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Environomics

Our research projects

Environomics Future Science Platform

CSIRO’s Future Science Platforms (FSPs) are an investment in science that underpins innovation and that has the potential to help reinvent and create new industries for Australia. Our Environomics FSP is one of six Future Science Platforms being run by CSIRO. It is a technology platform to see beyond the landscape to its genescape, to reveal and make use of its genetic resources. Our Environomics Future Science Platform is providing the technology to both benefit from and care for biodiversity.

Australia is a mega-diverse country. Our biodiversity is beautiful to behold and immensely valuable. It provides billions of dollars in revenue and jobs, and unique resource for innovation, science and industry.

Storm clouds over spinifex plain near Paraburdoo, Western Australia.
Australia is a mega-diverse country and our biodiversity offers a unique resource for innovation, science and industry.

What is Environomics?

Environomics, short for environmental genomics, is a new CSIRO science program exploring the limits of what is possible at the interface between genomics and environmental science. Environomics is bringing together expertise from across CSIRO and the university sector in molecular biology, ecology, and big data science.

Why is this important?

Hidden within Australia’s biodiversity are genetic resources to enhance crops, new materials for manufacturing and insights into biological processes that can give industries an edge and environmental managers vital insights into how ecosystems work.

For the first time, we can rapidly and inexpensively view and understand the function of entire genomes belonging to wild animals, plants and microbes. Often we can do this for multiple organisms simultaneously and without even seeing or capturing them.

With this new way of observing nature we can:

  • quickly and accurately identify species
  • measure the stresses they experience
  • identify novel functions they perform within ecosystems.

The Environomics Future Science Platform (FSP) will explore these and other emerging applications of genomics to environmental science.

The Environomics FSP leader is Dr Oliver Berry.

Our partners

Our partners include Bioplatforms Australia , Atlas of Living Australia , Integrated Marine Observing System and Centre for Biodiversity Analysis (ANU) , along with international collaboration networks such as 1000 Insects Transcriptomes Project , 10 000 Bird Genomes Project , and the Earth Microbiome Project .

Our research projects

A young man siting at a bench with a drawer of insect specimens in front of him and a microscope to his left.

Mobilising collections through genomics

Natural history collections are vast biodiversity reference libraries, used for hundreds of years to help identify, understand and manage biodiversity.
Salmon coloured branches of an Australian gum tree

Rapid assessment of environmental stress for major Australian plant groups

Rapid assessment of environmental stress will provide information that is important for managing and conserving Australian plants in rapidly changing environments.

A parrot with red head and shoulders and green body sitting on a tree branch

Understanding stress in Australia’s animals and plants

Environmental changes cause stress to our biodiversity, increasing the chances of disease outbreaks, extinctions, waves of invasive species and other environmental problems that can occur in stressed ecosystems.

A black coloured bee with gold stripes on tail section sitting on a purple petal.

Mapping pollinator networks

Biodiversity and food security both depend on pollination of native plants and crops. But pollinators are in decline due to threats such as land clearing, habitat fragmentation, pesticides and climate change.

A vibrant blue and yellow striped tropical fish.

Environmental DNA for mapping biodiversity, detecting pests and characterising food-webs

Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis is an emerging molecular technique for DNA-based identification of organisms.
Looking across over a sea channel which has islands of trees and mountains on the other side.

Microbes and healthy waterways

We are investigating the relationship between microbial diversity and ecosystem health in marine environments.
A chart of letters with different colours highlighting similar groupings of the letters.

Bioinformatics for Environomics

Our bioinformatics team is developing ways to solve the unique data analysis challenges created by high throughput sequencing of environmental samples and biological collections.

News

Loggerhead sea turtle hatchling on sand

Understanding how sea turtles react to heat stress

Sea turtles are the most widely distributed group of reptile in the world. Many sea turtle populations are in decline and climate change is expected to exacerbate these declines because turtle eggs are vulnerable to high temperatures. But, it appears that some turtles carry genetic variants giving them different capacities to deal with temperature. In […]
A reptile, a bearded dragon, yellowish in colour, lying on a rock

Sex changes in reptiles

Research by Environomics FSP scientist, Clare Holleley, features in the latest (June 14, 2017) issue of the prestigious journal Science Advances. Differential intron retention in Jumonji chromatin modifier genes is implicated in reptile temperature-dependent sex determination. Science Advances 3 (6). Read the paper here, and read the article in The Sydney Morning Herald here.