ECOS

A special issue of Pacific Conservation Biology celebrates women working in conservation science in Australia.

Taking product from farm to market in Australia can involve distances of hundreds of kilometres and high freight costs. A group of NSW and Queensland councils has turned to computer modelling to work out where local infrastructure bottlenecks are, and how they could be fixed.

Salamo Fulivai reads the nightly news in Tonga but when Tropical Cylcone Gita arrived it was more than a story. Fortunately, forewarned is forearmed. Just months earlier Salamo had been part of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction training.

There is an imperative to take action to protect and restore the Great Barrier Reef, the question is how we go about it. A new initiative is engaging the community in those decisions.

On the farm, the negative impact to beneficial insects can sometimes negate the positive effects of insecticides. But there’s a lack of research quantifying non-target impacts of one particular group, neonicotinoids.

After cascading ecological catastrophes in the 90s, China spent 20 years seriously investing in sustainability. Now that effort is paying off.

Scientists take a close look at what’s behind low-oxygen levels under salmon farms in Tasmania’s Macquarie Harbour.

They’re elusive, whale sharks, so we’re keeping an eye on them using satellite tracking to see how far they travel and, in a world first, taking DNA samples to see just how old they are. Here they are on Ningaloo reef.

Here’s one aspect of rising sea levels to think about – the loss in light reflected through ocean waters. Marine ecologists are asking, what are the limits, and threats, to coral skyscrapers? Because coral reefs don’t just spread out – they also spread up.