Ep 54 Magpie Dialects & Mimicry: How Birds Learn to Communicate | Dr Stephanie Mason

Professor Kate Sanders has built her career trying to understand one of the ocean’s most fascinating and misunderstood groups of animals: sea snakes. Based at Adelaide University, Kate’s research explores their evolution, diversity, sensory biology and conservation, helping uncover how snakes made the extraordinary transition from life on land to becoming fully marine predators. Sea snakes evolved relatively recently, yet have developed an incredible suite of adaptations for life underwater. ...

Dr Damian Thomson from CSIRO has been working on reef systems at Nyinggulu since 2007, giving him a powerful long-term view of what has changed, what has been lost, and what still may be possible for Western Australia’s coral reefs. Joining him is Dr Jenny Shaw from the Western Australian Marine Science Institution, who helps take us behind the scenes of the WA Reef Regen Program — a major new effort to support coral and reef regeneration along the Western Australian coastline. After the de...

Professor Jessica Meeuwig AM is one of Australia’s most important voices in ocean conservation. Recently appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for her significant service to marine conservation and research, Jessica is the inaugural Wen Family Chair in Conservation at The University of Western Australia and Director of the Marine Futures Lab. Her work has helped pioneer the global use of midwater BRUVS, baited remote underwater video systems used to study life in the “big blue”. This i...

Dr Naima Andrea López is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Marine Futures Lab at The University of Western Australia and a shark researcher specialising in the ecology and conservation of hammerhead sharks. Her research led to the identification of Australia’s southernmost known recurrent aggregation of critically endangered scalloped hammerhead sharks, found remarkably far south in Perth’s metropolitan waters. Using drones as a non-invasive way to study these animals, Andrea has spent ...

Professor Nicki Mitchell is one of Australia’s leading experts on how threatened wildlife can survive a rapidly changing climate. A zoologist and ecophysiologist, Nicki is a Professor in UWA’s School of Biological Sciences, Deputy Director of the UWA Oceans Institute and Lead Councillor of the Biodiversity Council. For eight years, she served on Australia’s Commonwealth Threatened Species Scientific Committee, helping assess which species, ecological communities and threatening processes requ...