Diana Fisher

Ecological resilience and life history adaptation of brush-tailed phascogales in south east Queensland

Brush-tailed phascogales are insect-eating, arboreal, forest-dependent marsupials restricted to southern Australia. They are threatened in all states where they occur except Queensland. At UQ Hidden Vale Research Station, brush-tailed phascogales are are some of the most frequent occupants of our recently established nest boxes. This species has a peculiar life history likely to underpin population dynamics: it is one of very few animals in which all males die after breeding. This field-based project includes field ecology, evolutionary ecology experiments, and practical conservation. You will test hypotheses to advance theory in life history evolution, understand why brush-tailed phascogales appear to be doing better in south east Queensland than elsewhere, and find how we can protect them.

You will work with researchers conducting landscape scale habitat restoration, fire and tree-thinning experiments at UQ Hidden Vale Research Station. Experiments include adding nest boxes, leaf litter and fallen timber to plots in phascogale habitat. You will 1) follow the fate and behaviour of individually identifiable phascogales to investigate how the timing and quality of food, nest site attributes, male competition, and predation risk influence recruitment and adult survival. 2) Find how environmental productivity and predictability influence mating systems, life history adaptations and constraints in dasyurids, focusing on male and female phascogales.

Applicants should submit a cover letter explaining their experience and research interests, CV, academic transcripts, and the names of two referees to Assoc. Prof. Diana Fisher <d.fisher@uq.edu.au>. You will be based in the School of the Environment at the University of Queensland, St Lucia (Brisbane), Australia. UQ Hidden Vale Research Station is an hour by car from UQ St Lucia campus.

All research costs of this project are funded. You will need to apply for a PhD scholarship. The next Graduate School Scholarship (UQGSS, including tuition fees) in the University of Queensland domestic round opens in August 2024, for commencement in RQ1 2025.

Data Driven Evolution and Biodiversity: Plant Extinction

The Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences Stockholm University invites applications for a four-year, fully funded PhD position in Data-Driven Evolution and Biodiversity. Data Driven Evolution and Biodiversity concerns research that takes advantage of the massive data streams offered by techniques such as high-throughput sequencing of genomes and biomes, continuous recording of video and audio in the wild, high-throughput imaging of biological specimens, and large-scale remote monitoring of organisms or habitats. The PhD project in Data-Driven Evolution and Biodiversity is part of the project 'New probabilistic and AI methods for inferring recent and ongoing plant extinctions'. The student will develop new quantitative methods for extinction assessments and apply them to digitised herbarium data and information on species' traits, distributions and threats to accelerate and improve estimates of plant extinction. The student will be trained in Red List assessments, probabilistic modelling, machine learning and computational approaches in biodiversity science. The student will be will be supervised by Aelys Humphreys (Stockholm University) and work closely with an international team of collaborators associated with the project: Daniele Silvestro (University of Fribourg), Diana Fisher (University of Queensland), Alexandre Antonelli (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Gothenburg University) and Jon Norberg (Stockholm University).

Closing date 31st July 2024

Evolution of semelparity

A handful of animals (some arthropods and Australian marsupials) have iteroparous females- that reproduce repeatedly, but semelparous males- that inevitably die during or soon after mating. This ARC-funded project is using multi-species comparative approaches, behavioural ecology, population ecology methods, and quantitative modelling to test evolutionary explanations. Multiple projects are available on the causes and cnsequences of semelparity in animals and plants.

Camera trap monitoring methods for small animal abundance and behaviour (honours project)

This project would test the assumptions of the time lapse camera trapping method (Collett and Fisher 2017. Time-lapse camera trapping as an alternative to pitfall trapping for estimating activity of leaf litter arthropods. Ecology and Evolution 18: 7527-7533 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.3275) and validate associations between activity of small creatures at different temperatures and leaf litter clutter, and their true abundance. It would use arenas with known numbers of individuals of various species in different conditions, to compare the close-focus time lapse camera activity index with actual abundance. This project would also compare time-lapse camera methods with other arthropod sampling methods (collecting a square metre of litter and extracting all arthropods using Tullgren funnels, which is sometimes claimed to be a complete census). The project could also test the effectiveness of close-focus camera monitoring to identify native rodents using alternative configurations of one or two cameras. Fieldwork would be at UQ Hidden Vale field station.