Dale Roberts
I have broad research interests ranging from sexual selection through biogeography to conservation biology. What is the common theme? Conservation biology is about the recognition and maintenance of biodiversity at all levels, biogeographic studies give me a current and historical perspective on the distribution of diversity and the interest in sexual selection gives me a set of mechanisms to analyses diversity in and the evolution of mating systems and the implications for speciation and the generation of diversity. I have current funding from the Australian Research Council with Discovery and Linkage grants, the Swan Catchment Council and the WA state Government with the Perth Zoo. I am currently supervising or co-supervising 8 Ph D students working on projects ranging from intraspecific divergence within frog species from southwestern Australia to predictive conservation modelling of mallee fowl distributions using GIS techniques.
My personal research activity focuses on three areas: |
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| EVOLUTION OF THE AUSTRALIAN FROG FAUNA | I am working with Scott Keogh and Phil Byrne to generate a phylogeny of Australian Myobatrachid frogs based on a combination of nuclear and mitochondrial markers. This phylogeny will then be used in several contexts: to generate a global and Australian perspective on the spatial and temporal evolution of this frog fauna, and, in a series of comparative analyses - evolution of life history strategies; patterns of call structure evolution, evolution of sexual size dimorphism and just about anything else we can think of! This work was funded by an ARC Discovery grant to Keogh, Roberts & Byrne. |
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| SEXUAL SELECTION IN AUSTRALIAN FROGS | I have a focus on sperm competition and the evolution of testis and ejaculate properties, in Australian frogs. The bulk of work is on Crinia georgiana, where we have a very good understanding of mating system function and life history evolution. This project is being conducted with Leigh Simmons (ARC Federation Fellow) and Martin Dziminski (Post-Doctoral fellow). I am also interested in how call complexity relates to the occurrence of sperm competition. Our earlier work on testis evolution suggests the Australian “tree” frogs do not show any relationships between testis mass and risk of sperm competition, suggesting that call complexity, common in this group, might be an important factor. I am currently working with Paul Doughty from the WA Museum looking at call structures in ground hylids from northern Australia as a first step in this process. |
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| CONSERVATION BIOLOGY AND BIODIVERSITY | I am involved in four main areas: A collaborative project with the Perth Zoo looking at improving breeding techniques in captive frogs, borrowing from our understandings of sperm and male quality, and our understanding of investment in egg quality, to maximise the quality of gametes collected in captive breeding programs. This project is also investigating hormonal control of egg and sperm release to optimise non-invasive collection technique for both; A program on urban bird ecology aimed at understanding the role of historical processes, vegetation linkages and the quality of the urban matrix in predicting bird occurrences. This work is funded by the Swan Catchment Council and run by Rob Davis, a postdoctoral fellow; I am also a partner on an ARC Linkage Grant with Dr Grant Morahan at the WA Institute of Medical Research aimed at developing tools for sequencing the cane toad and other frog genomes to develop toad specific markers for future genetic control of this invasive species; Finally, a project on the taxonomy of Kimberley and northern Australian frogs, and the frogs in the genus Uperoleia with Scott Keogh and Paul Doughty. |
Current Ph D students
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