Research Projects
Project 2016002 - Protecting our chemicals for the future through accelerated adoption of best management practice (Old ID 23149)
A collaborative project with Sugar Research Australia to identify appropriate management strategies for pesticides to maximise efficacy while minimising pesticide losses off-farm. Key JCU-TropWATER roles in project include: 1. Expert interpretation of water quality data sets generated through rainfall simulation and other water quality monitoring activities. 2. Advice on experimental design and planning 3. Assistance in running rainfall simulation and water quality monitoring activities as required. 4. Assistance in communication of results and water quality issues, including presentation and discussion with growers.
PROVISION OF TRAINING SERVICES FOR AQUACULTURE FARMS FOR TWO YEARS
The Singapore Food Agency (or “SFA”) is inviting suppliers for proposals on the provision of training services to aquaculture (i.e. food fish) farms in Singapore to enhance farmers’ capability and skills on farm management and good aquaculture practices. To contribute to Singapore’s Aquaculture Plan, farms will need guidance to mitigate the increased risk of diseases as they intensify production on limited space. The services shall be provided over a period of 2 years.
She Flies Drone Camps: Building Northern Australia's Drone Ecosystem (Old ID 23163)
She Flies is a comprehensive and multidisciplinary programme across Northern Australia. While the She Flies brand will cover a range of national initiatives (http://www.sheflies.com.au), this particular application for funding will focus on the She Flies Drone Camps. This is a series of week-long camps aimed at teaching Northern Australian high school girls and their teachers or parents the possibilities of working with, and flying drones. From design and construction through to flying and finally using photography to create maps, She Flies Drone Camp will be hands on, practical, fun and safe. Importantly, it will also provide a career path opportunity that many young women probably never realised existed. With initial estimates suggesting that fewer than 1% of drone pilots in Australia are female, we need to encourage young women into this technology and its associated spatial sciences. This will ensure equity and diversity across the industry going forwards.
Combating antibiotic-resistant infections using a health system approach (Old ID 23169)
The march of antibiotic resistance across the globe is leading to what many are calling the “post-antibiotic era”. This puts a massive, preventable burden both on patients and Queensland’s health system, costing millions of dollars each year. North Queensland is geographically vulnerable to emerging infectious diseases, located at the tropical Indo- Pacific gateway, with the highest rates of resistant tuberculosis, and incursions of dengue virus, for example. This project will generate an evidence base for cost and risks of infectious diseases in North Queensland; by linking several health system datasets, to synthesise prospective and retrospective cohorts. Professorial and Infectious Diseases Units at TTH are co-investigators of the project investing personnel to perform the research. Further, TTH infection control and executive policy-makers are the target end-user for translation of the research.
SeaToMeat - Optimizing Seaweed Proteins to Cultivate Meat
The SeaToMeat (Optimizing Seaweed Proteins to Cultivated Meat) project aims to tackle challenges of the growing cultivated
meat industry by generating lower-cost, high-performance hydrolysates for cell culture media. In this innovative initiative
seaweed proteins are converted into high-value hydrolysates, supporting circular economy principles.
In collaboration with research institutions such as the Singapore Institute of Technology, James Cook University in Singapore
and Australia, and industry partner Umami Bioworks, the project employs advanced technologies to optimize hydrolysis of
seaweed protein from sustainable farms in Indonesia and Australia. This process produces hydrolysates optimized for
cultivated meat, providing a scalable, cost-effective, and serum-free culture media solution – a critical need for the sector.
Focusing on scalability and replicability, SeaToMeat is poised for significant regional and global impact, addressing market
demand for cultivated meat production. The project fosters collaboration between industry stakeholders and research
institutions, driving towards the common goal of achieving cost-effective cultivated meat.
Optimizing Poultry Meal and Gelatin Concentrations in Feed for Scylla serrata: Effects on Growth, Digestibility, Survival, and Pellet Performance
This research investigates the effects of varying gelatin and poultry meal concentrations in feed formulations for Scylla serrata (mud crab) through two distinct trials aimed at enhancing pellet performance, growth, digestibility, and survival in aquaculture settings. In Trial 1, the focus is on evaluating gelatin concentrations of 8%, 12%, and 16% to determine their impact on pellet properties and palatability. The diets are carefully formulated to be isonitrogenous (approximately 43% crude protein) and isolipidic (approximately 15% crude lipid), incorporating 9% poultry meal while adjusting soybean meal to balance the gelatin variations. Feed preparation involves grinding dry ingredients—such as fishmeal, soybean meal, krill meal, poultry meal, and wheat flour—to a particle size of less than 500 μm, followed by thorough mixing. Gelatin is dissolved in warm water (50–60°C), combined with the dry mix along with fish and squid oils, extruded through a 10-mm die, and dried to achieve approximately 10% moisture content. The experimental design comprises nine pellet batches (three diets, each with three replicates), which are assessed for dry hardness using breaking force or a subjective scale, softness after rehydration in saline water through water absorption and compression force measurements, storage efficiency over eight weeks by monitoring lipid oxidation (peroxide value) and physical integrity, and palatability based on feed consumption rates observed in nine crabs. Trial 2 shifts the focus to poultry meal concentrations of 0%, 5%, 9%, 15%, and 20%, utilizing diets with 12% gelatin and chromic oxide as a digestibility marker. These diets are formulated by progressively replacing soybean meal with poultry meal to maintain nutrient consistency. The setup involves 150 adult crabs (100–200 g), each housed individually in PVC containers equipped with shelters to prevent cannibalism and fed twice daily at 5% body weight for eight weeks under controlled environmental conditions (25 ppt salinity, 28°C, pH 7.5–8.5, dissolved oxygen >5 mg/L). Data collection encompasses growth metrics including weight gain, specific growth rate, and carapace dimensions, apparent digestibility determined through fecal chromic oxide analysis, survival rates, and, if feasible, additional parameters such as digestive enzyme activities and blood biochemistry. Statistical analysis for both trials employ one-way ANOVA or Kruskal-Wallis tests, with post-hoc analysis conducted at a significance level of p < 0.05 to evaluate differences across treatments. This study aims to develop optimized, sustainable feed formulations to support mud crab aquaculture effectively.
