Future too warm for baby sharks
New research has found as climate change causes the world’s oceans to warm, baby sharks are born smaller, exhausted, undernourished and into environments that are already difficult for them to survi
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
James Cook University Townsville
Queensland 4811 Australia
Phone: 61 7 4781 4000
Email: info@coralcoe.org.au
Abstract: I will start with a brief overview of the importance of movement as an element of ecological adaptation to environmental change. I will then consider two examples, both involving birds, of the challenge of embedding an understanding of movement ecology in research on ecological responses. The first example will present some early findings about birds that breed on Heron Island, on the Great Barrier Reef. The second will focus on some of the more interesting findings from my decade of field research on African ducks, including the first-ever translocation experiment on Egyptian Geese. Ah, you may say; but yes – Egyptian Geese are not true geese. Even though only about half this seminar deals specifically with coral reefs, it will explore a branch of ecology that you may find fascinating even if you are primarily motivated by things that go plop or bubble bubble bubble. Overall, I will attempt to demonstrate that even organisms that appear to be well adapted to living in variable environments may in fact be less capable of modifying their movement behaviours in response to unfamiliar circumstances than we would expect; thus, intensive research and deep knowledge of organismal biology are needed before we can confidently predict which animals will be winners and which will be losers under climate change.
Biography: Graeme Cumming is a professor at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. He is originally from Zimbabwe and has lived in Townsville, with his wife and three children, since mid-2015. He runs a far-ranging and often interdisciplinary research program that focuses on understanding the relevance of spatial variation and system structure for the dynamics of complex systems.
New research has found as climate change causes the world’s oceans to warm, baby sharks are born smaller, exhausted, undernourished and into environments that are already difficult for them to survi
A new study shows the coastal protection coral reefs currently provide will start eroding by the end of the century, as the world continues to warm and the oceans acidify. A team of researchers led
A team of scientists led by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Coral CoE) won one of the nation’s top science awards at tonight’s ‘Oscars of Australian science’, the Eureka P
An analytical tool will be used to assess the climate risks facing historic World Heritage sites in Africa—the ruins of two great 13th century ports and the remains of a palace and iron-making indus
Abstract: It is a little over a decade since research commenced into the effects of anthropogenic ocean acidification on marine fishes. In that time, we have learned that projected end-of-century
Abstract: Increased uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere has caused the world’s ocean to become more acidic. Different marine habitats are known to have varying ranges of CO2 across mul
Abstract: The Allen Coral Atlas (http://allencoralatlas.org) partnership uses high-resolution satellite imagery, machine learning, and field data to map and monitor the world’s coral reefs at unp
Abstract: Climate change is causing the average surface temperature of the oceans to rise and increasing the frequency and intensity of marine heatwaves. In addition, absorption of additional CO2
Abstract: Marine environments are a concealing medium, where observations of natural fish behavior are challenging. In particular, the geographic and depth distributions of migratory top predators ar
Abstract: Invasive species management can be the the subject of debate in many countries due to conflicting ecological, ethical, economic, and social reasons, especially when dealing with a species s
Abstract: Ocean acidification, the increase in seawater CO2 with all its associated consequences, is relatively well understood in open oceans. In shelf seas such as the Great Barrier Reef, processe
Abstract: The backdrop of legends and movies, the deep sea has always been unfathomable because we had no idea what existed there. Once thought to be barren of life, we now know this couldn’t be
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
James Cook University Townsville
Queensland 4811 Australia
Phone: 61 7 4781 4000
Email: info@coralcoe.org.au