovic Lab
Griffin, C.T., Mitrovic, S.M., Danaher, M. and Furey, A. (2015). Development of a fast isocratic LC-MS/MS method for the highthroughput analysis of pyrrolizidine alkaloids in Australian honey. Food Addit Contam Part A Chem Anal Control Expo Risk Assess 32(2):
214-228. doi:10.1080/19440049.2014.996789
Zhao, C., Liu, C., Dai, X., Liu, T., Duan, Z., Liu, L. and Mitrovic, S.M. (2015). Separation of the impacts of climate change and
human activity on runoff variations. Hydrological Sciences Journal 60(2): 234-246. doi:10.1080/02626667.2013.865029
Zhao, C.S., Yang, S.T., Liu, C.M., Dou, T.W., Yang, Z.L., Yang, Z.Y., Liu, X.L., Xiang, H., Nie, S.Y., Zhang, J.L., Mitrovic, S.M., Yu,
Q. and Lim, R.P. (2015). Linking hydrologic, physical and chemical habitat environments for the potential assessment of fish community
rehabilitation in a developing city. Journal of Hydrology 523:384-397. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2015.01.067
Westhorpe, D.P., Mitrovic, S.M., Growns, I.O., Hadwen, W.L. and Rees, G.N. (2015). Disruption in water quality patterns along
the river continuum by a large bottom release dam. Australasian Journal of Environmental Management. doi:10.1080/14486563.2014.99
9133
Booth
Hammill
Colville
Mitrovic
fishecologylab.com
eddhammill.com
CB04.06.342
School of Life Sciences
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
cens
CENTRE FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL
SUSTAINABILITY