Testing and implementation of the water quality metric for the 2017 and 2018 reef report cards (Old ID 23409)
Report cards are used at various levels to summarise and communicate complex information on GBR health. The effectiveness of Reef Plan is communicated through the annual Reef Report card. In the Reef Report Card, marine water quality is reported using a metric, developed in 2009, based on satellite remote sensing of near surface concentrations of chlorophyll and total suspended solids. This provides a wide spatial and temporal coverage of marine water quality. However, the current water quality metric has a number of issues such that the Independent Science Panel has recently expressed a lack of confidence in it and suggested that a new approach was needed. This proposal outlines a research program to deliver elements of this new approach.
Improving tomato commercial outcomes through enhanced vigour and grafting success
Our aim is to deliver faster-growing, higher-yielding, healthier tomato plants to benefit Australia’s $570M tomato horticultural industry. Leveraging university expertise and IP in seed germination, plant physiology, and bioelectricity, we are partnering with Rainstick, a globally unique startup developing electric treatments for seeds and plants. The current TRL of 3 reflects proof-of-concept experiments in which Rainstick’s Variable Electric Field
(VEF) treatments in tomatoes and other species can induce significant increases in crop growth and yield. By project completion, we expect to be at TRL 5, ready for at-scale trials in commercial facilities, aided by a business plan developed with Main Sequence Ventures.
SEABORNE (Sustainable Use and Benefits of the GBR) Mk.2
Valuing GBR Ecosystem Services. SEABORNE Mk.1 (2020-2024) established a proof-of-concept method using multiple secondary datasets to calculate benefits derived from GBR ecosystem services among a subset of user groups in the Cairns and Southern GBR regions. This module will:
▪ Deliver scaled-up implementation of the SEABORNE Mk 1 proof of concept by co-designing sector-specific data prioritisation frameworks with Reef stakeholders and applying the Ecosystem Service Value Chain (ESVC) to a broader set of GBR ecosystem services, values and end users in priority spatial areas
▪ Build on existing relationships with Reef Traditional Owner groups and co-design a process to test and improve the suitability of the ESVC concept for reflecting Traditional Owner values.
▪ Fill critical valuation gaps, specifically related to GBR in-water tourism, to enable understanding of impacts on value from changes in reef condition.
SEABORNE Mk.1 (2020-2024) established and tested a proof of concept to quantify benefits derived from GBR ecosystem services by end users in the Cairns and Southern GBR regions. This is called an Ecosystem Service Value Chain (ESVC). The ESVC connects human benefits with biophysical data enabling an understanding of how people use GBR ecosystems, and the extent and distribution of benefits that flow to households, Reef-dependent businesses, Traditional Owners, and Government from this use. The ESVC concept further enables existing data to be used in new ways such as generating values of total economic benefits. Working with Traditional Owner groups is an important component of this module. Based on our work with four TO groups over 2020-24 and recognising that benefit flows from ecosystem services to TOs are non-linear, we can modify the ESVC to meet the requirements of different TO groups and can apply an adapted ESVC method that utilises their own data to enable an appropriate assessment of TO use benefits.
SEABORNE Mk 1. tested the ESVC concept for a limited number of prioritised chains in the Cairns Area Plan of Management (CAPOM) and Keppels Capricorn Bunkers (KCB). These were:
• Provisioning service of fish & other biomass (wild caught and farmed) to commercial service users.
• Cultural service of recreation and leisure (recreational & non-recreational fishing) to households.
• Cultural service of education and research to Government.
There is broad scope to continue the application of the ESVC concept to better understand and use existing data for measures of benefit. We propose to work with the end users of this research to apply the ESVC approach to additional priority ecosystem services within or beyond the CAPOM and Southern reef spatial focus areas. The application of the ESVC to understand existing data and gaps for existence (non-use) value in the CAPOM and KCB spatial focus areas is a suggested first extension. Refining the ESVC approach to better understand the two-way flow of value and related existing and required data for Traditional Owners is the second suggested extension. Finally, the population of the ESVCs in SEABORNE Mk. 1 highlighted a number of weaknesses in existing data. Data weaknesses occur both due to the age of primary data (e.g., >30-year-old studies of Reef users), and in some cases from retrofitting available data to new purposes. Working with end users, SEABORNE Mk. 2 will begin to address priority gaps. Enhancing the understanding of economic value associated with snorkelling and diving especially as this relates to reef quality as well as investigating equity and justice within ecosystem service flow beneficiaries is the proposed focus here.
Rebuilding with Nature - Japan
Rebuilding with Nature is a company in Japan looking to partner with JCU to explore research capabilities and areas in the marine and coastal ecosystem space. The Non-Disclosure Agreement will commence discussions and to explore research opportunities.