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Marine megafauna
Large scale monitoring of dugong populations across northern Australia
Aerial surveys reveal extensive data on dugong populations, movement, and habitat use in Queensland's Great Barrier Reef, Moreton Bay, Hervey Bay, the Gulf of Carpentaria, and Western Australia's Shark Bay, Ningaloo, and Exmouth Gulf.
Featured project
Marine megafauna are iconic to Australian oceans. We are home to the world's largest dugong population.
We use a combination of conventional and innovative research using cutting-edge technology to monitor the trends in the abundance, distribution and habitat use of megafauna across Australia and globally.
We're facilitating transparent knowledge exchange and enhancing rapport and relationships between science and Traditional Owner groups across the Great Barrier Reef.
Dugong Connections
Monitoring, Community
We are using DNA methods to identify what dugongs in the Townsville region are eating other than seagrass, and trialling a new eDNA approach.
Assessing dugong poo using eDNA
Research
James Cook University scientists are studying a previously unknown manta ray aggregation at Holbourne Island.
Manta rays in the central Great Barrier Reef
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Monitoring
This project aims to understand dugong movement and behaviour by studying their diving patterns and habitat use.
Movement and behaviour of dugongs
Research
Understanding dugong health through drone-based body condition assessments and blood sampling of captured and tagged animals.
Dugong health
Research
Using population genomics approaches to identify dugong populations and their level of connectivity across northern Australia.
Using dugong genetics to understand connectivity
Research
Aerial surveys reveal extensive data on dugong populations, movement, and habitat use in Queensland's Great Barrier Reef, Moreton Bay, Hervey Bay, the Gulf of Carpentaria, and Western Australia's Shark Bay, Ningaloo, and Exmouth Gulf.
Large scale monitoring of dugong populations across northern Australia
Monitoring
Scientists are equipping Indigenous rangers with drone survey skills, alongside helicopter and boat-based surveys, to map dugongs in connection to their seagrass habitats.
Local scale mapping of dugongs and seagrass habitats
Community
Projects
Caitlin Smith
Research Officer
Caitlin completed a Bachelor of Science at the University of Queensland Science and a Master of Science at James Cook University.
Her research experience includes research assistant at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, exploring coral and sponge physiology, and the Australian National University, looking at microplastic pollution and parrot ecology. Caitlin was previously a project manager for WWF-Australia, researching the effects of climate change on marine turtles and has international research collaborations with Nepal, Galapagos and PNG.
Caitlin completed a PhD at UniSC researching the impacts of contaminants and debris pollution and its effects on marine ecosystem health. She is part of NESP Seagrass Monitoring Program and has marine megafauna research expertise.
Christophe Cleguer
Senior Research Officer
Chris Cleguer is a research scientist at TropWATER and leader of dugong research at James Cook University (JCU) in Australia. Chris also acts as international advisor to the United Nations’ Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) Memorandum of Understanding on the conservation and management of dugongs and seagrass habitats throughout their range.
Chris has broad research interests in marine mammal population assessments, spatial ecology and conservation. His current research focuses on dugong, with Chris’ research team developing novel approaches to assess dugong abundance, health, distribution, behaviour and habitat use. This work uses aerial imagery, drones, biologging, and AI.
As a strong advocate of research partnerships with First Nations people, Chris has worked with Indigenous communities across northern Australia, the Pacific-Island region, and in south-east Asia. Chris also develops training programs to upskill Indigenous land and sea rangers, local NGOs, and citizens to conduct their own monitoring studies. He works closely with state and federal governments in Australia and abroad to share the latest knowledge about dugong populations and ecology to inform management.
After completing his PhD in 2015, Chris worked in Western Australia to develop methods using drones to map dugongs at the local scale, before returning to JCU in 2022.
Emily Webster
Research Officer
Emily grew up in New South Wales where she studied biological science at UNSW. She worked for several years as a research assistant in field programs across Australia, Costa Rica and the Cayman Islands, primarily monitoring nesting marine turtles. She has recently completed her PhD thesis on the fine-scale movement of inshore green turtles in human modified habitats. Throughout her PhD she was also a data analyst for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority’s Science for Management team, whose purpose is to translate science and data into information that can be used by marine park managers.
Emily started at TropWATER in October 2024 to contribute to the centre’s growing marine megafauna research program. She is currently working across several projects including tracking dugongs and marine turtles to elucidate their fine-scale patterns of behaviour, habitat preferences and how they may respond to environmental change. She is also a member of the ‘dugong connections’ science team, who aim to connect with Traditional Owners across the Great Barrier Reef to foster knowledge-sharing about dugongs and marine turtles and explore avenues for Traditional Owners to learn about dugongs on their Sea Country.
Erina Young
Research Scientist
Erina is an experienced wildlife veterinarian with over 18 years experience in Australia and overseas with a passion for integrating wildlife health into conservation projects and developing collaborative partnerships.
Over the past decade, she has specialised in marine wildlife, in particular sea turtles and has served as a clinical and research veterinary consultant to the Western Australian, Queensland and NSW governments. She earned a PhD from Murdoch University for research developing health and disease baselines for sea turtles in WA. During her PhD, she developed blood reference intervals for flatback turtles, investigated causes of stranding and mortality events, and identified novel diseases.
