Edel Sheerin was awarded funding from the Antarctic Science Foundation to sequence a reference genome for the seastar Glabraster antarctica. This resource will significantly enhance her research on connectivity of this species in the Southern Ocean, allowing greater inferences on past population size and deeper insights into source sink population dynamics. This work is fundamental to understanding benthic invertebrates’ response to climate change. Well done Edel!
Biggest congratulations to honours student Joshua Lesicar who has been awarded a 2026 Rhodes Scholarship! Josh is an Honours student with Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future based at James Cook University under the supervision of Jan, Sally and our collaborator Nerida Wilson. He is using genomic techniques to investigate the dispersal abilities of Doris kerguelensis, an Antarctic nudibranch.
Josh’s Rhodes Scholarship will cover all University and College fees, a personal stipend and a return airfare. He will undertake a Doctor of Philosophy in Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford from October 2026.
Jan Strugnell and Sally Lau were part of the Octopus and Ice Sheet team who won the Aspire Scholarship Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research! Together with their colleagues Dr Nerida Wilson (Western Australian Museum and CSIRO), and Professor Nick Golledge and Professor Tim Naish (Victoria University of Wellington) they were honoured for their research, published in Science, using octopus DNA to discover that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet likely collapsed during the Last Interglacial. The findings are the strongest evidence to date that sustained global warming above 1.5C will result in unstoppable collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Their research was funded by the Australian Research Council.
Joe Perkin’s latest research, published in Marine Pollution Bulletin, provides the first comprehensive assessment of harmful dinoflagellate communities in Hervey Bay, a high-risk region for harmful algal blooms (HABs) in eastern Australia. Using DNA metabarcoding, the study identified a diverse range of toxic and non-toxic species, including several high-risk taxa detected in Australian waters for the first time. The findings highlight the ecological complexity of dinoflagellate communities and underscore the urgent need for continued monitoring in vulnerable coastal ecosystems.
A bubble plot from Joe’s paper showing toxic dinoflagellate abundance (total reads) across locations and substrates, including Karenia and Gambierdiscus.
Joe’s paper received a lot of attention in the media including ABC news! Great work Joe!
Edel Sheerin spoke about Life on the seafloor of a sub-Antarctic sunken continent at Pint of Science at Heritage Exchange in Townsville and told the crowd what we know about the creatures of the remote Kerguelen Plateau and how cutting-edge genomics will reveal more about their past, present and future.
Edel wowing the crowd about the wonders of the Kerguelen Plateau.
Edel Sheerin was delighted to have the opportunity to attend the recent Kerguelen Plateau Symposium in Concarneau, France! She presented findings of her literature review on the ‘Evolutionary origin and connectivity of the Kerguelen Plateau benthos over space and time’. This work synthesises the available literature to understand what we know about the benthic invertebrates to date and emphasises the importance of further research given the position of the Kerguelen Plateau as a future gateway to Antarctica. Edel was gratefully supported by a travel grant from the KPS committee.
Sally Lau was awarded the Alison Green Zoology Research Fund this year to further her research on East Antarctic marine invertebrates. The research fund supported Sally’s research at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery to identify and sample important marine invertebrate specimens collected off the Shackleton Ice Shelf, East Antarctica back in the 2009-2010 season.
Sally worked together with ophuroid expert Chester Sands from the British Antarctic Survey to identify the brittlestars down to the lowest taxonomic level possible. Sally intends to genetically barcode the samples to aid in their identification.
Ira and Jan were both invited speakers at the Australian Genomic Technologies Association (AGTA) conference in October, 2024, in Cairns. Ira gave the ‘Opening Oration’ to the conference with a talk titled ‘Sequencing Rocks: How sequencing technology shapes our understanding of corals and coral reefs.’
The 2024 Australian Antarctic Research Conference in Hobart (November, 2024) drew 450 polar scientists and featured many talks, workshops and over 200 research posters. JCU PhD student Nikki Rodewald from the Marine Omics Lab was awarded both the Best Overall and Early Career Researcher poster for show casing her work on dispersal in the benthic seastars, Labidiaster radiosus and Labidiaster annulatus. Well done Nikki!
Jan and Ira were delighted to present a public lecture together at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in July, 2024. Together they tag teamed a lecture titled ‘Genomics for exploring change and connections through space and time’ about how we can use the genomes of marine animals, including corals and octopods, to investigate their evolution and adaptation to past environments, and give insights into the future.
The audience was very engaged and asked us both tough questions about genetics, corals, octopods and climate change. So how many corals ARE there Ira.?