Research Projects Available
Why do Scallop Beds Boom-and-Bust?
Characterising the impacts of warm water and other stressors on the boom-and bust cycle of the Commercial Scallop. PhD project opportunity at the University of Tasmania.
Closing Date: 25 September
For further details about this scholarship please email Dr Ryan Day
Conservation Physiology of Australian Wildlife
The StressLab at the UQ is presently looking for PhD applicants for this new research project: “Investigating the Conservation Physiology of Australia’s iconic wildlife under the impacts of climate change” This PhD scholarship opportunity is open for Australian students. It is collaborated with world-leading scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi under the UQ-IITD scheme.
This project can be for you or someone you know?
For further details about this scholarship please email Dr Edward Narayan
Can novel seismic survey sources mitigate potential impacts to fisheries
University of Tasmania
This project will support a PhD candidate based at the Taroona IMAS campus and is funded by the Australian Government via the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation and Beach Energy. The focus of this project is to evaluate the impact of several novel sound sources on two of Tasmania’s key fishery species: the Southern Rock Lobster (Jasus edwardsii) and the Commercial scallop (Pecten fumatus).
Contact:
Senior Research Fellow
Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies
University of Tasmania
Posted August 2022
Ecophysiology at Curtin University
PhD projects:
- Control of evaporative water loss by ectotherms: purpose, patterns and mechanisms.
- Physiology and behaviour of red-tailed phascogales in modified environments.
- Development and plasticity in the control of evaporative water loss by endotherms.
- Threatened desert parrots and climate change.
Honours Projects:
- Use of caves and logs by echidnas in a wheatbelt reserve
- Retention of habitat trees in post-logging landscapes
- Seasonal movements and body temperature regulation of wild, free-living echidnas
- Thermal imaging of birds and mammals to non-invasively measure expired air temperature
- Avian seed dispersal of rare plants in the northern sandplains
- Ventilatory physiology of marsupials: phylogenetic patterns and ecological correlates
For more information contact Dr Christine Cooper
Posted July 2022
PhD projects, La Trobe University, Melbourne
- Sleep-dependent cognition in flatworms: Sleep plays a role in maintaining waking performance. Sleep loss impairs attention, motivation, and memory processing. Such is true in humans and other vertebrates, but also in invertebrates, such as honey bees and fruit flies. Sleep has been observed in simpler animals still, including platyhelminth flatworms. Our group has characterized sleep in flatworms as a behavioural and biochemical state. We have neurotransmitters to deprive and augment sleep. Despite this proximate understanding of sleep in flatworms, it remains unclear why flatworms sleep at all.The successful candidate will study sleep behaviour and/or electrophysiology using innovative technologies for a more thorough understanding of sleep functions in these simple invertebrates
- Immune function of sleep: Effects of disease on sleep in birds:Sleep function is a topic of debate. One prominent hypothesis stems from the observation that mammals sleep more when sick. It is thought that the down-regulation of metabolism during sleep allows the animal to re-allocate energy towards maintenance of the immune system. Whether this idea applies to birds, the only animals to have unequivocally mammal-like sleep states, is unknown. The successful candidate will study sleep behaviour and/or electrophysiology using innovative technologies that will realize a more thorough understanding of sleep functions and the outcomes of disease-related or parasite-induced sleep disturbance.
For more information, please contact A/Prof John Lesku
Posted April 2022
PhD project, Western Sydney University
Thermal and dietary constraints on koala habitat and refugia
We are looking for a highly motivated candidate to undertake a 3-year research-driven PhD program in koala physiological ecology and/or remote sensing and/or bioenergetic modelling of koala food resource quality commencing in 2019. The successful candidate will be part of a broader project with common goals. Given the multidisciplinary nature of the project, we encourage applicants with interest and expertise in vertebrate nutritional ecology, physiological ecology (particularly thermal and metabolic physiology), remote sensing and/or species distribution modelling to apply. The project provides ample opportunity to develop new skills.
The scholarship on offer is part of an exciting new project ‘Understanding and mapping how thermal and dietary constraints combine to restrict koala habitat and determine refugia’ funded by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage as part of their NSW Koala Strategy research program. The position will be based at the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment on the Hawkesbury Campus of Western Sydney University, Richmond, NSW, with fieldwork at sites at locations elsewhere in NSW. D
Closing date for applications 30/9/2018
Posted September 2019
Environmental Physiology at the University of Western Australia
PhD Projects:
- Regulation of insensible evaporative water loss in birds or mammals
This project investigates how and why the insensible water loss of birds and mammals is regulated rather than being passively determined by ambient temperature and humidity. You will evaluate whether this capacity is an adaptation to environmental aridity or a fundamental component of the thermoregulatory control system for a range of species, either parrots or dasyurid marsupials. - Physiology and biophysics of gas exchange by awake and aestivating snails
This project investigates the oxygen, carbon dioxide and water vapour exchange of pulmonate terrestrial snails during activity, rest and aestivation. The mantle and epiphragm of aestivating snails are critical barriers to gas exchange but the biophysics of diffusional exchange across these high resistance membrane surfaces is poorly understood, especially at the extremes of activity and metabolic depression. - Metabolic physiology of dormant and resting seeds
Seeds are capable of extended metabolic depression, but there are few actual measurements of metabolic rate for resting or dormant seeds. This project investigates the metabolic rate of resting and dormant seeds, using both indirect calorimetry (oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production) and direct calorimetry (heat production).
Honours Projects:
- Regulation of insensible evaporative water loss in a bird or mammal
- Physiology and biophysics of gas exchange by aestivating snails
- Allometry of metabolic physiology for resting seeds by direct calorimetry
- Coevolution of wing loading, aspect ratio and foraging strategy for Western Australian bats
- Phylogenetically-informed analysis of contrasting body weight patterns in carnivorous and nectarivorous marsupials
For further information, contact Professor Philip Withers, School of Biological Sciences, UWA
Posted May 2018
Opportunity for postgraduate students (Master Research or PhD) in animal physiological and evolutionary ecology at the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University
Project:
Metabolism, behaviour and environment-dependent fitness of small mammals
Research Leaders:
Dr Christopher Turbill and Dr Paul Rymer, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University
Project Description:
We seek outstanding research students to join our group and lead projects that make use our ongoing artificial selection project, well-equipped physiology and genetics laboratories and outdoor experimental facilities to determine the ecological function and evolutionary drivers of variation in the resting metabolic rate of small mammals. More information.
To Apply:
Interested applicants should send a CV, academic transcript and a brief summary of their research interests to c.turbill@westernsydney.edu.au Applications will be assessed as they are received.
Contact:
Dr Christopher Turbill Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University +61 (0)2 4570 1456 c.turbill@westernsydney.edu.au
Posted April 2018