Research

Overview 

Since starting my position as CSIRO Science Leader at the Australian National Fish Collection in 2020 I have been focussed on developing two areas of research: (1) Environmental DNA (eDNA) approaches for monitoring marine biodiversity and (2) Population Genomics. Much of the current research is being done by two CSIRO Early Research Career Postdoctoral Fellows (Katrina West - eDNA and Floriaan Devloo-Delva - Genomics) and two PhD students (both based at the University of Tasmania). I also continue to collaborate with colleagues at the Australian Antarctic Division and numerous others. Below is some information on current projects being done at CSIRO and links to other research that I've been involved in.

Environmental DNA 

Environmental DNA (eDNA) is genetic material that is found in the environment - it is a mix of DNA from many organisms. In marine ecosystems eDNA is ubiquitous in seawater, and it comes from everything from bacteria to invertebrates and fishes. This eDNA can be recovered by filtering small water samples and then used to characterise biodiversity near where the sample was collected.

The method we most often use to characterise eDNA is DNA metabarcoding. This approach allows us to recover DNA barcode markers (DNA sequences that uniquely identify species) and produce a list of what organisms are present in the sample. With this same approach we can also analyse faecal samples to identify what prey have been eaten by a particular predator.

Click the links below for some of the projects I have worked on.

Population Genomics