Search Marsden awards 2008–2017
Search awarded Marsden Fund grants 2008–2017
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2017
Title: Whole-genome duplication in plants: what is the pathway to success?
Recipient(s): Professor WG Lee | PI | Landcare Research
Professor DC Albach | AI | Carl von Ossietzky-University Oldenburg
Dr HM Meudt | AI | Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Dr LR Perrie | AI | Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Dr AJ Tanentzap | AI | University of Cambridge
Dr JA Tate | AI | Massey University Manawatu
Public Summary: Many ferns and flowering plants have accumulated multiple chromosome sets from past hybridisation between species or from genome duplications within a species (whole-genome duplication (WGD)). However, WGD has long been considered an evolutionary dead-end because of the complications and costs linked with growth and reproduction caused by expanded genomes. The paradox of widespread occurrence in spite of a high extinction rate is exemplified by the flora of New Zealand, where over 50% of native vascular plant species originate directly from one or more WGD events. The challenge is to understand why and how WGD plant species are so common in New Zealand and elsewhere. Using native plant lineages that include species derived from WGD events, we will identify the morphological, physiological and genetic changes that enable these species to persist in natural ecosystems. We will investigate species-rich groups with at least three WGD levels representing diverse lifeforms occupying lowland to alpine zones (Asplenium (spleenwort ferns), Poa (grasses), Plantago (plantains), Schizeilema (pennywort), Leptinella (button daisy) and Veronica (hebes)). By means of genomic analyses, eco-physiological measurements, comparative experiments and ecological modelling approaches, we will provide a coherent understanding of how WGD facilitates adaptive evolution and why it is so widespread.
Total Awarded: $925,000
Duration: 3
Host: Landcare Research
Contact Person: Professor WG Lee
Panel: EEB
Project ID: 17-LCR-006
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2009
Title: Why are hydrogenases found in the genomes of aerobic bacteria?
Recipient(s): Professor GM Cook | PI | University of Otago
Dr M Berney | PI | University of Otago
Dr DM Collins | AI | AgResearch
Public Summary: Microorganisms show a remarkable metabolic flexibility that allows them to adapt to various environmental changes such as oxygen tension. Mycobacteria are a group of obligate aerobes that require oxygen for growth, but paradoxically have the extraordinary ability to survive and metabolize under hypoxia. The goal of our research is to understand the molecular basis for this metabolic plasticity and determine what role hydrogenases play in this adaptation. The results of this study will contribute to our knowledge of how aerobic microorganisms adapt to hypoxia, and hydrogenases may represent an unexplored target for the development of new antimicrobials for a wide range of aerobic pathogens.
Total Awarded: $720,000
Duration: 3
Host: University of Otago
Contact Person: Professor GM Cook
Panel: CMP
Project ID: 09-UOO-065
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2016
Title: Why do inbred males fire blanks? Unravelling the relationship between inbreeding and infertility
Recipient(s): Dr HR Taylor | PI | University of Otago
Dr P Brekke | AI | Zoological Society of London
Professor JV Briskie | AI | University of Canterbury
Dr NL Hemmings | AI | University of Sheffield
Associate Professor S Nakagawa | AI | University of New South Wales
Public Summary: Inbreeding negatively affects a wide range of life history traits in taxa as diverse as humans and plants. Mitigating the effects of inbreeding depression has been a key focus in animal husbandry and horticulture for millennia and, more recently, inbreeding has become a key topic in conservation science. It is well known that inbreeding negatively affects male fertility across a variety of taxa, but this phenomenon has rarely been examined in species where males are the homogametic sex (e.g., birds), or in the wild. While several sperm quality traits are known to be depressed by inbreeding (sperm morphology, motility, and DNA fragmentation) the interplay between these traits remains unexplored. The common fragility of male fertility suggests inbreeding disrupts a conserved set of genes across taxa, but these genes are yet to be unidentified. We will use a novel combination of genotyping by sequencing, computer assisted sperm analysis, and DNA fragmentation assessment to conduct a comparative study of inbreeding depression of male gamete quality in New Zealand's birds – the first such study in any wild system. We aim to elucidate the relationship between inbreeding and sperm quality, and identify candidate genes that might be responsible for infertility in inbred males.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: University of Otago
Contact Person: Dr HR Taylor
Panel: EEB
Project ID: 16-UOO-199
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2017
Title: Why do texturally complex foods lead us to eat less?
