Marine biology
Research leaders in marine science
The University of Adelaide marine biology program produces outstanding research of our oceans, and leads the way in South Australia for students to pursue a career in science and marine ecosystems.
Our unique coast
The world's longest east-west coastline runs through South Australia and is a global hotspot for marine biodiversity.
Our students swim with some of the planets amazing creatures; from sea dragons to spawning aggregations of giant-cuttlefish, to singing whales and playful seals and dolphins.
Southern seas
The Southern Ocean controls world climate.
The Southern Ocean shapes our extensive rocky cliffs and sandy beaches and is contrasted by gulfs that provide shelter for creatures dependent on mangroves, saltmarsh and mudflats.
Image: Torrens Island saltmarsh by Alice Jones
Creatures
Our coasts contain an astonishing variety of creatures - we find up to 300 species of invertebrates (small 'insect-like' animals) in the holdfasts of kelp the size of your fist!
This gives us a remarkable opportunity to test and provide solutions to some of the world's most important ideas about global biodiversity.
Image: An olive sea snake (Aipysurus laevis) swimming underwater, by Graham Edgar
Our laboratories
Our labs are in Adelaide, home to the southern coast-line of Australia.
This coast faces the Southern Ocean and is home to the Great Australian Bight - which has 120 islands, two massive gulfs, and an astonishing diversity of marine life, including more species of marine plants than all the world's species of corals.
Image: Underwater diving photo by Alice Jones
Research strengths
Our team of marine scientists lead global research, partnerships and industry collaborations that explore how marine life responds to ocean change.
Research that forecasts future habitats
Our scientists are at the forefront of research on the impact of climate change to our marine environments. We use projected estimates of climate change – such as ocean acidification and temperature - as modified by local management – i.e. fishing and pollution.
One of our key concerns, is the rate of current change. Even if we maintain CO2 emissions at current levels - an unlikely scenario - CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere will increase by over 50 per cent in coming years. This increase will cause ocean acidification as more CO2 is dissolved into the world's oceans.
Our ongoing research uses combination of laboratory and field techniques. Lab studies can be carefully controlled, but the range of ecological interactions is quite limited. Conversely, field studies benefit from interactions within a natural community, but spatial and temporal variation in climate parameters do not behave exactly the same as future ocean conditions. Combining both approaches provide us with key learnings that help forecast future marine habitats.
Recovering lost baselines
Managing natural systems without knowledge of their previous state is like navigating without a map. The power of such research on policy development is hard to overstate.
Disappearing oyster reefs
Two hundred years ago our coast was an oyster reef. Due to population growth of coastal settlements in Australia, our scientists have been able to evaluate the collapse and elimination of native oyster reefs.
What did these reefs once provide nature? Our research explores the restoration of these environments and the food and habitat potential of these reefs for increased fish productivity and filtration capacity for clear coastal waters.
- Losing oyster reefs to history: Using the past to restore reefs for the future, eScience
- Losing an ecological baseline through the eradication of oyster reefs from coastal ecosystems and human memory, Conservation Biology
Poleward movements
Our research has discovered that seaweeds have been moving polewards for a long time. Our scientists have shown that continued warming may drive hundreds of species toward and beyond the edge of the Australian continent where sustained retreat is impossible. The potential for global extinctions is profound considering the many endemic seaweeds and seaweed-dependent marine organisms in temperate Australia.
- Seaweed communities in retreat from ocean warming, Current Biology
Urban kelp forests
Thirty years ago, we had 'urban' kelp forests. Our recovery of the urban kelp baseline has enabled cross-government consensus on the need to improve water quality.
Previously, the absence of urban kelp was argued to be natural and water improvement unnecessary. South Australia now aims to reduce its release of nitrogen to our urban coast by 75 per cent.
- Recovering a lost baseline: missing kelp forests from a metropolitan coast, Marine Ecology Progress Series
- The past and future ecologies of Australasian kelp forests
Oysters are ecological superheroes
Oyster reefs fringed Australia’s shorelines and shaped our marine ecosystems for millennia.
These reefs can increase the abundance and diversity marine organisms through the habitat they create. Restoring our lost oyster reefs can not only help the environment, but strengthen commercial and recreational fishing, and increase tourism for coastal communities.
Oysters have a phenomenal ability to improve local water quality and decrease water turbidity, which allows sunlight to penetrate to the seafloor to enhances seagrass growth. Oysters also filter excess nutrients from the water which result from urban runoff, which helps avoid environmental catastrophes such as Algae blooms.
Their structures can reduce coastal erosion by attenuating wave energy; and their shell building can provide a carbon sink, helping to slow the rate of climate change.
The role of oysters as ecosystem engineers is not dissimilar to the role of trees on land or coral reefs in tropical seas. In fact, oyster reefs are often considered the temperate equivalent of coral reefs.
