Honours supervisors and projects

Dr David Chapple

Evolutionary & Invasion Biology

Telephone: 9905 3015
Email: David.Chapple@sci.monash.edu.au

Potential honours projects for 2010:

1. Species borders and thermal adaptation in skinks (July 2010 start, joint supervision with Dr Carla Sgro)

Temperature, and in particular temperature stress, is a key determinant of species distributions and abundances. In ectotherms such as skinks, physiological rates are temperature sensitive, so an ectotherm's behavioural and ecological performance, and thus its fitness, is influenced by temperature. The thermal sensitivity of ectotherm performance is directly linked to survival and persistence in variable, and increasingly stressful, environmental conditions. Understanding how a species will respond to temperature extremes is crucially important in allowing us to assess the likely threats imposed by climate change. This honours project will examine the thermal performance of an Australian species of skink. Specifically, it will compare the thermal performance among populations from different geographic (climatic) regions in south eastern Australia. Such a comparison will provide insight into how ectotherms adapt to changing environmental (temperature) conditions, and how they might respond to ongoing climate change.

2. Evolutionary & invasion biology of Lampropholis skinks (July 2010 start)

I am interested in talking to students about developing an honours project related to my current research on Lampropholis skinks. The project could be developed in a wide range of areas, including behavioural & evolutionary ecology.

3. Invasive Argentine ants in south-eastern Australia: the ecology of over-wintering ant populations (February 2010 start, joint supervision with Dr Kirsti Abbott)

The Argentine ant, Linepithema humile, is an urban and peri-urban pest in south-eastern Australia, and its invasion in Victoria is listed as a potentially threatening process under the Victorian government's Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988. Population numbers soar over the summer months, but decline dramatically during the colder part of the year. Conventional wisdom is that colonies reduce their investment in workers and populations decline within certain temperature thresholds; activity then resumes from a central point once it heats up again. However, we simply do not know what happens to Argentine ant populations over winter. The ecology of over-wintering ant populations has implications for seasonal invasion dynamics and management of invasive ants in urban areas.