Cooperative Research Centre

About: Cooperative Research Centre is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Sea ice. The organization has 7633 authors who have published 8607 publications receiving 429721 citations.

Southern Ocean seasonal temperature and Subtropical Front movement on the South Tasman Rise in the late Quaternary

Abstract: [1] The Subtropical Front (STF) marking the northern boundary of the Southern Ocean has a steep gradient in sea surface temperature (SST) of approximately 4C over 0.5 of latitude. Presently, in the region south of Tasmania, the STF lies nominally at 47S in the summer and 45S in the winter. We present here SST reconstructions in a latitudinal transect of cores across the South Tasman Rise, southeast of Australia, during the late Quaternary. SST reconstructions are based on two paleotemperature proxies, alkenones and faunal assemblages, which are used to assess past changes in SST in spring and summer. The north-south alignment in core locations allows reconstruction of movement of the STF over the last 100 ka. Surface water temperatures during the last glaciation in this region were � 4C colder than today. Additional temperature changes greater in magnitude than 4C seen in individual cores can be attributed to changes in the water mass overlying the core site caused by the movement of the front across that location. During the penultimate interglacial, SST was � 2C warmer and the STF was largely positioned south of 47S. Movement of the STF to the north occurred during cool climate periods such as the last marine isotope stages 3 and 4. In the last glaciation, the front was at its farthest north position, becoming pinned against the Tasmanian landmass. It moved south by 4 latitude to 47S in summer during the deglaciation but remained north of 45S in spring throughout the early deglaciation. After 11 ka B.P. inferred invigoration of the East Australia Current appears to have pushed the STF seasonally south of the East Tasman Plateau, until after 6 ka B.P. when it achieved its present configuration.

To retire or expand? A fuzzy GIS-based spatial multi-criteria evaluation framework for irrigated agriculture†

Abstract: This paper presents a GIS framework for multi-criteria evaluation of land suitability for the expansion or retirement of irrigated cropland at a catchment scale in Australia. This framework is based on the fuzzy linguistic ordered weighted averaging (FLOWA) approach which integrates the analytical hierarchy procedure (AHP) and quantifier-guided OWA operators in an ArcGIS 9.2 environment. The FLOWA module proved to be highly flexible and efficient in generating and visualising a wide range of different multi-criteria decision strategies. Several scenarios were derived to show how the uncertainties involved in the suitability decision-making process can influence the outcomes. This framework has helped us understand the need for retirement as well as the potential for expanding irrigation in suitable areas of the catchment if water is available. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A comparative analysis of population structure of a forest tree, Eucalyptus globulus (Myrtaceae), using microsatellite markers and quantitative traits

Abstract: Eucalyptus globulus (Myrtaceae) is a forest tree native to southeastern Australia, but is grown globally for pulpwood and timber. Eight microsatellite loci were used to determine the degree of selectively neutral differentiation between native populations of the geographic races of E. globulus that are used in a national breeding programme. Spatial differentiation was detected among 340 samples from across the species range (F ST=0.09±0.02). Analysis of molecular variance showed that there was significant variation between the races, and an unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean analysis of Nei's genetic distance between races showed that geographically proximal races tended to be more closely related than geographically distant races. This contrasted markedly with analyses based on quantitative genetic data, where some races appeared to be highly divergent from their geographically closest neighbours. Comparison of racial differentiation based on quantitative (Q ST) and molecular (F ST) data suggested that at least five of the quantitative traits used for defining races of E. globulus have been influenced by natural selection, resulting in cases of both phenotypic divergence of parapatric races and phenotypic convergence of allopatric races. We conclude that selectively neutral molecular markers are more useful than quantitative genetic data for identifying the evolutionary affinities and lineages within E. globulus. However, both sources of information should be used in defining evolutionarily important units for conservation. The population structure observed in E. globulus has important consequences for future association studies and may also affect breeding strategies if significant genome co-adaptation has occurred.

Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) gridded data products

Abstract: As a response to public demand for a well-documented, quality controlled, publically available, global surface ocean carbon dioxide (CO2) data set, the international marine carbon science community developed the Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT). The first SOCAT product is a collection of 6.3 million quality controlled surface CO2 data from the global oceans and coastal seas, spanning four decades (1968–2007). The SOCAT gridded data presented here is the second data product to come from the SOCAT project. Recognizing that some groups may have trouble working with millions of measurements, the SOCAT gridded product was generated to provide a robust, regularly spaced CO2 fugacity (fCO2) product with minimal spatial and temporal interpolation, which should be easier to work with for many applications. Gridded SOCAT is rich with information that has not been fully explored yet (e.g., regional differences in the seasonal cycles), but also contains biases and limitations that the user needs to recognize and address (e.g., local influences on values in some coastal regions).