Nine SAEF researchers awarded ARC Discovery Project grants

Nine SAEF researchers working across six research projects have been awarded funding in round one of the Australian Research Council’s (ARC) 2025 Discovery Project grant scheme. 

The projects span research into how the decline in the abundance of life will affect ecosystems, how glacier retreat will impact biodiversity on the sub-Antarctic Heard Island, and how genome rearrangement might enable species to adapt to climate change. 

SAEF Director Professor Steven Chown said Antarctica’s future is our future. 

“SAEF relies not only on our central work to unveil this future, but also on partnerships. The challenges are global and require extensive, interconnected work in many areas. Our ability to foster these partnerships is reflected by these Discovery Projects, which we are pleased to be collaborators on.”

The SAEF researchers awarded grant funding are: 

Professor Melodie McGeoch; Dr Matthias Dehling; Dr Alejandro Ordonez Gloria
$981,389.00

Thinning of nature. This research aims to understand how the declining abundance of life across foodwebs will affect the stability of ecosystems and the services they provide. Using pollination and seed dispersal foodwebs the team will simulate and then test using real-world cases what happens to their properties and function when they lose individuals. The project expects to generate new knowledge about the resilience and vulnerability of ecosystems using an innovative combination of methods. Expected outcomes include enhanced capacity to integrate these areas of expertise and powerful models for predicting the consequences of environmental change. This should provide significant benefits, including Australia achieving the goals of its Strategy for Nature.

Professor Andrew Mackintosh; Professor Steven Chown; Dr Justine Shaw; Professor Bethan Davies; Professor Duane McKenna; Professor Dr Regine Hock
$715,555.00

How does glacier retreat threaten mountain biodiversity? Glaciers are retreating worldwide and are expected to disappear or decline by the end of century. The impacts of this ice loss on sea level rise and river flows are the focus of much attention. In contrast, the biodiversity impacts resulting from glacier retreat are poorly understood and existing evidence is compromised by direct human influences. Here, the team will focus on a globally unique setting with pristine biodiversity – Heard Island in the Sub Antarctic – a World Heritage-listed Australian territory. The team will assess and generalise the impacts of glacier retreat on biodiversity at Heard Island, helping to understand the future of indigenous mountain biodiversity worldwide, and securing the value of this unique asset for future Australians.

Professor Jan Strugnell; Associate Professor Ira Cooke; Professor Kerstin Johannesson
$500,072.00

Does genome rearrangement enable adaptation during environmental change? This project aims to investigate a hidden but crucially important form of genetic variation involving the rearrangement of genomes. By studying the roles that these rearrangements played during historical climate change the project expects to generate new knowledge regarding their impact on the persistence of threatened species during future environmental change. Expected outcomes of this project include models that will predict the effectiveness of genomic interventions designed to mitigate future climate change impacts. This should provide significant benefits for predicting adaptive capacity, updating conservation genetics frameworks, and designing genetic interventions to protect threatened species

Dr Matthew Holden; Professor Hugh Possingham; Professor Katriona Shea; Associate Professor Kate Helmstedt
$686,500.00

Resolving the value of information paradox for ecological management. Globally, we spend $133 billion per year on environmental management. Half of this money goes towards data collection and research. Clearly, ecologists and managers widely agree that new information is critical for improving decisions. However, surprisingly, the application of mathematics to ecological management regularly suggests we spend too much on research. This wide disagreement between mathematical theory and ecological expertise forms a long-standing paradox in mathematical ecology. The project aims to resolve this paradox by deriving new theory for quantifying the value of information across systems and solving new problems that violate traditional mathematical assumptions in fisheries, outbreak management, and conservation.

Professor Jody Webster; Professor Helen McGregor; Professor Gregory Webb; Associate Professor Tristan Salles; Professor Andrea Dutton; Professor Dr Juan Braga; Professor Yusuke Yokoyama
$1,081,809.00

Unravelling sea level, climate and coral reef responses to global change. The Earth’s climate has swung between intervals with massive ice sheets to times where ice sheets retreated. The impact of these transitions on sea level, tropical/subtropical seasonal climate and their consequences for coral reefs are not well understood. This project will investigate a globally unique sequence of drowned fossil reefs offshore Hawaii to decipher in unprecedented detail rapid changes in these impacts during transitions in ice sheet extent over the past 500,000 years. The team will advance our understanding of the fundamental drivers of sea level, tropical/subtropical climate and coral reef ecosystem responses during periods of major and abrupt climate instability.

Professor Anya Reading; Dr Tobias Staal; Dr Felicity McCormack; Dr Tom Hudson
$1,193,746.00

Evolution of Antarctic glaciers from icequake seismology: a new capability. This project will establish a new capability to reveal change in the outlet glacier systems of the vast Australian Antarctic Territory, East Antarctica. Machine learning will be applied to the ‘seismic symphony’ of icequakes caused by the sudden vibrations of moving and cracking ice, tumbling melt water and ocean wave action. Highly significant, fast-changing outlets of the largest ice sheet on Earth will be analysed. Outcomes include a step-change in the knowledge of how influences, such as reduced sea ice, are instigating new mechanisms for ice loss. Benefits include advanced training for the scientific and geotechnical workforce, and informing Australia’s response to the timing of accelerated sea level rise and climate tipping points.

The ARC Discovery Projects scheme provides grant funding to expand Australia’s knowledge base and research capacity and to provide economic, commercial, environmental, social, and/or cultural benefits.