New study to predict climate change effects

JCU marine ecologist Associate Professor Sue-Ann Watson will lead the project – funded by a grant from the Australian Research Council.

“Billions of people depend on marine resources for food security and livelihoods, and environmental change is altering marine ecosystems globally at unprecedented rates.

“Despite this, current understanding of the combined effects of environmental change across biodiverse species in wild ecosystems is limited,” said Dr Watson.

She said the innovative new project will use museum collections to determine how marine species and ecosystems have already responded to change, allowing an understanding of the past, present and projected future effects on hundreds of species.

“We will use untapped data from tens of thousands of specimens collected over the past three centuries to analyse the responses of more than 300 species to drivers of change over the last 100-300 years,” said Dr Watson.

She said the project will focus on animals without backbones (invertebrates), which represent 92% of marine animal species.

“The museum material is already curated and catalogued with associated metadata such as species identification, collection date and location.

“We will be able to determine which species and ecosystems are adapting or declining so we can deliver practical management and conservation advice within Australia and globally,” said Dr Watson.

She said the research is designed to be adopted into policies and programmes.

“The data will feed directly into conservation assessments of marine invertebrates, the majority of which have never been assessed at the Australian or international level,” said Dr Watson.

Images of Dr Watson and specimens here. Please credit as marked.