Two hundred years ago, more than 1500 kilometres of South Australian coastline was covered in oyster reefs teeming with fish and home to thousands of marine species.
Today, oyster reefs in Australia are at less than one percent of their pre-colonial extent, and South Australia's native flat oyster (Ostrea angasi), is all but eradicated.
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Reef restoration
Our scientists are working with industry, government and the community on the largest oyster reef restoration project in the southern hemisphere.
In the coastal waters of Gulf St Vincent, one kilometre offshore from Ardrossan on the Yorke Peninsula, a 20-hectare oyster reef has been built where historic reefs once thrived.
This is a pioneering project that aims to provide the blueprint for future restorations around Australia and the world.University of Adelaide scientists are conducting research to understand the threats posed to oyster restoration, and how we can maximise the survivorship, growth and recruitment of oysters over time.
- Huge restored reef aims to bring South Australia’s oysters back from the brink
- Oyster reef restoration project, Environment Institute blog
Key partners
- Environment Institute
- Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources
- The Nature Conservancy
- The Ian Potter Foundation
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Turning the tide on our lost oyster reefs
We are investigating multiple life stages of our native flat oyster in order to maximise the growth and performance of the restored reef over time. Other research priorities include quantifying the environmental and socio-economic benefits of oyster reef restoration and investigating how these oysters will perform in under future ocean conditions.
Oysters face many contemporary stressors in the wild, including predation, habitat suitability, food availability and a warming and increasingly acidic ocean.
Immediate research priorities include an improved understanding of the flat oyster’s reproductive timing, including the identification of peak spawning and recruitment periods throughout the year. We are also determining the preferred substrate and environmental conditions that encourage flat oyster recruitment, allowing us to maximise the recruitment of baby oysters to the restored reef.
Quantifying the benefits of oyster restoration is a major research priority so we can advocate for future restoration projects. The production of fish, the water-cleaning capacity, and the enhancement of biodiversity by the oyster habitat will be quantified as the reef develops.
Image: Shannon Lauchlan
Study marine biology
Students will have access to staff who are nationally and internationally acclaimed for research excellence.
There is a strong emphasis on providing students with field experience, and the use of the same equipment that is used in pioneering research across the northern and southern hemispheres.
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Bachelor of Marine and Wildlife Conservation
Marine biology is all about the largest and most diverse ecosystem on the planet - the sea.
Our undergraduate program prepares graduates for careers in marine biology via training in the use of coherent, logical procedures and rigorous experimental planning for practical work in the field and laboratory.
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Honours in marine biology and ecology
Extend your marine biology skills and knowledge through a one-year honours research project in ecology, environmental science, evolution or palaeobiology.
Our researchers also offer projects in science communication, a less research intensive honours program which prepares you for a science career by building wider professional skills.
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Postgraduate and higher degree research
Want to be involved? Looking for a cutting-edge research project? Our marine biology research precinct is a hub of thriving MPhil and PhD students.
Whether you are interested in field work, diving research, running laboratory experiments, or don’t want to get your hands wet at all, our diverse research opportunities cater for all student preferences.
A research degree can help advance your career, change direction or improve your employment prospects by elevating your qualifications, enhancing your skills and building your knowledge base.
Environmental benefits of oyster restoration
Evaluation of the environmental and economic benefits of a restored oyster reef is critical to the success of the Ardrossan restoration project. Oyster reefs provide a broad diversity of important ecosystem services, including: increasing regional biodiversity by providing habitat to numerous other animals, boosting the production of baby fish, and cleaning coastal waters via their filter-feeding of excess nutrients from the water column.
We are looking for a team of students to run research projects that quantify these numerous ecosystem services. Such research will help advocate for future restoration projects both in Australia and abroad.
Contact: Dominic Mcafee
Increasing the oyster reef’s performance and climate resilience
To ensure the successful restoration of our native oysters we need to understand the complex life-history of oysters, and how each life-event will perform as our ocean changes. The world-leading aquarium facilities at the University of Adelaide allows researchers to simulate future ocean conditions so we can anticipate how these oysters will response to increasing temperature and ocean acidification. Understanding the important environmental cues that oyster spat use to choose their settlement location will allow us to not only maximise the recruitment of wild oyster spat, but also develop techniques to enhance the settlement signals over time.
Research projects can be tailored around laboratory and/or manipulative field experiments to develop our knowledge in this exciting field.
Contact: Dominic Mcafee
Artificial oyster reef habitat units
Four different habitat units were specially designed for deployment with the Ardrossan oyster restoration. Produced by Reef Design Lab in Melbourne, these structures have been specifically designed to enhance the recruitment and survivorship of oysters on the reef. Artificial habitat creation is an ever-increasing technique for habitat restoration, and these organic designs are at the cutting edge of the movement.
