Victorian Marine Science Consortium
Kathryn Hassell was recently awarded the Department of Primary Industries (Marine and Freshwater Systems) Young Scientist of the Year.
The award was presented to Kathryn in recognition of her interesting and relevant studies on black bream embryo development and larval survival.
Kathryn is currently working towards a PhD at RMIT University. Her research investigates the influence of water quality and pollutants on the reproductive biology of black bream, Acanthopagrus butcheri, in Victorian estuaries. In the VMSC laboratories at Queenscliff, Kathryn bred black bream, she then observed the development of the embryos and larvae when they were in water that contained various levels of dissolved oxygen and a range of salinity and temperature levels. She found that combinations of unfavourable conditions (ie. very low dissolved oxygen and very low salinity) severely affected embryo development and reduced larval survival. She has also investigated the effects of increased temperatures (similar to levels predicted for climate change in the future), and again the embryos were shown to be very sensitive.
Another aspect of her project is to develop techniques for assessing the health of adult fish, by observing changes in certain blood parameters. Together with scientists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) in Townsville, Kathryn has developed an assay that can test for evidence of exposure to a certain class of contaminants known as endocrine disrupting chemicals. She is currently sampling black bream from a range of sites around Victoria to look for evidence of exposure to these chemicals.
With several papers already published, Kathryn's work will help focus management efforts on improving the environmental health of estuaries to provide fish for the future.
Kathryn's PhD project is jointly supervised by Associate Professor Dayanthi Nugegoda (RMIT University), Dr Patrick Coutin (DPI) and Susan Codi King (AIMS)..
