Dr Brenton Zampatti

Brenton is a fish ecologist with an interest in the life histories of fish and the dynamics of populations.

Biography

Dr Brenton Zampatti is a Principal Research Scientist in CSIRO Environment’s Aquatic Ecology Monitoring and Assessment Team. He is responsible for developing and leading research relating to the ecology and population dynamics of freshwater and estuarine fishes and management of aquatic ecosystems. This research involves close collaboration with State and Commonwealth natural resource management agencies.

For 25 years, Brenton has worked extensively on freshwater and estuarine ecosystems throughout south-eastern Australia. His current research involves the impacts of river regulation on native and invasive fishes to inform water resource management and aquatic ecosystem conservation. Brenton is currently undertaking large-scale, collaborative research projects on fishes throughout the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), including the Coorong estuary. These projects are using telemetry, otolith chemistry and demographic data to understand the ecology of fishes and spatio-temporal scales of population dynamics. This research is aiding fisheries and water resource management, including environmental water allocation. Research collaborators include NSW Fisheries, Arthur Rylah Institute (Victoria), SARDI, and numerous Universities including Adelaide, Charles Sturt, Melbourne, Charles Darwin, La Trobe and Griffith.

Brenton also plays a key role in a range of multi-disciplinary and cross-jurisdictional environmental water requirement projects, including development of the FLOWS technique for the establishment of EWRs for rivers in Victoria and co-leadership of the fish ecology components of the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holders long-term intervention monitoring (LTIM), environmental water knowledge requirements (EWKR) and monitoring, evaluation and research (MER) projects.

Recent Publications