Recipient(s): Professor BJ James | PI | The University of Auckland
Dr N Gant | PI | The University of Auckland
Associate Professor MJ Hautus | PI | The University of Auckland
Professor EA Foegeding | AI | North Carolina State University
Public Summary: We have recently demonstrated that eating food with complex texture accelerates the satiation response, leading a subject to eat less. Complex textures might be a combination of many sensations (crunchy, creamy, crispy etc.) like a Ferero Rocher chocolate, or a few textures sensed with high intensity, like a tooth-breakingly hard gingernut biscuit.
Where current work in the field of oral processing has linked accelerated satiation to longer chewing time and effort, our work addresses an important knowledge gap by linking food texture directly to satiation, independent of other factors. We hypothesise the link between texture and satiation results from the cascade of sensations during chewing. We will take the novel approach of directly investigating the response of the brain to these sensations and linking them to food material properties and the perception of texture.
One of the things that stops us eating is the feeling of satiation, but the obesity epidemic indicates there is more to over-eating than that. We aim to clarify one aspect of the satiation mechanism, the role of food texture, and so contribute to the overall understanding of appetite and eating.
Total Awarded: $945,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Professor BJ James
Panel: EIS
Project ID: 17-UOA-187
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2016
Title: Why don't orchid pollinators go extinct? A new mechanism for the maintenance of coevolutionary relationships
Recipient(s): Dr AC Gaskett | PI | The University of Auckland
Professor H Kokko | AI | Australian National University
Public Summary: Coevolutionary relationships such as pollination usually benefit both partners, but asymmetric interactions where one species benefits at the cost of another are puzzling. Why don’t exploited species go extinct? We propose a new general mechanism, ‘resilience’- traits that mitigate costs for an exploited species simultaneously prevent their escape from exploitation (by weakening selection for counteradaptations). Critically, ‘resilience’ traits improve the fitness of both exploiter and exploitee, making ‘resilient species’ ideal candidates for exploitation. New Zealand’s sexually deceptive Tongue orchids fool male insects into mating with and wasting sperm while pollinating flowers. Despite imposing extreme costs, Tongue orchids still achieve exceptional pollination rates. We’ve identified a possible resilience trait, haplodiploidy, in >95% of sexually deceived pollinator species worldwide. Haplodiploid females deprived of sperm can still reproduce, albeit all sons, in turn potentially boosting orchid pollination and fitness.
We will quantify, for the first time, pollinator costs and counteradaptations to sexual deception at individual, population, and species levels. We’ll use a large, phylogenetically-controlled international analysis of pollinator traits and orchid fitness, and mathematical modelling to test our new ‘resilience’ hypothesis. Our robust approach integrates big evolutionary hypotheses, field ecology, charismatic native species and modelling to authenticate a novel and widely applicable theory.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr AC Gaskett
Panel: EEB
Project ID: 16-UOA-321
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2009
Title: Why Europe? European expansion, industrialisation, and divergence, 1500-2000
Recipient(s): Professor JC Belich | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Public Summary: Macro-historians currently contest the issue of Europe’s “great divergence” from the rest of the world. One school diminishes or even denies the divergence. Another still asserts, even celebrates, the divergence, tracing it to cultural and/or institutional factors dating back 500 to 2000 years. My most recent book (Replenishing the Earth) engages with aspects of this debate. This new project plunges to the heart of it, and would produce a fresh interpretation of European divergence that avoids both celebration and denial. It would crown my career-long efforts to engage New Zealand history with the cutting edge of international scholarship.
Total Awarded: $746,667
Duration: 3
Host: Victoria University of Wellington
Contact Person: Professor JC Belich
Panel: HUM
Project ID: 09-VUW-099
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2016
Title: Why fly when you can walk? Genetic pathways to flightlessness
Recipient(s): Dr GC Gibb | PI | Massey University
Professor SA Trewick | AI | Massey University
Public Summary: Why, when most birds are characterized by their ability to fly, do some become flightless? Flying costs energy, so if you don't have to fly, why bother? Within the rail family flightlessness has evolved on several independent lineages. The ecological and physical differences between related flightless and flighted birds are well studied, and we can explore these differences in detail in closely related species. We now have emerging molecular tools with which we can investigate the underlying genetic mechanisms involved in the pathways to flightlessness.
