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Siemens Science Experience - 2008 Program Highlights
Seminars
‘How do animals survive the dry?’ - Professor Keith Christian, Professor of Zoology, School of Environmental & Life Sciences, Charles Darwin University.
Keith has been studying animal physiological ecology for more than 30 years. He has studied reptiles and amphibians in North America, South America, the Caribbean and in Australia. He has lived in Darwin since 1987 and has had the opportunity to study quite a few of the region’s remarkable animals, including frillneck lizards, several species of goannas, freshwater crocodiles, turtles, pythons, death adders, bats, ants, and a wide variety of frogs.
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| Freshwater Croc | Prof Keith | Frilled Neck | Green Tree Frog | Goanna | Green Ants | Olive Python |
These studies have included both laboratory experiments and field observations, including radio tracking and the use of radioisotopes to determine how these animals use and conserve their energy and their water, and how they regulate their body temperature. In the Wet – Dry tropics of Australia, animals employ a range of unusual and sometimes extreme strategies to survive months with little food and almost no water. These adaptations include both behavioural and physiological “tricks” that allow them to make it through the dry season.
‘Sharks: Tagging and tacking the world’s largest fish’ - Dr Mark Meekan, Senior Scientist, Australian Institute of Marine Science
Since 2004 Mark has been the Scientist-in-Charge of the Darwin office of the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). He completed a PhD with Griffith University in 1992 during which he examined the ecology of coral reef fishes on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR).
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After working in Canada, he was employed as a fish biologist with the AIMS in 1996. His current research interests focus on the larval ecology of reef fishes and the ecology of sharks and rays. He has projects on these topics that are based on the Great Barrier Reef, on coastal environments of the NT coastline and at Ningaloo Reef WA.
‘Climate Change: The enhanced greenhouse effect- is it a lot of hot air?’ - Dr Lindsay Hutley, Senior Lecturer Environmental Science, School of Environmental & Life Sciences, Charles Darwin University
Lindsay has research interests in tropical savannas and how vegetation has adapted to the physical environment imposed by a wet-dry tropical climate as experienced in northern Australia.
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| Grazing | High Intensive Gamba Grass Fire | Soil Erosion | Gamba Grass |
Lindsay works on carbon and water cycling in tropical and temperate Eucalypt dominated ecosystems and in particular the impact of fire, grazing and weed invasion on these processes. Work on carbon dynamics and fire is incorporated into climate models that attempt to describe feedbacks between landscape process and climate change.
