Climate change and adaptation

Climate change and adaptation

The climate change and adaptation research focuses on managing the risks of climate change through evidence-based policy development. It covers adaptation strategies, risk assessment, and sustainable management practices to support resilience in ecosystems, communities, and industries.

About

Reconstruction of historical patterns of species movement, colonisation, extinction and speciation and understanding the genomic basis of climate adaptation may help understand future dynamics and the potential of evolutionary processes to intensify or moderate the effects of global change.

Protecting landscapes that act as refugia from climate change, and protecting and rehabilitating habitat corridors to allow species to reach these areas will enable species to respond to rapid climate change.

For information on Australia's biodiversity policies see the Department of the Environment and Energy​:

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Projects

The Ignition Grant Round 2 project aimed to develop tools for annotating and visualising transcriptomic data in non-model organisms, focusing on scleractinian coral transcriptomes. CSIRO and ANU collaborated to create user-friendly, web-based interfaces for data exploration, enhancing biologists' ability to utilise sequencing data effectively.

Australia's orchid flora is rich and threatened, with the Diurideae tribe showing significant diversity. A project by ANU and CSIRO developed an exome capture system to study Diurideae's phylogenetic relationships, aiding conservation efforts. The project concluded successfully in 2017, leading to further research grants.

In 2015, research investigated the impact of global warming on Australian parrots, finding increased bill sizes for thermoregulation. Genetic analysis using museum specimens revealed geographical bias and distinct clades in mulga parrots, but no conclusive genetic basis for the change, suggesting further study is needed.

This completed CBA-supported Honours project investigated avian bill size increases as an adaptation to climate warming. It aimed to identify genetic factors influencing bill morphology using genome-wide association analysis on historical specimens. The study provided insights into climate adaptation genetics and was based at CSIRO's ANWC.

Student intake

Open for Honours students

This project integrates clinical data and biodiversity measurements to explore spatial relationships between ecology and health, specifically focusing on Cryptosporidium infections. It aims to model the links between human illness patterns and biodiversity, considering demographic factors and co-morbidities, to improve public health strategies.

This study examines how climate change affects sex determination in reptiles, focusing on the bearded dragon. It found stable, geographically clustered sex reversal occurrences. Despite expanded data, no clear link between temperature and sex reversal was identified. Further research is ongoing, including DNA extraction from preserved specimens.

News

A major objective of the CBA is to exchange knowledge, perspectives and challenges amongst scientists and policy makers, and find ways to effectively engage, now and into the future.

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The draft of the Australia’s strategy for nature 2018-2030 is now open for public consultation and they'd like to hear from you. Please complete the survey or make a submission.

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We've mapped the hotspots of eucalypt diversity and our study shows that by 2085 the hotspots will be in different places. We need to plan now to conserve those future hotspots.

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Bill adaptation in parrots: finding the genes involved in surface area increases over time

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The Australian landscape presents many areas of extreme conditions for plant survival, such as drought, heat, or salt-affected soils. Are some lineages better able to adapt and diversify in these harsh conditions?

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Collecting seed, growing and re-planting is fundamental to restoration projects. However, little is known of the levels of genetic adaptability present in any key species, such as Yellow box, that frequently used for broad-scale restoration.

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