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Search Marsden awards 2008–2017

Search awarded Marsden Fund grants 2008–2017

Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2013

Title: Untangling genes and culture: sex-based song traditions in New Zealand bellbirds

Recipient(s): Professor DH Brunton | PI | Massey University
Dr SM Baillie | AI | Dalhousie University
Dr ML Hall | AI | University of Melbourne
Dr NE Langmore | AI | Australian National University
Dr L Ortiz-Catedral | AI | Massey University
Dr KA Parker | AI | Massey University

Public Summary: One of the most intriguing features of songbirds is their immense song diversity. Bird song is a form of culture; birds learn song components from the songs of parents and neighbours. These cultural units are known as memes and are analogous to genes. How rapidly do memes change and where do they come from? When do young birds learn memes? Bird song dialects have proven to be excellent models for testing cultural evolution theory, as song has evolved due to a range of genetic and cultural influences. The northern New Zealand bellbird meta-population provides a model that will enable us to quantify genetic and cultural contributions to song diversity. Male and female bellbirds sing different repertoires of complex songs but, within a population, share the same genetic history and environmental conditions. We will examine the origins and stability of song diversity using an evolutionary approach. We hypothesise that memes are transferred intra-sexually via learning. Most significantly, bellbird females disperse between populations more frequently than males, thus, the sexes will have independently evolving song diversity. This provides us with the unique opportunity to understand the dynamics of avian cultural change, how dispersal influences song diversity, and how song dialects evolve.

Total Awarded: $826,087

Duration: 3

Host: Massey University

Contact Person: Professor DH Brunton

Panel: EEB

Project ID: 13-MAU-004


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2009

Title: Ups and downs of subduction

Recipient(s): Professor TA Stern | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Dr SH Lamb | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Associate Professor L Moresi | AI | Monash University

Public Summary: We will determine the contribution of a new mechanism for uplift of the Earth's surface, exploiting particular unique characteristics of the New Zealand subduction plate boundary. We will determine the stresses at the plate interface that might drive uplift, using the lithosphere (imaged in new high quality seismic data) as a pressure gauge - providing insights into the relative potential for great plate interface earthquakes along the margin. We will then image postulated flow instabilities in the fluid mantle beneath the central North Island, which may be even more important, driving rapid uplift and back-arc rifting by releasing gravitational potential.

Total Awarded: $653,333

Duration: 3

Host: Victoria University of Wellington

Contact Person: Professor TA Stern

Panel: ESA

Project ID: 09-VUW-168


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Fast-Start

Year Awarded: 2011

Title: Urbanising sustainability: everyday encounters of risk, justice and nature

Recipient(s): Dr SA Vallance | PI | Lincoln University
Associate Professor A Dupuis | AI | Massey University
Professor Sir DC Thorns | AI | University of Canterbury

Public Summary: Critics warn that, despite its benign connotations, ‘urban sustainability’ has been reduced to an expert-driven, technological exercise that privileges a narrow set of interests, and directs attention away from important social issues. Alternatives are needed that recognise the everyday ways in which the city’s inhabitants encounter and understand risk, justice and nature in distinctly urban contexts. Our research will explore how grassroots movements ‘do’ sustainability by comparing and contrasting two different case studies; a Canterbury earthquake recovery group that specialises in temporary installations, and an alternative food network based on homekill. We will adopt an action research model invoking the ‘citizen-scholar’ who both participates in, and shapes, the social movements they study. Having attained a rich understanding of these citizen’s initiatives we will be able to situate their less orthodox, but more lively, sustainabilties at the forefront of debates about urban processes, the co-production of cities, emergent roles for planners, and enhanced liveability for human (and non-human) residents. Our research will make a positive contribution to progressive urban management and planning, and restore New Zealand’s reputation as an innovator in the field of sustainability.

Total Awarded: $300,000

Duration: 3

Host: Lincoln University

Contact Person: Dr SA Vallance

Panel: SOC

Project ID: 11-LIU-007


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2014

Title: Use it or lose it: unravelling the genetic basis of flight-loss in New Zealand's alpine insects

Recipient(s): Professor JM Waters | PI | University of Otago
Associate Professor PK Dearden | AI | University of Otago

Public Summary: Evolution in reverse - the 'use it or lose it' principle - underpins much of the world's biological diversity, yet we know little about the genetic mechanisms underlying this key process. NZ's alpine habitats support a host of recently-evolved flightless insect lineages, providing a unique system for understanding how animals respond rapidly to new conditions. In particular, our extraordinary diversity of wing-reduced alpine stoneflies represents a natural laboratory for understanding how species form. We will use genomic techniques to test for 'speciation genes': the genetic changes that cause repeated losses of flight in high-altitude populations. We will also undertake comparative studies of winged and wingless species to help understand the biological consequences of flight loss.

