Researcher among ‘Incredible Women of Ichthyology’

A Charles Darwin University researcher has featured as part of an “Incredible Women of Ichthyology” exhibition at the recent Australian Society for Fish Biology meeting in Hobart.

Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods (RIEL) Principal Research Fellow Associate Professor Alison King was one of 18 women from around Australia and New Zealand who were highlighted in the Australian Society for Fish Biology and Oceania Chondrichthyan Society exhibition.

The exhibition aimed to celebrate and support women in ichthyology and highlighted that although women were a minority group in the area, many lead or were emerging leaders in their fields, and outstanding role models for other women.

Dr King is an internationally recognised aquatic ecologist with broad research interests in the ecology of floodplain rivers. She currently leads a number of research projects into the importance of flows and water availability in shaping ecological relationships in tropical rivers.

At the conference she presented her latest research titled “Freshwater fish spawning linked to both wet and dry season flows in the wet-dry tropics of northern Australia”.

“Previous studies in Australia and throughout the world have highlighted the importance of the wet season as a significant period for fish spawning and recruitment in tropical rivers,” She said.

“We are currently conducting a study in the Daly River, 222 km from Darwin, to determine the variability of spawning and to examine larval abundance across seasons.”

Other researchers from RIEL who presented at the conference included Principal Research Fellow Dr David Crook, Research Fellows Dr Laura Tailebois and  Dr Peter Novak, and PhD candidate Sharon Every.