Honours and masters projects

Are you interested in becoming a highly trained scientist, researcher, or leader in academic institutions, industry, government and communities across the world?

Recording from the research day in November 2024, introducing some of the currently available projects.

At IMAS we deliver exciting, innovative, relevant, globally distinctive, practical and first-class education programs.

Positioned at the gateway to the Southern Ocean and Antarctica and with collaborations and partners with the world's leading scientific institutions, IMAS can provide the next step in your career.

If you are interested in conducting postgraduate research we have a number of pre-approved honours and masters projects.

Available projects

Ecology and biodiversity

Primary supervisor:

Supervisory team:

  • Prof Simon Goldsworthy - South Australian Research & Development Institute
  • Dr Ryan Baring - Flinders University
  • Dr Gretchen Grammer - South Australian Research & Development Institute

Brief project description:

Recent improvements in biologging instrumentation have provided state-of-the-art underwater cameras that can be deployed on marine predator species, providing the opportunity to collect critical data on habitat use and foraging ecology.

Most recently, underwater cameras combined with high-resolution GPS and tri-axial accelerometer/magnetometer devices, have been used to map and identify benthic habitats used by the endangered Australian sea lion (Neophoca cinerea). Cameras and tracking instruments were deployed on eight adult female sea lions during a single foraging trip (2-6 days), four at Seal Bay (Kangaroo Island) and four at Olive Island (off Streaky Bay, western Eyre Peninsula, South Australia).

Each deployment recorded approximately 8 hours of footage (range 6.7 to 12.8 hours), capturing nearly 80 hours in total and covering 560 km of seabed at depths between 5 and 110 meters. In addition to providing detailed information on the habitats used by sea lions, the camera video also provides data on the species and size of prey consumed in different habitats, and the foraging strategies employed.

This project will use video data to quantify sea lion diet and consumption rates over different habitats, and develop food web models of different sea lion habitats and their associated diets as a first examination of their role and impact on benthic ecosystems.

Supervisory Team:

Brief project description:

Australia’s south-east marine ecosystems have undergone dramatic changes over the past three decades. This project will integrate multiple lines of evidence to test for a system-wide productivity change that spans shelf and coastal reef ecosystems. The project’s findings have implications for the management of fisheries and conservation of south-east marine ecosystems. Several studies independently point to productivity declines in different south-east marine ecosystems.

This project will integrate data from trawl fisheries, reef surveys and macroalgal productivity estimates to ask if these disparate trends share a common driver. The project will use ecosystem modelling tools to ask if fishing and climate are causing system wide change in productivity. This project will require the use of ecosystem modelling tools and the R program.

Training in modelling will be provided to help the candidate develop these valuable skills that are in high demand by employers. Applicants should be enthusiastic about learning modelling techniques and their application to ecosystem management.

Supervisory team:

Brief project description:

The diversity of benthic species is an important aspects of the marine ecosystem. Traditional methods of assessing benthic species richness often involve labor-intensive and time-consuming processes. With advancements in underwater imaging technology, there is potential to streamline these assessments using image analysis.

This research project aims to investigate the relationship between camera image properties - such as patterns, colours, and contrasts - and the observed species richness in seafloor images. The student will use a recently developed large dataset of annotated seafloor imagery from the Antarctic to conduct this study.

Objectives:

  • Identify key image properties/features that influence/correlate with the diversity of Antarctic benthic species.
  • Analyze Antarctic seafloor images to extract relevant features.
  • Correlate these image properties with the observed species richness and estimate errors/uncertainties for this approach.
  • Test predictive capacity of the algorithm on independent data

Methods: Utilize a comprehensive dataset of Antarctic seafloor images, ensuring a variety of camera settings to capture different patterns, colors, and contrasts.

Image Processing: Use software tools (in either R or Python) to analyze image properties and extract features such as color histograms, texture patterns, and contrast levels.

Species Identification: Identify and count species in seafloor images to create an independent test dataset.

Statistical Analysis: Apply statistical methods to correlate image properties with species richness, using tools like regression analysis and correlation coefficients.

Expected Outcomes: A better understanding of how camera image properties are influenced by the diversity of benthic species. A tool to rapidly extract biodiversity information from an ever-increasing amount of seafloor images.

Why This Project Matters: This project will provide students with hands-on experience in marine biology, image processing, and data analysis. By understanding the relationship between image properties and species richness, students will contribute to speeding-up the translation of raw data into management-relevant data, which is important for conservation efforts.

Primary supervisor:

Supervisory team:

Brief project description:

Countless volcanic remnants have been identified under the Antarctic ice sheets, but we know little about their age, heritage and interaction with the ice sheet. Even the thick continental crust of East Antarctica shows volcanic edifices of which some were active only 50k years ago such as the Gaussberg in the Australian Antarctic territory.

Volcanic activity is however not constraint to the continent and can be observed in geophyscial datasets from the Southern Ocean. Volcanism close to the Antarctic continent has the potential to warm the ice sheet from below adding an additional treat to its stability.

In this project, you will use geophyscial datasets such as bathymetry, subbottom profiler data and reflection seismic data to map volcanic activity such as seamounts in the Southern Ocean offshore the Australian Antarctic sector. Based on previous sedimentary age grids, you will be able to date the volcanism and relate it to known volcanism onshore such as the Gaussberg eruption (50ka) or passing mantle plumes such as the Kerguelen hotspot.

Supervisory Team:

Brief project description:

The commercial production of oysters in the region of pipe clay is a major concern due to decline in growth and condition over the past few years. Historically, this region has been very productive (10% Tasmanian oyster production) and has sustained oyster farming for over 40 years. To date, factors leading to the decline in production is unknown.

To facilitate narrowing research focus, an assessment of the nutritional condition of oysters grown in impacted areas of Pipe Clay is critical. Thus, the project focus on understanding whether an imbalance in nutrient exist in oysters grown in impacted areas.

This is highly relevant to inform on next steps for managing oyster farming in this area.

Primary Supervisor:

Supervisory Team:

Brief project description:

In 2012 Macrocystis pyrifera, or giant kelp, was listed as an endangered ecological community under the Australian EPBC Act (1999). Yet only a decade earlier, giant kelp received little public recognition or advocacy attention despite the documented decline of the kelp forest, indeed it is reported anecdotally that some community cohorts regarded giant kelp as a nuisance.

Meanwhile, beyond this single species, the biodiversity and conditions of many communities and suites of species of the southern temperate reef system are under threat due to warming and more acidic ocean waters. However, this changing state is not well recognised in the public or policy domains. To help inform understanding of formation of conservation policy priorities, this project asks:

  • How did the giant kelp move from ignored or negatively viewed to highly valued ecologically and socially species – charismatic megaflora - and worthy of protection? (the backwards analysis)
  • What can be learnt from this case that can inform future formation of conservation policy priorities to protect and restore biodiversity across the great southern reef?