Project title
Lord Howe Island Genomic Observatory
Collaborators and funding
Australian Research Council: https://dataportal.arc.gov.au/NCGP/Web/Grant/Grant/DP250102645 CIs: Prof Nathan Lo, Prof Simon Ho (both Univ Sydney), and Dr Melissa Carew (Univ Melbourne)
Contact(s)
- Nathan Lo, nathan.lo@sydney.edu.au
Project description and aims
The vast majority of extinctions have occurred on islands. Island conservation programs have traditionally focussed on vertebrates, with invertebrates largely ignored. We will establish a ‘genomic observatory’ on World Heritage Listed Lord Howe Island (LHI) by comprehensively characterising its terrestrial invertebrate fauna. We will combine cutting edge genomic methods with traditional taxonomy to enable future monitoring of LHI’s biodiversity, and investigate its evolutionary past. We will utilise extensive collections made before and after the LHI Rodent Eradication Project (2019) to analyse its effects on invertebrate abundance. Our project will provide a model system for safeguarding island ecosystems against future anthropogenic change.
Our project will address the Australian Government’s Strategic Research Priority: “Environmental change - options for responding and adapting to the impacts of environmental change on biological systems…”. The project will provide a significant advance in our understanding of Lord Howe Island’s arthropod biodiversity, which will help to safeguard LHI’s ecosystems against future anthropogenic change. The project will provide an important platform for future projects that monitor LHI’s other fauna and flora, to protect against invasive species, and prevent the extinction of endemics. The project will contribute to several goals of the Lord Howe Biodiversity Management Plan, including Objectives 14 (To improve knowledge and management of threatened and significant fauna species) and 14.1.1 (Conduct species-specific fauna research based on identified research priorities into the ecology of priority species, particularly with regards to reproductive ecology and habitat requirements) and Corporate Plan Item 4.4 (Improve awareness and understanding of the environment through education and research. Action 2: Encourage appropriate environmental research which is of benefit to LHI environment and community). Lord Howe Island’s spectacular geography and significant number of endemic species led to it being added to the World Heritage List in 1982. Our project will contribute to the preservation of this area, for the benefit of future generations of Australians.
How is ABLeS supporting this work?
This project is supported by the Production Bioinformatics scheme provided by ABLeS, providing access to compute and storage resources at the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre.
Expected outputs enabled by participation in ABLeS
We will generate genomic resources and biological insights for Australian taxa, including threatened and pest species. These include numerous reference genomes for insect and other invertebrate species. The genomic data generated in this project will be made publicly available online, providing a valuable resource for the research community and setting up a useful new study system for researchers into the future. The project will involve detailed comparative population genomic analyses of >100 species which form significant components of the Australian and Pacific biota.
We will generate new knowledge and insights into ecological and evolutionary processes. We will provide a significant advance in our understanding of LHI’s invertebrate biodiversity and how the Rodent Eradication Project has impacted it. This will help to safeguard LHI’s ecosystems against future anthropogenic change. By establishing a Genomic Observatory, the project will provide an important platform for future projects that monitor LHI’s other fauna and flora. Our large data sets from many hundreds of species will help to address fundamental questions in ecology and evolutionary biology associated with island evolution and responses to human- mediated environmental change.
These details have been provided by project members at project initiation. For more information on the project, please consult the contact(s) or project links above.