Exploiting comparative genomics to identify key genetic loci we will investigate the way developmental genes influence major morphological and behavioural outcomes in nature. We can now apply this system to examine the link between genotype (molecules) and phenotype (morphology) with naturally occurring biological replicates. This research will enhance our understanding of many important genetic pathways, including limb development, reproductive capacity, immunology and metabolism. The knowledge we gain from this unique system of birds will have application in many other species. Our research will provide new insight into the molecular underpinnings of a profound ecological shift.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: Massey University
Contact Person: Dr GC Gibb
Panel: CMP
Project ID: 16-MAU-107
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2009
Title: Why is the most abundant enzyme in the world lacking specificity?
Recipient(s): Dr FG Pearce | PI | University of Canterbury
Professor I Andersson | AI | Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Professor JA Gerrard | AI | University of Canterbury
Public Summary: Rubisco is the most abundant enzyme in the world, with an estimated 5-10 kg Rubisco for every person on Earth. It is also one of the most important enzymes in the world, converting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into organic compounds. Yet it is a notoriously slow and inefficient enzyme, due to difficulty distinguishing between carbon dioxide and oxygen. With increased interest in climate change, understanding how Rubisco fixes carbon is of critical importance. Our research will investigate the role of protein dynamics in determining enzyme efficiency, and will extend the studies to enzymes from seaweed and plankton.
Total Awarded: $266,667
Duration: 3
Host: University of Canterbury
Contact Person: Dr FG Pearce
Panel: CMP
Project ID: 09-UOC-076
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2010
Title: Why the world does not look flat to Cyclops and one-eyed pirates: The role of visual motion in human depth perception
Recipient(s): Assoc Prof J Perrone | PI | University of Waikato
Assoc Prof RJ Krauzlis | PI | Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Dr LS Stone | PI | NASA Ames Research Center
Public Summary: The recent revival in stereoscopic (3-D) movies (e.g., Avatar) has enabled many people to experience the illusion of three-dimensional depth created from pairs of flat two-dimensional (2-D) images. Special glasses transform the flat images on the screen into ‘3-D’ so that the depicted world appears in front of and behind the screen. This raises the question as to why moviegoers and TV viewers are happy to watch regular 2-D movies and TV. If the on-screen scenes simply look like flat shapes with no depth, why do people keep watching 2-D movies? The reason is that stereoscopic cues are not essential; the human brain is able to recover a sense of depth from flat 2-D images by using visual motion information. It has long been known that visual motion can help create an illusion of depth, but the specific brain mechanisms that enable this to happen remain unknown. In this project we will develop and test a new theory of depth-from-motion estimation in humans. As well as answering an age-old question concerning a key brain function we also hope to provide guidance to engineers who are trying to recreate human depth perception in single-camera robot-vision systems.
Total Awarded: $651,355
Duration: 3
Host: University of Waikato
Contact Person: Assoc Prof J Perrone
Panel: EHB
Project ID: 10-UOW-016
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2015
Title: Widely-tunable optical microresonator parametric oscillators.
Recipient(s): Dr SG Murdoch | PI | The University of Auckland
Public Summary: We propose a new class of ultra-compact tunable optical source capable of wide-band wavelength tunability. Using an optical microresonator, new optical frequencies can be generated at unprecedentedly low power levels through the nonlinear process of optical parametric oscillation. By harnessing techniques borrowed directly from nonlinear fiber optics, precise control over these new frequencies is possible. Our primary goal is the first experimental demonstration of a widely-tunable microresonator parametric oscillator. Further work will extend the operating range of these oscillators into the visible and critically important mid-IR molecular fingerprint region. Through experiment and theory we will explore the fundamental limits to the performance and tunability of these devices. To demonstrate the competitiveness of these sources in practical applications, trace-level gas detection of methane and carbon-dioxide will be demonstrated using a microresonator oscillator to directly interrogate their strong mid-IR resonances. With on-chip photonic integration of microresonator devices already a reality, this new type of widely tunable coherent light source has the potential to trigger an explosion of new applications in areas where the current day alternatives are simple too big and too expensive.
Total Awarded: $760,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr SG Murdoch
Panel: EIS
Project ID: 15-UOA-295