Stories of science from the Australian Rivers Institute
“With fisheries for example, seagrasses provide nursery habitat for juvenile fish and foraging grounds for about 25% of the world’s biggest fisheries. "We identified associations between pressures and measured changes in seagrass extent and found that seagrasses are especially under threat from poor water quality and destructive fisheries like trawling."
"We’ve entered the United Nations Decade of Ecosystem Restoration. As the world ramps up their restoration efforts in response to widespread environmental degradation, we need to maximise success and the benefits that the environment and humanity get from these efforts."
"We are entering a new era of science where ecosystem change is uncharted by historical observations. Observations are the foundation of predictive science, so how can we predict a future that is outside the envelope of the environments? "
"They have supported me throughout my PhD, through all the failures and successes, and I wouldn’t have made it through without them. They both provided me with guidance but also allowed me to follow through with my own ideas, even if they were possibly doomed from the beginning... All in all, I really lucked out with my supervisory team!"
"As the frequency and severity of bushfires increase due to climate change, Australian biodiversity is facing significant threats. A range of strategies and policies are in place to manage the damage of fires on species and ecosystems, including the use of fire-fighting chemicals."
"Often during flood events, water from agricultural catchments will erode productive agricultural soils and carry large loads of sediment and nutrients to downstream estuaries and coastal areas. This can threaten the provision of safe drinking water for humans and the ecology of marine ecosystems, as well as sometimes necessitating costly sediment dredging and disposal operations."
"Our research, published today, paints a grim picture. We estimate that even under the most optimistic emissions scenarios, we’ll see dramatic reductions in coral reef growth globally. The good news is that 63% of all reefs in this emissions scenario will still be able to grow by 2100."
"Revegetating abandoned agricultural land is critical for maintaining sustainability and biodiversity within our farming landscapes. Our recent paper demonstrated the feasibility of a large-scale revegetation approach in one of Australia’s most iconic agricultural regions, the Murray-Darling Basin."
"By altering the environment, are humans tricking animals into making poor life choices?"
"Seagrasses are flowering plants that live submerged in salty water and perform vital ecosystem services that help us and the food-webs that rely on them. For example, seagrasses capture and store more atmospheric carbon (per unit area) than many terrestrial plants, they act as nursery areas for important fishery species, and provide coastal protection against things like erosion and storm surges," Dr Ryan Pearson.
Catchment to Coast 