The Ecological Society of Australia has announced Forrest Scholar, Tess Jenkins as winner of the 2024 Fundamental Ecology Award. Tess is a PhD candidate at the University of Western Australia.
Tess’ project aims to understand how habitat parameters and surrounding environmental conditions influence social group sizes, social organisations, mating systems, reproductive output and sex allocation patterns of habitat specialist coral reef fishes.
“The varied diets of coral reef fishes have led to their pivotal role in the energy uptake and trophodynamics within coral reef ecosystems, and yet they are overlooked due to their small body sizes and crypto benthic nature,” said Tess.
“Sadly, with anthropogenic climate change rapidly altering the state of coral reef ecosystems, it is these specialised species who are at a greater risk of population decline compared to more generalist coral reef fish, owing to their strong reliance on coral for their essential resources.”
“Despite this, we have very little understanding of how their coral reef habitats are directing their reproductive behaviours, a key aspect of their ecology to ensure persistence of their populations in the face of environmental change.”
Through developing an understanding of how their environment shapes the social and reproductive behaviours of coral reef fish, Tess hopes that conservation management can be adapted to ensure their populations are protected in the face of a warming ocean.
Her supervisor, Professor Jonathan Evans of The University of Western Australia, agrees.
“Understanding how environmental variation influences the behaviour and mating tactics of ecologically important coral reef fishes will fill important knowledge gaps in understanding these highly cryptic species,” he said.
“From an applied perspective, projects such as these are also invaluable in terms of understanding how anthropogenic environmental impacts (climate change, habitat destruction, exploitation of resources) can impact delicate marine systems.”
“Tess is an outstanding student and hugely deserving of this award.”
As part of her award, Tess will present a plenary at ESA2025 in Adelaide next year.
Runners up were Clara Borrel (Deakin University) and Luke Florence (La Trobe University).
This article originally appeared on the Ecological Society of Australia website and was reproduced with permission.
