Position: DSE Research Leadership Fellow
Email: d.fairclough@murdoch.edu.au
Room: BioSc/02.011
Qualifications: BSc(Hons) Murd., PhD Murd., BBus Curtin
Research Interests: My main interest lies in the biology of fishes, including studies of the reproductive biology, age compositions and growth patterns of both hermaphroditic and gonochoristic species. My PhD involved a study of the biology of four protogynous labrids of the Choerodon or tuskfish genus (C. rubescens, C. schoenleinii, C. cauteroma, C. cyanodus) in Shark Bay, Western Australia, and was supervised by Professor Ian Potter. This work also incorporated a study, using underwater visual census (UVC) methods, of the habitats in which these species live during their life cycles (FRDC report 2000/137 (9 Mb pdf); Library digital thesis). I am currently a post-doctoral research fellow at the CFFR working with Professor Ian Potter on a collaborative research project coordinated by CSIRO’s Dr Russ Babcock. The project is funded by the Strategic Research Fund for the Marine Environment (http://www.srfme.org.au/). Overall, the project is aimed at understanding the ecological interactions between fish, invertebrates and the habitats they occupy in the Jurien Bay Marine Park, on the mid-west coast of Australia. My component of this project is focused on determining the distribution, abundance and diversity of fish species in different habitats, i.e. reefs (using UVC and baited underwater video), seagrass and sand, and also in different regions and management zones of the marine park. The project also incorporates a study of the biology (reproductive biology, age and growth, diets) of three abundant labrids (Coris auricularis, Notolabrus parilus and Opthalmolepis lineolatus) by Elaine Lek (CFFR PhD candidate). I am a current member of the IUCN Species Survival Commission specialist group for groupers and wrasses (chaired by Assoc. Prof. Yvonne Sadovy, University of Hong Kong), which conducts assessments of the levels of threat, on a global scale, to individual species for the IUCN red list (see http://www.hku.hk/ecology/GroupersWrasses/iucnsg/, http://www.redlist.org/). I am also a member of the Society for Conservation of Reef Fish Aggregations (Director: Assoc. Prof. Yvonne Sadovy http://www.scrfa.org/).

Publications

Position: DSE Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Email: a.hesp@murdoch.edu.au
Phone: 9360 2695
Room: BioSc/2.33
Qualifications: BSc(Hons) Murd., PhD Murd.
Research Interests:
My main areas of research interest are studies of age and growth, reproductive biology and hermaphroditism in fishes. Other areas of research that I have also been involved in include fish parasitology and, more recently, fish dietary studies.

Russell Hobbs

• The main focus of my research is with regard to inland fishes in Western Australia on aspects of the biology, larval development and ontogeny of diets, zoogeography, parasitism, impacts of introduced species and impacts of habitat modification (e.g. salinisation, dams).
• Carried out surveys of the fish fauna of all of the rivers of the Pilbara and South-west and within the Kimberley and worked on the Fitzroy, King Edward and Ord Rivers. I have extended the distributional range of the majority of fish species in inland waters in south-western Australia and a number of species from marine embayments in the Kimberley.
• Recent work with Aboriginal communities in the western Kimberley has lead to the development of a series of brochures depicting the fish of the system and includes the indigenous names for five of the six language groups of the west Kimberley. This work has lead to a project on the King Edward River that is funded by Land and Water Australia to look at the fish fauna and the cultural significance of the fishes.
• I am the Western Australian representative on the Exotic Fishes Committee of the Australian Society for Fish Biology and a member of the Western Australian Recreational Freshwater Fisheries Stakeholder Sub-committee.

Dr Margaret Platell

Position: DSE Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Email: meplatell@bigpond.com
Phone: 9360 2579 Mobile: 0417 914 871
Qualifications: BSc W.Aust., BSc(Hons) Murd., PhD Murd.
Research Interests:

• Investigations of factors that influence the dietary compositions of fishes
• Development of approaches to analyse fish diets
• Invertebrate communities
• Relationships amongst fish and their prey

CV and publications

• To provide a service of preparation of biological materials for microscopial evaluation with light or electron microscopes.
• To train and supervise staff and students in the use of histological diagnostic techniques.