We are looking for research students to lead the investigation of how these different designs influence the recruitment of biodiversity.
Contact: Dominic Mcafee
Spencer Gulf Ecosystem and Development Initiative (SGEDI)
The initiative sets out to drive sound outcomes for all gulf users and the environment. It is supported with investment from both industry and government, as well as through research institutions.
This project will provide an assessment of the socio-economic status of the ecosystems, industries and communities of Spencer Gulf. The ecological, economic and social indicators established can be used to evaluate the benefits and impacts of current and future activities within and around the gulf. Research projects can be tailored around laboratory and/or manipulative field experiments to develop our knowledge in this exciting field.
Research projects can be tailored around laboratory and/or manipulative field experiments to develop our knowledge in this exciting field.
Contact: Dominic Mcafee
Help nature fight back!
This project explores how nature stabilises itself when disturbed. The premise is ‘for every action, there is an equal (in size) and opposite (in direction)’.
You will be working with disturbances, such as ocean acidification, which causes weedy species to displace kelp forests. The opposing force is the effect of herbivores that consume the weedy species at the same speed they expand. This is a new and important theory - compensatory effects - that will provide you with strong skills in science and applied science.Contact: Sean Connell
Restoring nature: artificial reefs and oyster reef restoration
This project works with government to identify how and where to restore South Australia's coastal biodiversity using artificial reefs. An interest in field-work and issues facing management and society would be beneficial. Being willing to meet and talk with policy makers, NGOs and the general public would be important for some projects.
Contact: Sean Connell
Adventures: combine field and intellectual adventures into one
Do you want to spend time on the coast or use your snorkelling skills? If so, let’s talk about your favourite animals and locations and work up a project around your strengths. About half of my 80+ postgraduate students have graduated to jobs by following their passion for adventure.
Contact: Sean Connell
Climate change effects on marine ecosystems
Multiple projects and opportunities are available to work on climate change effects on marine ecosystems. While the focus is on fishes, research includes the interactions with other species as well as habitats. Advanced field as well as lab experiments are possible, focussing on a variety of important species, such as barramundi, snapper and mulloway. The overall focus of the research is to understand and better predict the long-term impacts of global change on population viability of coastal species and functioning of coastal ecosystems.
Contact: Ivan Nagelkerken
Sensory ecology
The majority of marine species have a two-phase life cycle, one of which is an oceanic larval phase. Larvae possess excellent navigational capabilities and can have a large influence on where they end up after settlement.
Several projects are available that will investigate adaptive larval behaviour of coastal fish species to olfactory and sound cues from coastal habitats such as rocky reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds and kelp.
Projects focus on trying to understand how pelagic marine larvae have evolved to respond to conflicting habitat cues or have adopted a hierarchical response to different cues at different threshold levels or concentrations. Projects could also focus on how human deterioration of coastal habitats may affect settlement of marine larvae, e.g. on the effects of anthropogenic sound sources on hearing and on the effects of coastal water quality on essential olfactory cues.
Contact: Ivan Nagelkerken
Nursery function
Mangrove and seagrass ecosystems have long been recognised for their nursery role for a variety of coastal fish and crustacean species. Many of these species are of commercial importance or perform important ecological roles, such as parrotfish grazing on coral reefs.
Projects are available to study the underlying mechanisms of nursery habitat use specifically or take a broader perspective approach by studying the ecological effects on recipient ecosystems, for example, on how nursery-to-reef subsidies by fish alter food-web dynamics, fisheries production, and resilience of recipient systems.
Contact: Ivan Nagelkerken
Our people
We love research and joining with groups across the globe to solve some of the most pressing issues facing our ocean's life. We have changed the way research is done in our fields of climate change, fisheries biology, and conservation. Our teams are led by:
Marine biology news
Faculty of Sciences' blog
Episode 4, In Their Element Podcast Meet science graduate Jacob Maher, who was sure his career was going to be finding out who's who in the zoo, but graduated with a passion for all things nature.
Environment Institute blog
VIDEO: Research Tuesdays Lecture Series – Reefs Awakened
Over the past two centuries, oyster reefs that were once active and effective underwater metropolises crucial to our marine ecosystems, have become almost abandoned in Australia with over 99% of these reefs completely degraded. However, thanks to our researchers, our coastlines are undergoing a revival. In a creative and innovative experiment, our ecological experts utilised …
Art competition celebrates marine life education
Winners have been announced in a state-wide school art competition aimed at increasing young people’s knowledge of South Australian marine life and Australian Marine Parks. The students were inspired to create their art following a University of Adelaide organised roadshow. The overall winner, Bella from Kangaroo Island, won a family pass for the ocean experience …