Stories of science from the Australian Rivers Institute
"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? "
"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."
"By altering the environment, are humans tricking animals into making poor life choices?"
By PhD candidate Ellen Ditria, Reading Time: 452 words, about 2 minutes. Fish IDing Sample. Photo: Global Wetlands Project. Deep learning has fast become recognised as a powerful data processing tool for ecologists faced with vast amounts of image-based data. The ability of deep learning to accurately detect target species in videos and images unlocks [...]
By Dr. Eva McClure Read Time: 550 words, about 3 minutes. People often imagine the future of technology, and science fiction has depicted many dystopian futures where artificial intelligence (AI) has taken over human civilisation. While AI surpassing human cognition is still in the realms of science fiction, AI technology and software with the capacity [...]
By PhD candidate Sebastian Lopez-Marcano Read Time: 416 words about 3 minutes. Data creates magic. In ecology, data is necessary to make targeted management decisions. New tools (i.e. deep learning / computer vision) are allowing data to be processed at vast rates which is making data more accessible and useful. However, converting raw data into meaningful insights for ecological research can be challenging. Data nodes. Photo: Akamai. Through the years, ecologists have become familiar [...]
By Professor Michele Burford Reading Time: 537 words, about 3 minutes. Algal blooms are a major issue for water security globally and in Australia. We have seen the damage algal blooms have had on Murray-Darling Basin and the issues Florida have had with the recent 'red tide' epidemic. As our climate changes, we can expect [...]
By Dr Chris Brown Coastal wetlands are globally threatened. However, the plight of these habitats, like mangrove forests, seagrass meadows and saltmarshes, is not well recognised relative to other coastal ecosystems, such as coral reefs. This translates into funding shortfalls both for the science needed to address coastal wetland decline and for the protection and [...]
By Mischa Turschwell Predator-prey interactions between fishes are important ecological processes that help maintain healthy populations and ecosystems. But often we don’t know if predators control prey numbers (top-down control) or if the number of prey available controls predator numbers (bottom-up control). We also don’t know how these interactions might change if environmental conditions like [...]
Author: Kristin Jinks “I had no idea whether I was going to live up to the expectations of my collaborators, but it was too good an opportunity to let my doubts stop me,” explains Kristin Jinks. - Working in the environmental sciences has its perks. Including the opportunities to visit and work at [...]
Catchment to Coast 