Erina is especially passionate about working with First Nations communities. She has been involved in a range of marine wildlife conservation projects including turtle soft shell disease investigation in Hervey Bay in collaboration with DES, nesting turtle health assessments with ranger groups in the Gulf of Carpentaria, sea krait monitoring and research in the Andaman Islands, investigating mass mortality event involving fish, turtles and sea snakes in the Kimberley, delivering stranding response and necropsy training workshops in regional WA and QLD, and foraging turtle health assessments in the Kimberley and Pilbara.
Eva Paulus
PhD student
Eva is German and hates the cold, which is why she is very happy to be in tropical Townsville to do her PhD on dugong population genetics. She did her Bachelor’s degree at a small University in Florida, Barry University, and moved back to Europe to complete her MSc at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
She has worked on many different organisms: deep-sea hydrothermal copepods, benthic isopods, mesopelagic fishes, eels, and now marine mammals.
Hector Barrios-Garrido
Adjunct Research Fellow
Hector focuses on understanding the complex relationships among socio-economic and cultural values of marine megafauna species in different societies. This is important for informing decision-making takers, especially in developing countries.
His main interests lie within the broad field of Marine Biology and Conservation with special emphasis in the human dimensions looking to improve our understanding of the interactions among aquatic species, their habitats, and human societies. In particular, he is interested in identifying and evaluating the challenges and impacts of anthropogenic pressures on threatened species, and the potential mechanisms to reduce these impacts (through management conservation actions, or by understanding how species can adapt to changes).
Hector is an Associate Professor at the University of Zulia (Venezuela), Founder-President of the Venezuelan NGO “Working Group on Marine Turtles of the Gulf of Venezuela – GTTM-GV”, member of the International Sea Turtle Society (ISTS), and the Marine Turtle Specialist Group-International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN MTSG). Hector holds a PhD from James Cook University in Environmental Science and Management, a Magister Scientiarum (Master of Science) in Aquatic Ecology (University of Zulia), and he is Licentiate in Biology (University of Zulia). His current position at JCU as TropWATER Adjunct Research Fellow is Ad-Honorem.
Helene Marsh
Emeritius Professor
Helene Marsh is a conservation biologist with > 40 years’ experience in research into species conservation, management and policy with particular reference to tropical coastal megafauna. Helene was awarded an Order of Australia for this work. She is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, and her research has been recognised by awards from the Pew Foundation, the Society for Conservation Biology, the American Society of Mammalogists, the Society for Marine Mammalogy and the Australian Marine Science Association.
The policy outcomes of her research include significant contributions to the science base of the conservation of dugongs in Australia and internationally (IUCN, UNEP, Convention for Migratory Species) and through advising the governments of some 14 countries. Helene is the cross-hub lead for the Threatened and Migratory Species and Threatened Ecological Communities for the National Environmental Science Program (NESP). She chaired the Australian Threatened Species Scientific Committee from 2022–2023, was Vice President and the Secretary Biological Sciences of the Australian Academy of Science 2019-2023) and was a member of the Australian delegation to the World Heritage Committee 2018–2021.
She is currently a member of the Independent Expert Panel for the Great Barrier Reef 2050 Plan and on the editorial boards of Conservation Biology, Endangered Species Research and Oecologia. Helene is proud of the accomplishments of the 62 PhD candidates that she has supervised to graduation, all of whom have taught her a lot.
Luisa Schramm
Research Worker
Luisa is a casual research assistant currently providing support to the Dugong Research Group at TropWATER’s Bebegu Yumba office, Bindal & Wulgurukaba land.
Luisa is a strong advocate for two-way science and has broad research interests in spatial science and coastal and reef island geomorphology. She completed a Bachelor of Science (Earth Science) at JCU in 2023 and has since been employed by TropWATER.
Mélanie Hamel
Research Officer
Mélanie is a dynamic conservation scientist with a broad expertise. She currently supports research for a NESP initiative on Australia's threatened and migratory species and threatened ecological communities, and several projects within the Dugong Research Group.
A key goal of her work is providing a strong evidence base for informing the management of coastal and terrestrial ecosystems in a range of socio-ecological contexts. She uses and develops approaches that integrate multi-disciplinary data with a combination of tools such as geographic information systems, reserve design algorithms, and programming.
A lot of her work focuses on coastal and marine environments in the Pacific Islands, but she is also involved in various projects on threatened species (including marine megafauna) ecology, management/conservation and monitoring in other parts of the world.
Renae Lambourne
PhD student
Renae’s PhD project is using new, innovative multi-sensor and high-resolution tags to investigate the behavioural ecology of dugongs. This project aims to understand how activity influences the diving behaviour of dugongs using multi-sensor tags that record movement, behaviour and physical characteristics of the animal’s environment.
Before coming to James Cook University, Renae completed her undergraduate and Honours degrees at Murdoch University, studying the diving behaviour of flatback turtles using similar technology to her current project.
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