Researchers
Students
Alumni
ManagementJake Lowe
PhD candidate
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
Jake grew up less than 500m from the Noosa River on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland and spent much of his youth on the water fishing, surfing and diving. Going for a fish before the school bus arrived at 7:30am wasn’t unusual for Jake, as the proximity of his family home to the river enabled Jakes love of all things marine to blossom from an early age. Jake pursued his dream to work with marine fishes and moved to Townsville in 2013 to complete a Bachelor of Science, majoring in Marine Biology. After getting a taste for Fisheries Science during undergrad, in 2016 Jake embarked on a Graduate Certificate of Research Methods supervised by Professor Garry Russ where he investigated the effects of no-take marine reserve protection and benthic habitat drivers on the density of tropical wrasses in the Philippines. This research led Jake to start his Master’s Degree supervised by Professor Garry Russ and Emeritus Professor Howard Choat which delved deeper into the biology of wrasses investigating the effects of fishing on the life-history characteristics of tropical wrasses. Thanks to collaboration with Dr. David Williamson in 2018 Jake decided to upgrade his Masters research to a PhD and also partition the effects of benthic habitat and no-take marine reserve protection on the density, diversity, size structure and biomass of tropical wrasses on the inshore Great Barrier Reef. Jakes findings could potentially improve management of reef fisheries and the conservation of coral reef environments.
A massive global study of the world’s reefs has found sharks are ‘functionally extinct’ on nearly one in five of the reefs surveyed. James Cook University’s Professor Colin Simpfendorfer wa
A study published today found national governments repeatedly resisted the placement of 41 UNESCO World Heritage sites—including the Great Barrier Reef—on the World Heritage in Danger list. This r
Scientists can now explain how baby reef sharks tolerate living in the sometimes-extreme environments of their nurseries—but, they also say these habitats face an uncertain future which may leave ne
A new study illustrates the potential impact of recurrent heatwaves on coral species collected by the Australian aquarium coral industry. The study’s lead author, Professor Morgan Pratchett from
Abstract: Transformative environmental policy reform at a system-wide scale has received minimal attention as an academic research focus. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Zoning Plan 2003, release
Abstract: Anyone trying to communicate about sustainability quickly runs into difficulties. The most common definition, “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the
Abstract: Coral reefs are dynamic and complex systems, and hence have ability teach us about fundamental principles of community ecology. One long-standing interest is learning how ecological communi
Abstract: Global heating will affect ecosystems and the benefits that they provide to people in a wide variety of ways, with profound direct and indirect effects on human society. Microeconomic adapt
Abstract: Most of the world’s population live within 100km of a coastline and depend on coastal marine ecosystems for sustenance, shoreline protection, and economic resources. Because our shoreline
Abstract: Urbanization deeply alters ecosystems, livelihoods, lifestyle, and consequently, human-nature relationships, with significant consequences for health and environmental behaviour. However, t
Abstract: Overexploitation from direct fishing and bycatch devastated shark populations around the world, leaving considerable doubt as to their ecological status. Yet much of what is known about sta
Abstract: Early life history stages of marine organisms can be difficult to study in the field, in part due to their inherently small size. Understanding to what extent early post-settlement processe
Partner Research Institutions
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