Understanding stress in Australia’s animals and plants

Drawers containing preserved bird specimens

Drawers containing preserved bird specimens

The Australian National Wildlife Collection maintains carefully preserved specimens of Australian birds and animals.

This project is now complete and you can read the abstract of the final report here.

We are developing new ways to detect stress responses in Australian animals and plants, looking into the genomes of specimens in CSIRO’s National Research Collections Australia to provide evidence of stress responses in the past. We’re also mapping species distributions against past, current and future stressors.

The results will help Australia identify areas at risk and monitor them for early warning signs of stress, predict disease outbreaks like influenza and help design early-interventions for natural resource management.

Project lead: Dr Clare Holleley