Amelia Wenger
Former Research Fellow
James Cook University
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
Former Research Fellow
James Cook University
Amelia was born and raised in Washington, D.C. She completed her B.A. in Biology at Barnard College of Columbia University in New York City. Seeking warmer weather, she moved to Townsville to complete her Graduate Diploma and PhD at The ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University. Amelia’s PhD research focused on the effects of suspended sediment on early life history stages of coral reef fish. During this time, Amelia also worked as a water quality scientist for the Marine Monitoring Program at TropWater.
Amelia’s broader research focuses on connecting ecological and spatial data to assess responses of coastal and marine systems to threats, in order to determine ecological ramifications of ecosystem degradation. She uses this ecological information to aid in decision making about management interventions. Amelia’s current research focuses on the prioritization of management actions on islands in Western Australia and Queensland. The aim of this work is to create a decision support software to aid managers in objective decision making about where to allocate resources to achieve the greatest gains in biodiversity protection. This project is in collaboration with the Department of Parks and Wildlife in Western Australia and the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. Her work is part of the Conservation Planning research group led by Prof. Bob Pressey. She is also involved in several other collaborative research projects. These include: 1) understanding how dredging affects fisheries in Western Australia, in collaboration with Curtin University, WA Department of Parks and Wildlife, and WA Fisheries, as part of the WAMSI Dredging Science node; 2) Quantifying the effects of land-based runoff on fisheries in Melanesia, as part of a SNaPP working group led by University of Queensland; and 3) Understanding drivers of coral reef health in Myanmar, in collaboration with Cornell University, the Environmental Defense Fund, and Fauna & Flora International.
For a full list of publications, please visit Amelia’s JCU research profile. Amelia can also be found on Google Scholar and ResearchGate.
An international group of scientists is predicting markedly different outcomes for different species of coral reef fishes under climate change – and have made substantial progress on picking the ‘
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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
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
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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