Home Harbour PartnersAustralian MuseumSydney Larval Fish Project
Sydney Larval Fish Project
The team
Dr. Jeff Leis
Jeff Leis is a Principal Research Scientist in the Museum's fish section and is the leader of the Sydney larval fish project. Jeff has been studying the larvae of tropical reef fishes for over 25 years in the tropical Pacific, California and Australia.
"It has long been assumed that tiny larval fishes simply drift passively with currents, so that larvae may drift far from their origin and provide new baby fish recruits to reefs hundreds if not thousands of kilometres away. Recently, this view has been altered by research on the genetics and ecology of larvae and on the behavioural and sensory capabilities of the larvae. We now know that, in many cases, the larvae remain relatively close to their reef of origin, and contribute to the population on local reefs, rather than to reefs very far away."
To further understand what is going on during the period between spawning and settlement onto a reef, Jeff and his Australian Museum colleagues run another larval fish project in collaboration with aquaculture researchers both at New South Wales Fisheries and Searle Aquaculture. This project is based at Port Stephens on the New South Wales central coast. This second project will look at the development of swimming and sensory abilities of the larva of species like snapper, mulloway and bream. This will tell us when during their month-long larval phase the tiny fishes begin to have the ability to control where the currents take them, perhaps to return to their reef or origin.
Amanda Hay
Amanda is a marine biologist with the Australian Museums Fish Department and provides research assistance to Jeff Leis. Amanda researches larval fish behaviour, ecology and taxonomy. Her role in the Sydney larval fish project is to organise all the equipment needed for fieldwork, fish identification, data entry and analysis, and occasionally helping Jeff and Tom make research decisions.
Tom Trnski
Tom has been with the Australian Museum Fish Section since 1985 and has just completed his PhD thesis. He has been working part-time on the Sydney larval fish project and manages the daily operations of the project.
"Out in the field we work as a team collecting plankton samples, though my role is usually as the tow line hauler. Back in the lab I identify the fish larvae we catch and analyse the data."
Matthew Lockett
Matt spends most of his time working on his PhD (at the University of Technology, Sydney), looking at introduced gobies in New South Wales and Victorian waters. Matt works part time on the Sydney larval fish project mainly assisting with fieldwork. Matt also has the very time consuming role of sorting and occasionally identifying the fish larvae out of the samples collected from a day in the field.
Copyright © Australian Museum, 2002
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