Rachel Spinks
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
Rachel’s interest in the marine realm began in her youth, privately breeding rare fishes and working in the ornamental aquarium industry. She went on to complete a Bachelor of Marine Science at Macquarie University, whilst working as an environmental educator in Sydney, Australia. Rachel undertook a Master of Science in evolutionary biology at the University of Basel in Switzerland, where she studied the adaptive radiation of cichlid fishes in the African Great Lakes. After her research at Lake Tanganyika, she worked in South Africa as a scuba diver and then for an international NGO as a marine ecologist. Rachel came to James Cook University to embark on a PhD at the Centre of Excellence, studying the ability of reef fishes to adjust via phenotypic plasticity to ocean warming within and across generations.
Phenotypic plasticity to ocean warming in coral reef fish:
the importance of sex and exposure timing within and between generations
Prof. Philip Munday and Dr. Jennifer Donnelson
Spinks, R.K., Bonzi, L.C., Ravasi, T., Munday, P.L. & Donelson, J.M. (2021). Sex- and time-specific parental effects of warming on reproduction and offspring quality in a coral reef fish.
,Spinks, R.K., Munday, P.L. & Donelson, J.M. (2019). Developmental effects of heatwave conditions on the early life stages of a coral reef fish.
Spinks, R.K., Muschick, M., Salzburger, W. & Gante, H.F. (2017). Singing above the chorus: cooperative Princess cichlid fish (Neolamprologus pulcher) has high pitch. Hydrobiologia, 791, 115–125. DOI:10.1007/s10750-016-2921-5
James Cook University researchers have found brightly coloured fish are becoming increasingly rare as coral declines, with the phenomenon likely to get worse in the future. Christopher Hemingson, a
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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