Total Awarded: $808,000

Duration: 3

Host: University of Otago

Contact Person: Professor JM Waters

Panel: EEB

Project ID: 14-UOO-260


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2013

Title: Using interaction networks to explain invasion success and community dominance: wasps in an old and new world

Recipient(s): Professor PJ Lester | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Dr JC Corley | AI | INTA EEA Bariloche
Mr L Dvorak | AI | Mestske muzeum Marianske Lazne
Dr MAM Gruber | AI | Victoria University of Wellington
Dr J Haywood | AI | Victoria University of Wellington
Professor T Wenseleers | AI | University of Leuven

Public Summary: A new paradigm is emerging in population ecology. This paradigm predicts that species abundance and dominance is a product of complex ecological interaction networks. Thus, for an exotic species, an understanding of the entire ecological interaction network in its new range, relative to its home range, is required to explain its invasiveness and deleterious impacts. We will test the hypothesis that a complex interplay between a diversity of pathogens, parasites, prey and competitors determines the variation in abundance and dominance of the globally invasive wasp Vespula vulgaris. We will examine how interaction networks vary within and between the native and invaded ranges, and among groups of nests displaying low and high fitness. To analyse differences in networks we will use a state-of-the-art Molecular Ecological Network Analysis Pipeline. Variation in the entire ecological network will be related to the expenditure of immune defences in the native and invasive ranges of these wasps, enabling us to test the Evolution of Increased Competitive Ability hypothesis. Understanding ecological networks and their complexity is critical for identifying the mechanisms that facilitate invasiveness and is essential for mediating the impacts of exotic species on biodiversity. This work is central to biological control and biological invasion theory.

Total Awarded: $826,087

Duration: 3

Host: Victoria University of Wellington

Contact Person: Professor PJ Lester

Panel: EEB

Project ID: 13-VUW-037


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2016

Title: Using New Zealand's divaricate plants to test a new hypothesis about the evolution of anti-browsing defences

Recipient(s): Dr CH Lusk | PI | University of Waikato
Associate Professor DC Laughlin | AI | University of Waikato
Dr RD Smissen | AI | Landcare Research
Dr AJ Tanentzap | AI | University of Cambridge
Dr SK Wiser | AI | Landcare Research

Public Summary: The divaricate form of many New Zealand plants is widely thought to have evolved as a defence against avian browsing. However, the association of divaricate plants with fertile alluvial sites is at odds with the influential hypothesis that selection for anti-herbivore defences should be strongest in resource-poor environments. We will use divaricate plants and their broadleaved congeners as our main model system for understanding the evolution of anti-browsing defences, combining experiments, environmental modelling and molecular systematics, supported by global meta-analysis. We hypothesize that anti-browsing defences are of most value to juvenile trees in habitats where fertile soils coincide with climatic constraints that prevent plants from quickly growing out of the reach of ground-dwelling herbivores. Our study has the potential to resolve the longest-running controversy in New Zealand plant ecology, reconciling the climatic and moa-browsing hypotheses around which debate has been polarized. Resolving this controversy is vital for understanding the status of divaricate plants in contemporary New Zealand, and for predicting the likely impact of browsing mammals and climate change on their future abundance and distribution. Furthermore, rather than being a local anomaly, New Zealand’s divaricate plants may point the way to a better global theory of plant anti-herbivore defences.

Total Awarded: $830,000

Duration: 3

Host: University of Waikato

Contact Person: Dr CH Lusk

Panel: EEB

Project ID: 16-UOW-029


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Fast-Start

Year Awarded: 2017

Title: Using synthetic communities to visualise bacterial plant leaf community development and pathogen invasion processes at the single-cell resolution

Recipient(s): Dr MNP Remus-Emsermann | PI | University of Canterbury
Dr VM Nock | AI | University of Canterbury

Public Summary: The ecological drivers impacting community development and bacterial infection of plants are largely unknown. Plant leaves are excellent systems to study these drivers: most leaf colonising bacteria can be cultured and can be inoculated onto germfree, laboratory-grown plants. When the bacteria carry fluorescent proteins they can be visualised on leaves, in real-time, using microscopy. This is facilitated by the flatness of leaves, although leaves have a significant topography at the microscale. To build a predictive understanding of colonisation processes on leaves, we propose using “synthetic” bacterial communities to investigate spatial community development and early stages of infection in planta. To do so, we will investigate 1) how overlap in nutrient utilisation between bacteria impacts community spatial structure and 2) how community structure impacts on secondary colonisation success. Furthermore, we will 3) unravel the impact of the host plant on bacterial communities by using artificial copies of the leaf surface topography. This will unveil if leaf topography alone is sufficient to drive community development or if plant exudates determine what is colonising leaf surfaces and where.
This project will deliver comprehensive insights into how bacteria colonise plant leaves and how plants impact on community spatial structure.

