Team Bio

We have assembled a team with complementary expertise from wildlife biologists, molecular ecologists, veterinarians, veterinary virologists and immunologists. Many of us have worked together before but not in this lineup. Most of our team plans to meet in November this year to work out details of the major funding application we are planning to submit in early 2017. We are all excited to work together on this significant project.

Mike Gardner

My lifelong fascination with lizards started when I saw bearded dragons sunning themselves in my backyard as a kid. I now work on lizard sociality including aspects of their genetics, their parasites and disease. Mostly I look at immune genes and how that affects social structure in Australian lizards such as gidgee skinks, sleepy lizards (bobtails!) and the endangered pygmy bluetongue lizards.

Mark O'Dea

I am a veterinary virologist who has been involved in small animal clinical practice, agriculture and now academia over the course of my career. My current research focus includes viral diseases of reptiles and bats in Australia. In particular, determining the cause of the 'bobtail flu' in order to aid management of this debilitating condition.

Bill Bateman

I am a wildlife biologist whose main interests lie in behaviour, conservation, and ecophysiology. I worked in Europe, Africa and America before locating to Australia.
My research has not been limited to particular taxa and I have worked on invertebrates through to large mammals. Having said that, I have a special affection for lizards and other reptiles I am also interested in animals in urban environments: some species very well in urban areas, others do not - finding out why can help us make appropriate management decisions.

Steph Godfrey

My research revolves around understanding how animal behaviour influences the transmission of diseases. In our human societies, the people who we spend the most time with (both at home or in the workplace) are likely to also be the people we blame when we catch a cold. The same applies to animals, except they have a myriad of different patterns of contact and diseases! I use social network models to map out 'who interacts with whom', and understand how individual behaviour shapes the transmission of diseases across populations. These questions help us understand more about how diseases circulate in populations, which is becoming more important as wildlife populations are increasingly threatened by diseases.

Bethany Jackson

I have been a veterinarian for twelve years, with a focus on wildlife health and conservation for the past eight years including a residency at the Auckland Zoo, and a PhD on health and disease challenges for wild Red-crowned Parakeets in New Zealand. Although I'm interested in all wildlife, I find reptile health and disease issues particularly interesting as this group is comparatively understudied in the wild. Given the large amount of bobtails going through rehabilitation with this disease, I'm particularly interested in some of the practical aspects of the 'bobtail flu' including which samples are best to diagnose/detect it in an individual, is there a need to treat individuals in rehabilitation, and how do recovered individuals fare in the wild?

Michelle Baker

I am a comparative immunologist with interests in wildlife and host responses to infectious diseases. My recent work has focused on innate antiviral immunity in bats which are reservoir hosts for a variety of viruses that are highly pathogenic in other species but cause no disease in bats.

Michael Bull

I work on the behavioural and social ecology of Australian lizards, focussing on skinks of the Egernia group. My work is broken up into 3 main areas: 1) Conservation of endangered lizards. The pygmy bluetongue lizard has recently been rediscovered after it was considered extinct. Slater's skink was once widespread in the MacDonnell ranges region around Alice Springs, but now is under threat as buffle grass spreads through its habitat. For both species we are exploring behaviour and ecology to recommend management for conservation. 2) Lizard social behaviour. Australian skinks show a remarkable range of social behaviours from long-term pair fidelity in sleepy lizards to family group living in Stoke's skinks. We are exploring the nature and implications of these behaviours and developing social network descriptors of their behaviours. 3) Parasite-host interactions. Social networks are the pathways for parasite transmission. Exotic pathogens are a likely future threat to endemic species. Our research investigates the dynamics of parasite transmission of endemic parasites around lizard populations. If we know more about these systems we will be better equipped to manage future threats from exotic pathogens