APPLIED BEHAVIOUR
Abiotic stressors and behaviour
In the face of unprecedented environmental change, how will animal societies be affected? By combining an evolutionary understanding of individual reproductive and social strategies, we can predict how perturbations to individual behaviour and life history in response to abiotic change will influence groups and populations of social species. This is because the social dynamics which play out at the individual level impact emergent properties of societies as a whole, which in turn, cause changes at the population level since populations of social species comprise collections of social groups. Depending on the ecological role of that species, changes in the community level could also be forecast. The challenge now lies in refining the conceptual links between behaviour and conservation, providing the empirical support at multiple levels of organisation and using the results to usefully inform conservation and management efforts on the ground. To that end, we investigate how key abiotic factors, such as temperature, salinity and dissolved oxygen, influence the social behaviour of species using fish as model organisms.
Behavioural Interactions between Invasive and Native Species
Climate change and invasive species represent two of the greatest threats to global biodiversity today. Since its deliberate introduction into Australia, the Eastern Mosquito Fish (Gambusia holbrooki) has become one of the most notorious and well established invasive species in the country. Present in eight of eleven main drainage basins, it is now found in all states and territories. It is also expected to increase its range even further because a warming climate will facilitate its spread into waters previously too cold, as well as exacerbate its aggressive behaviour. Already implicated in the precipitous demise of nine native fish species, numerous amphibians and invertebrates, the future impact of G. holbrooki, under a warming climate poses a serious threat to Australia’s freshwater biota.
Despite this, we still have no knowledge of the exact behavioural mechanisms by which G. holbrooki exerts a negative impact on natives, and how climate change will alter the interactions between Gambusia holbrooki and native fishes. This knowledge gap is problematic, because without identifying these behavioural mechanisms of successful invasion, we cannot subsequently assess how the interactions between G. holbrooki and vulnerable native species will be affected by changes in abiotic and biotic variables. The overall goal of this research program is to examine the impact of G. holbrooki on the native fish and invertebrate species. Our goal is to contribute towards the management of Australian native fishes, specifically via eradication of G. holbrooki and the re-introduction of vulnerable and range-restricted native species.
​
Invasive versus native crayfish
My lab is also investigating the behavioural mechanisms by which invasive crayfish, Cherax destructor, affects native Euastacus species. In Australia, crayfish from the genus Euastacus are the most threatened of freshwater crayfish in the world, with 81% of species listed as are listed as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. The invasive yabby, Cherax destructor, native to the Murray-Darling region but spread to coastal drainages of NSW, is assumed a key threatening process to the conservation of Euastacus species. Therefore my lab is investigating how these species actually interact, which are competitively dominant and how this may change in the future due to climate change.
​