Total Awarded: $300,000

Duration: 3

Host: University of Canterbury

Contact Person: Dr MNP Remus-Emsermann

Panel: EEB

Project ID: 17-UOC-057


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2013

Title: Using the world's most rapidly slipping normal fault to understand the mechanics of low-angle normal faults and the dynamics of continental extension

Recipient(s): Professor TA Little | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Professor D Seward | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Professor SL Baldwin | AI | Syracuse University
Ms CJ Boulton | AI | University of Canterbury
Dr S Ellis | AI | GNS Science
Professor L Lavier | AI | The University of Texas at Austin
Dr K Norton | AI | Victoria University of Wellington
Dr DF Stockli | AI | The University of Texas
Dr L Wallace | AI | The University of Texas at Austin

Public Summary: Rock friction experiments predict that normal faults should form at dips (inclinations) of ~60° and that they should stop slipping at <~30°, a prediction that is supported by the global rarity of low-angle normal fault earthquakes. And yet low-angle normal faults (LANFs) are common in the ancient rock record. To solve the mystery of LANF’s, we propose to study the best-exposed and fastest slipping of the few active examples known to exist on Earth: the Maiu'iu Fault in the Woodlark Rift of Papua New Guinea. The smooth, domal and little-eroded plane of this fault is exposed in the landscape for >20 km. We will test three hypotheses: (1) that slip can occur at cm/year rates on a LANF because of weak rock friction; (2) that such slip is not observed seismologically because it occurs by aseismic creeping; and (3) that normal faults on the continents can acquire large displacements through the rolling hinge evolutionary process. These tests will be accomplished using field and experimental structural geology, GPS geodesy, low-temperature thermochronology, cosmogenic radionuclide dating, and geodynamical modelling. We aim to provide new constraints on the strength and seismogenic potential of major faults and rifted continental crust.

Total Awarded: $739,130

Duration: 3

Host: Victoria University of Wellington

Contact Person: Professor TA Little

Panel: ESA

Project ID: 13-VUW-010


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Fast-Start

Year Awarded: 2013

Title: UV-B radiation as a master regulator of photosynthetic performance and leaf organ development in sunlight

Recipient(s): Dr JJ Wargent | PI | Massey University
Professor GI Jenkins | AI | University of Glasgow

Public Summary: Biological organisms depend upon regulatory cues to adapt and survive in changing environments, and are highly perceptive to such signals. Ultraviolet (UV) radiation is one of the most energetic of informational cues, yet we still know comparatively little about how higher plants respond to UV. The perception of UV radiation as a negative influence on the health of biological systems led to previous reports that UV radiation may damage photosynthetic apparatus of plants. We have shown recently that contrary to this dogma, UV radiation can actually enhance photosynthetic competency. Specifically, we have demonstrated in two model systems that UV may represent an important driver of plant productivity, a strategy we believe orchestrates leaf development in sunlight, yet the underlying mechanisms have not been characterised. We also now hold strong evidence regarding the likely players which underpin such fascinating biological responses. In this study, we will develop this paradigm shift in plant biology by using molecular and physiological approaches to build a contemporary framework which describes the regulatory effects of UV signalling processes upon photosynthetic function and plant development. From a unique collaborative programme of research, our study will provide a detailed understanding of why plants actually thrive on ultraviolet.

Total Awarded: $300,000

Duration: 3

Host: Massey University

Contact Person: Dr JJ Wargent

Panel: CMP

Project ID: 13-MAU-134


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Fast-Start

Year Awarded: 2008

Title: Venture capitalists and intellectual property

Recipient(s): Dr S Lippert | PI | Massey University
Dr N Erkal | AI | University of Melbourne
Dr S Fabrizi | AI | Massey University

Public Summary: Venture capitalists (VCs) often finance early stage innovations which are too preliminary for patent protection, and are kept secret instead. This secrecy provides VCs with an information advantage, inducing stronger incentives for them to invest into innovations than for traditional players. Therefore, the common wisdom suggesting that better intellectual property (IP) protection fosters innovation may be wrong, implying that policy-making could benefit from economic research on the link between IP protection and VC financing. Hence, we propose to use economic modelling to investigate this link and to test our predictions empirically, aiming at sound theory-based policy recommendations for fostering innovation.

Total Awarded: $261,107

Duration: 3

Host: Massey University

Contact Person: Dr S Lippert

Panel: EHB

Project ID: 08-MAU-088


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