Peters Honours Projects

Climate change impacts on parental care in the Endangered purple-crowned fairy-wren.

Other supervisors: Dr Niki Teunissen

Background: Climate change effects on birds can often be sub-lethal, having a physiological impact without causing direct mortality.  Such sub-lethal effects can cause changes in key behaviours by individuals, such as parental care behaviours.  For example,  increasing temperatures can on the one hand decrease the amount of time birds need to incubate eggs for, but if temperatures go to high, parents may be required to actively cool eggs instead. Parents may additionally decrease nestling provision effort in the heat to reduce the cost of parental care to themselves, but this may come at a cost to offspring survival via e.g. a prolonged nestling period, increasing the risk of nest predation. To predict climate change impacts on reproductive success, a key fitness component, this project will assess the impact of climatic variation on parental care behaviours in the purple-crowned fairy-wren.

Project Aims: The student will use existing nest video, climate, and nest success data to investigate how egg incubation, egg/nestling cooling, and nestling provisioning behaviour vary with climatic conditions.

Techniques: This project will involve analysing videos previously obtained from nest cameras to quantify investment in egg incubation, egg/nestling cooling, and nestling provisioning by individually colour-banded birds, so standard colour vision is needed. The project will involve moderate to advanced statistics in R (e.g., linear mixed-effects modelling).

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Molecular Ecology and Climate Change: Microclimate impacts on early life telomere length.

Other supervisors: Dr Justin Eastwood

Background: Birds are increasingly exposed to extreme temperatures causing mass mortality events. But what about those who survive or are subjected to non-lethal but still physiologically demanding conditions? Detecting the impact of sublethal climates is essential for understanding how species will respond to climate change, but collecting the necessary data is challenging and resource demanding. This project will work at the interface of molecular genetics and ecology to understand sublethal costs of a warming climate during development when nestlings have an incomplete physiology and are confined to their nest environment.

Project Aims: For this project, the student will use superb fairy-wren nestling samples and nest microclimate data to investigate the relationship between microclimate and (i) telomere length and (ii) survival.

Techniques: Laboratory work includes DNA extraction, DNA quantification, and real-time PCR. Moderate to advanced statistics in R (e.g., linear mixed-effects modelling).

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Molecular Ecology Technique Development: Quantifying the effect of DNA degradation on telomere length quantification.

Other supervisors: Dr Justin Eastwood

Background: Telomeres are nucleoprotein structures on the ends of linear chromosomes found in almost all eukaryotes. They function as a protective cap to maintain chromosome integrity and act as a buffer to DNA loss during cell replication. The functional importance of telomere length means that longer telomeres are often associated with longer lifespans, including in humans. However, methodological issues can limit our understanding of this vital genomic region. Recent evidence suggests that sample collection methods impact telomere measurement and it is logical to hypothesise that DNA degradation could be the source of this added error.

Project Aims: As sample collection methods vary considerably within and between laboratories this project will aim to identify the impact of DNA degradation on telomere length measurement and which sample collection methods are susceptible.

Techniques: experimental design, DNA extraction, DNA quantification and quality control, DNA fragmentation, real-time PCR. Moderate to advanced statistics in R (e.g., linear mixed-effects modelling).

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Invertebrate prey availability across microhabitats in the riparian zone of the Kimberley monsoonal savanna

Background: Our research on the purple-crowned fairy-wren (Malurus coronatus coronatus) has identified that quality of the riparian habitat (notably density of Pandanus aquaticus) is an important determinant of bird’s breeding success and survival, that are both threatened by climate change. However, it is unclear what aspect of habitat is important for success of this Endangered bird. While we have collected temperature data of various microhabitats, to relate to microhabitat use of the birds, we do not know how prey availability varies across microhabitats. Knowing this is important to understand how anthropogenic impacts come about in this biodiverse ecosystem, and how we might best adjust conservation land management to future proof the habitat for ongoing climate warming.

Project Aims: To compare quality and quantity of invertebrate food availability for small insectivores across various microhabitats, while simultaneously measuring microclimate. The Honours student will sue existing data and collaborate closely with several research group members (post-doc & PhD students).

Techniques: The student will either use data and samples collected in the field to identify and quantify invertebrate prey, or if desired and possible, participate in the fieldwork to collect the samples at our field site in Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary (Kimberley WA), managed by Australian Wildlife Conservancy. The project will involve moderate to advanced statistics in R (e.g., linear mixed-effects modelling).

Start date: S2 2025.

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Project by negotiation

Full time or Part time.

Background: I will consider projects suggested by students in the areas of behavioural ecology, conservation ecology, climate change ecology and adaptation, telomere ecology. I prefer studies on birds, but other organisms will be considered. Check my webpage: https://petersresearchgroup.org

Project Aims: Dependent on project.

Techniques: Will vary with project.